The Joker’s 10 best moments from Dark Knight ranked

Sixteen years later Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight remains the best comic book movie villain ever. His performance was so good that people who don’t like superhero projects admit his greatness. He’s going up against characters like Anthony Hopkins’s Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Silence of the Lambs) and Hugo Weaving’s Agent Smith (The Matrix) and he's still in the conversation.

This article will rank and highlight  Heath Ledger’s best moments as Joker. Not only will they prove that he deserves to be among the greats (if not the best), but you’ll be tempted to rewatch The Dark Knight (streaming on HBO Max). Let’s start with an underrated moment.

Phone call

Joker knew there was a chance he and his men would get caught so he put a bomb in one of their stomachs (brilliant foresight). All he’d need to do is make a phone call to create a distraction big enough to get the informant. But first, he needed to get out of holding. How did he do that? By antagonizing one of the police officers by mocking their deaths.

As cruel as it was, you can’t help but be entertained at Ledger’s delivery. The way Joker needled the officer combined with how nonchalantly he said he wanted his phone call was hilarious. Adding to the It's something you'll appreciate no matter how many times you see it.

Poor choice of words

This is where Joker’s cruelty is funny and shows his comedic timing. Batman, being the serious person he is, couldn’t guess Joker would take it literally when he asked him to “Let her (Rachel) go.” Then again, the World’s Greatest detective should have known better than to give a psychopath a setup like that. The Dark Knight may not have laughed, but the Clown Prince of Crime and the audience did.

LOOK AT ME!

We’ve seen the Joker be cruel, but this was the first time we saw his terrifying side. He may smile and laugh, but that’s only one of his sides. When Ledger growled and yelled, “LOOK AT ME!” you knew the games were over. For the time being, at least.

This didn’t just scare the guy Joker killed. Everyone in Gotham City was horror-struck. He officially had to be taken seriously. This wasn’t a regular criminal. He was someone with cunning to rival Batman. To make things scarier, no one knew what he wanted.

Kill The Bat

Joker let the criminal underworld know he was here by robbing their bank (more on that scene later). Then, he crashes their meeting, murders one of their goons with a magic trick, and says he’ll kill Batman for them but for a price. Because, if you're good at something, never do it for free (a great line). It takes a lot of courage or crazy or both to do that surrounded by killers. But, Joker always has a plan (despite what he told Harvey Dent).

Burning my half

You may have noticed that, despite Joker’s look, he doesn’t suffer fools. When one of the criminal bosses starts getting bold, he reminds him that he (Joker) is the big dog in the yard.

What makes this scene so perfect is how quickly Ledger took the goofiness out of his voice. If there was ever any doubt in the audience’s mind, he reminded them there’s a lot of cruelty inside him that doesn’t involve jokes, laughs, and insanity.

Contingency plan

Admittedly, it took a while to see the genius in this scene. Harvey Dent was dead after being corrupted. Batman was an outcast and framed for Dent’s murder. And Gotham City would be on edge for years thanks to him. Sure, he's in prison, but look at what he accomplished. Joker didn’t care about getting caught because he won.

Interrogation scene

This wasn’t the first time the Dark Knight and Joker talked, but it was the first time without interruption. Batman finally got a chance to look his nemesis in the eyes. Even then, he didn’t understand what he was seeing. Alfred tried to warn Bruce, but he didn’t listen.

This scene is worthless without Ledger’s delivery. He managed to be calm and deranged at the same time. Then, when he needed to get his point across, Joker reminded his rival that he wasn't as crazy as he let on. Again, Bruce should have listened to Alfred. Some people just want to watch the world burn.

Nurse Joker

Harvey Dent was pushed over the edge. The woman he loved was dead because Jim Gordon didn’t listen to him. There was a chance that he could have come out of this without losing who he was, but that went out the window when Joker arrived at his hospital bed.

An entire article could be dedicated to this scene but let’s stick to Joker bringing Harvey Dent to his side of madness. Dent became a force of evil with a few words, a coin, and a nurse’s uniform. This showed that Joker understood the psychology of that visual. It definitely attributed to driving Dent crazy.

Simply stranger

Joker took his mask off and you knew he wouldn't be Jack Nicholson, Cesar Romero, or Mark Hamill's Joker. As Heath Ledger said, he was something stranger. It was the perfect way to introduce the darkest villain in Batman's lore.

Joker calls himself an agent of chaos, but is he? Joker says he doesn't have a plan, but he picked the right people for the job, knew who would do what, and the exact moment to leave the bank. And after everyone was killed, he left the bank with the confidence of an Olympic athlete.

Overall, it was a beautifully done scene that flawlessly started the movie.

Why so serious?

These three words combined to make the phrase of the year. The two stories were grim and brutal. The knife to the faces of his possible victims was horrific. But how Heath Ledger dictated those three words made “Why so serious?” a household line.

Both scenes were creepy enough to send chills down anyone’s spine and were faultlessly executed. Maybe it was his lisp, the craziness in Joker's eyes, or something else that makes this one of the best lines in Batman movie history. Regardless of the reason, it's still among the most popular lines in movie history.