8 Famous Movie Villains Who Got Off Much Too Lightly

5. The Joker - The Dark Knight

Joker Don't get me wrong: I didn't expect the Joker to die or anything in The Dark Knight, given that - in his own words - he and Batman are "destined to forever." Still, given all the stuff that the Joker pulled in this movie (and all the people he killed), the guy really gets away with it all, doesn't he? And that's mainly because he doesn't give a damn about being punished or being captured, so what has he got to lose? He didn't even have any real agenda, except to "watch the world burn" (thanks for the phrasing, Michael Caine). But the fact that The Dark Knight ends before even telling us what happened to the Joker means that it's kind of anti-climatic in the comeuppance department - the last we see of him, he's just been saved by Batman and is dangling upside-down like a maniac off the edge of a high-rise building. The ambiguous nature of the Joker's ending has much to do with the fact that Heath Ledger died, so we were unable to find out what we probably would have had he been in Rises. So although we can assume that he went to Arkham, the fact that the Joker is literally left hanging makes it feel like Nolan just didn't know what to with him at the end of the movie.
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All-round pop culture obsessive.