Batman Movie Villains: 7 Perfect Performances & 7 That Sucked

1. Heath Ledger - The Joker (The Dark Knight)

Some might say that history remembers Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker more fondly because of the tragedy of his death, but that is a serious disservice to how incredible he is. And to think, his casting was met with a near-tidal wave of apathy at the time.

His Joker is not a faithful adaptation in any real sense, but Christopher Nolan did draw on the character's sense of mystery. He's an enigma and an agent of chaos precisely because we have no way to know who he is or why he's doing what he's doing, exactly. That marks him as Phoenix's Joker's flip-side, in a way.

Ledger's tics and performative quirks make his Joker seem almost unhuman, not so much super- or sub- as parallel. He's somehow both not-quite-fully-cooked and perfectly formed at the same time. He's Nolan's other great character of contradiction and there will rarely ever be performances as charming, as revelatory and as haunting as his.

Which of these performances do you like best and worst? Share your picks below in the comments thread.