7 Movie Spinoffs That Were Better Than The Original
2. Joker
While Joker isn't a spinoff in the traditional sense - i.e. it carries over a story or a character from another series - it is a spinoff of the primary DC films label, which features the likes of Wonder Woman and Aquaman. And yes, Joker is better than every other movie DC has put out under that primary label.
It may not be the most entertaining thing in the world (few people are going to put this on to relax after a hard day's work) but Joker will hit you just as hard as an explosion or a big gunfight, and it can do it with a few lines of dialogue and a menacing stare from leading man Joaquin Phoenix, who is on scarily-good form here as the sympathetic yet dangerous Arthur Fleck, precursor to the Clown Prince of Crime.
Joker is one of those movies that will make you feel uncomfortable and unsure how to respond, but because of this, it will stick with you a lot longer than your average flick. You won't know whether you should feel sorry for Arthur, or despise him, and sometimes, you won't even know which scenes are real, and which are happening inside his head.
This could easily have made the movie feel overly confusing or pretentious, but because director Todd Philips wisely avoids using any fancy camera tricks or flashy edits (his "basic" directorial style has actually been criticized, but it was clearly an intentional choice), the movie instead feels intimate and grounded. It's the difference between a documentary and a reality TV show: the drama in Joker doesn't feel manufactured, it feels natural, and a lot weightier as a result.
An amazing lead performance, a gripping story, and a smattering of easter eggs for fans of the Batman universe - it really doesn't get much better than this.