10 Greatest Acting Performances In Comic Book Movies

It's almost laughable when thinking about the amount of people who were questioning the casting of Heath Ledger as the Joker in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. Whereas some fans were still convinced that Jack Nicholson was the definitive Clown Prince of Crime, others had their doubts considering the other roles Ledger had taken on - from the adorable teen drama 10 Things I Hate About You, to A Knight's Tale.

At a time when things looked grim, Ledger reeled back and gave us the best comic book movie performance ever put to screen.

Forgetting the comic book angle for a second, the Joker in this film is up there with some of the greatest performances of the entire 2000s, as Ledger disappeared behind the character. Going in-depth to make his portrayal as breathtaking as possible, this was one of the first times many people got a look into the crazier side of the Joker. Despite the more ludicrous things you would see from Mark Hamill in Batman: The Animated Series and beyond, this terrorist angle made everything the Joker did feel uncomfortably real - from the interrogation scene with Batman to the bone-chilling videos he would send to Gotham News.

Though this version of the character was beyond reproach, it did take a toll on Ledger's sanity, which many believe led to the accidental overdose on sleeping pills that would claim his life before the movie was released. While many fans might point you towards their favourite villains of the Batman franchise, this is the moment where you stopped seeing an actor and saw the living embodiment of chaos.