20 Most WTF Movie Moments Of 2019

5. Arthur Kills Murray - Joker

There are many shocking moments from Joker that could've made this list, but there's one above all others that incited a special kind of hopeless dread, and that's Arthur Fleck's (Joaquin Phoenix) climactic assassination of talk show host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro).

The deeply discomforting scene escalates as Fleck - or rather, Joker - rants to the live audience about how society tramples on the disenfranchised, after which he pulls a gun and shoots Franklin through the head.

The film does such a fantastic job making its brief bursts of violence count, and never better than here.

While Joker might be heavily indebted to both Scorsese's The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver, this scene also demonstrates how it's a brilliantly effed-up escalation of the central themes explored in those movies.

Phoenix, typically, is as magnificent as ever.