4. The Dark Knight
As loved by comic fans as the Joker is, hes never really entered into the public consciousness in the same way. So it is somewhat ironic that it would take a movie, not a comic book to do so. Sure, Joker had appeared on screen before, from Cesar Romeros portrayal in the tv series to Jack Nicholsons spotlight stealing effort in the Tim Burton films right through to Mark Hammils voice over triumph in the animated series. Yet, it took Heath Ledgers performance in The Dark Knight to really show the greater public how great this character really was. Taking elements from every walk of Jokers evolution, Ledgers Joker was a criminal mastermind, who simultaneously bristled with all the demented wildness and danger that the best Joker comics had offered up over the years. And the iconic moment that stuck in peoples heads more than any other? The first origin scene; crazed, psychotic and knife wielding, Joker tells Rachel Dawes, Batmans true love his sad and sordid back story, ending with the phrase that would cement the Joker as an icon to a new generation, Why so serious?