Every Batman Movie Villain Ever Ranked From Worst To Best
1. The Joker (The Dark Knight)
Of course, nothing else was ever going to take the #1 spot.
The impact and influence of Heath Ledger's Joker cannot be denied, for despite having only around 30 minutes of screen time throughout The Dark Knight, he lives rent-free in the heads of both Batman and the audience for every second.
Per the more grounded mission statement of Nolan's trilogy, Ledger's Joker feels more palpably believable, less a campy, theatrical clown than a face paint-wearing, scarred terrorist driven only by a desire to disrupt for its own sake.
On one hand there's the brilliance of Ledger's icky, chops-licking performance, so expertly calibrated to generate maximum audience discomfort, and Nolan's smartly restrained characterisation, withholding the finer details of the Clown Prince of Crime's origin story.
The Dark Knight's Joker casts such a colossal shadow that he manages to entirely upstage Batman in his own movie, something even Christian Bale himself has admitted.
Ledger's Joker will forever be unavoidably entangled within the shock of the actor's untimely death prior to The Dark Knight's release, but on its own merits his Joker is the high watermark for not only Batman movie villains but superhero movie villains full stop.