10 Films Actors Wanted You To Hate

Joker was without question the most divisive major movie of 2019 - an entertainingly grim, gritty origin story for the Clown Prince of Crime, shot into the stratosphere by Joaquin Phoenix's masterful, Oscar-winning performance.

And we all knew we'd be getting a very different comic book movie with an actor like Phoenix in the focal role: the actor has famously eschewed blockbuster fare in the past for fear of being locked into commitment-heavy contracts.

And so, Joker's status as a mid-budget, standalone movie allowed Phoenix to make it his sandbox, digging deep into the physicality of his character and deliver the rarest of things in a comic book movie: a truly fearless performance unencumbered by studio concerns.

Watching the end result, it's clear Phoenix didn't go into this expecting to win an Oscar or for the movie to gross over $1 billion - he has his vision for the character and serves it up in uncut, full-fat fashion.

He's not aiming to please the mainstream, but simply trying to do justice to a challenging portrayal of a pop-culture icon.

Phoenix embraces the ugliness throughout, and though Joker was ultimately both a huge success and a jolting cattle prod to the divided world of today, the actor also keenly engaged with the more irate responses to the film.