Joker Todd Phillips

Box office

Joker grossed $335.5 million in the United States and Canada and $743.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $1.079 billion.[4][5] It is the sixth-highest-grossing film of 2019 and the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time,[162][163] as well as the first and only R-rated film to pass the billion-dollar mark.[164] In terms of budget-to-gross ratio, Joker is also the most profitable film based on a comic book,[165] due to its small budget and little decline in week-to-week grosses during its theatrical run, surpassing the record previously held by Deadpool (2016).[166] Deadline Hollywood estimated the film made a net profit of $437 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues.[167]

In August 2019, BoxOffice magazine analyst Shawn Robbins wrote that he expected Joker to gross $60–90 million during its opening weekend in North America.[168] Following the film's premiere, BoxOffice predicted Joker could open to $70–95 million domestically.[169] Later updating to $85–105 million, Robbins suggested it could become the first October release to open to over $100 million and surpass the record set by Venom (2018).[170] However, Comscore's senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian thought the film would open closer to $50 million because it is not a "typical comic-book movie".[171] Three weeks prior to its release, official industry tracking projected the film would debut to $65–80 million, with some estimates going as high as $90 million.[172] The week of its release, Atom Tickets announced pre-sale totals for the film were outpacing those of Venom and It Chapter Two ($91.1 million debut) and that Joker was its second-best-selling R-rated film of 2019 behind John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum.[173]

Joker opened in 4,374 theaters in North America and made $39.9 million on its first day of release, including $13.3 million from Thursday night previews, besting Venom's respective October records.[3] The film also had the biggest October opening day of any film, beating out Halloween (2018).[174] It went on to break Venom's record for having the biggest October opening weekend, finishing with a domestic total of $96.2 million. The film set career records for Phoenix, Phillips and De Niro and was the fourth-largest debut for an R-rated film of all time.[175] The latter record would cross over The Matrix Reloaded (2003), staying behind Deadpool, Deadpool 2 (2018) and It (2017).[176] It was also Warner Bros.' biggest domestic opening in two years.[177] In its second weekend, the film fell just 41.8% to $55.9 million, remaining in first and marking the best second-weekend October total (besting Gravity (2013)'s $43.1 million in 2013).[178] It made $29.2 million in its third weekend and $19.2 million in its fourth, finishing second behind Maleficent: Mistress of Evil both times.[179][180] After 155 days, Joker's American theatrical run wrapped up on March 5, 2020, with a final gross of $355.5 million, making it the fourth-highest domestic gross for an R-rated film, behind The Passion of the Christ (2004), Deadpool and American Sniper (2014).[181]

Worldwide, the film was projected to debut to around $155 million, including $75 million from 73 overseas territories.[182] It made $5.4 million from four countries on its first day and $18.7 million from 47 in its second, for a two-day total of $24.6 million. It went on to greatly exceed expectations, making $140.5 million from overseas territories and a total $234 million worldwide. Its largest markets were South Korea (a Warner Bros. record $16.3 million), the United Kingdom ($14.8 million), Mexico ($13.1 million) and Japan ($7 million).[183] With this, it became the biggest worldwide opening for an October film.[177] During its second weekend, the film made an additional $125.7 million worldwide,[184] and $77.9 million in its third.[185] By this point, industry analysts expected Joker to become the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, with some suggesting that it could finish its run with over $1 billion.[186] The film became the highest-grossing R-rated film in its fourth weekend, during which it grossed $47.8 million internationally,[187] and passed the billion-dollar mark about a month into its theatrical release.[164]

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Joker holds an approval rating of 69% based on 601 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Joker gives its infamous central character a chillingly plausible origin story that serves as a brilliant showcase for its star – and a dark evolution for comics-inspired cinema".[189] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 59 out of 100 based on 60 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[190] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it an overall positive score of 84% (with an average 4 out of 5 stars) and a 60% "definite recommend".[3]

Mark Kermode of The Observer rated the film 4 out of 5 stars, stating "Joker has an ace card in the form of Joaquin Phoenix's mesmerisingly physical portrayal of a man who would be king".[191] Writing for IGN, Jim Vejvoda gave Joker a perfect score, saying that the film "would work just as well as an engrossing character study without any of its DC Comics trappings; that it just so happens to be a brilliant Batman-universe movie is icing on the Batfan cake". He found it a powerful and unsettling allegory of contemporary neglect and violence and described Phoenix's performance as the Joker as engrossing and "Oscar-worthy".[192] Similarly, Xan Brooks of The Observer—who also gave the film a perfect score—called it "gloriously daring and explosive" and appreciated how Phillips used elements from Scorsese films to create an original story.[193] Variety's Owen Gleiberman wrote, "Phoenix is astonishing as a mentally ill geek who becomes the killer-clown Joker in Todd Phillips' neo-Taxi Driver knockout: the rare comic-book movie that expresses what's happening in the real world".[194]

ComicBook.com's Brandon Davis acclaimed Joker as a groundbreaking comic book adaptation that he found scarier than most 2019 horror films. Davis compared it favorably to the 2008 Batman film The Dark Knight, praised the cinematography and performances and called it a film that needed to be seen to be believed.[195] Deadline Hollywood's Pete Hammond believes the film redefines the Joker and is "impossible to shake off". Hammond also praised the story and performances and summarized the film as "a bravura piece of filmmaking that speaks to the world we are actually living in today in ways that few movies do".[196] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said he was lost for words in describing Phoenix's performance, calling the film "gut-wrenching" and "simply stupendous".[197]

David Ehrlich of IndieWire was more mixed and gave the film a "C+". He felt that while "Joker is the boldest and most exciting superhero movie since The Dark Knight", it was "also incendiary, confused and potentially toxic". Ehrlich thought that the film would make DC fans happy and praised Phoenix's performance, but criticized Phillips' direction and the lack of originality.[198] A critical review came from Glenn Kenny of RogerEbert.com, who gave the film two stars out of four. Though he praised the performances and thought the story worked, Kenny criticized the social commentary and Phillips' direction, finding the film too derivative and believing its focus was "less in entertainment than in generating self-importance".[199] In an analysis of the character Joker, Onmanorama's Sajesh Mohan wrote that the movie was cliché-ridden, the only original part being Joaquin Phoenix's acting. "The movie, with great pain and in detail, explains how Arthur Fleck turns into Joker dejected by the way the world treats him. Thanks to Phillips and Silver, Phoenix was able to bring out the king among the Jokers," the analysis read.[200]

Stephanie Zacharek of Time magazine, in a negative review, labeled Phoenix's performance over-the-top and felt that while Phillips tried to "[give] us a movie all about the emptiness of our culture... he's just offering a prime example of it". She argued the plot was nonexistent, "dark only in a stupidly adolescent way" and "stuffed with phony philosophy".[201] Meanwhile, NPR's Glen Weldon thought the film lacked innovation and said its sympathetic take on the Joker was "wildly unconvincing and mundanely uninteresting". Weldon also described Joker as trying too hard to deviate from the comics and, as a result, coming off as an imitation of films like Taxi Driver.[202] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian called it "the most disappointing film of the year". While praising Phoenix's performance and the first act, he criticized the film's political plot developments and overall found it too derivative of various Scorsese films.[203]

Industry response

Joker generated positive responses from industry figures. DC Comics chief creative officer Jim Lee praised it as "intense, raw and soulful" and stated that it had remained true to the character despite deviating from the source material.[188] Actor Mark Hamill, who has voiced the Joker in animation and video games since Batman: The Animated Series, thought the film had "brilliantly" reinvented the character and gave it "[two] thumbs up".[204] Superman (1978) director Richard Donner called the film "brilliant", "fascinating", "really well-written" and stated that Phoenix's performance was "genius".[205] Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore called Joker a "cinematic masterpiece" and stated it was a "danger to society" if people did not see it.[206] Actor Josh Brolin found the film powerful: "To appreciate Joker I believe you have to have either gone through something traumatic in your lifetime (and I believe most of us have) or understand somewhere in your psyche what true compassion is".[207] Actor Vincent D'Onofrio vocally commended Phoenix's performance in the film on Twitter, stating that he "deserve[d] recognition for this performance", while actress Jessica Chastain agreed, replying: "It's one of the greatest pieces of acting I've ever seen".[208] Actress and screenwriter Phoebe Waller-Bridge also praised the film, stating: "I think the reason people got so uncomfortable [with the film] is because it feels too true, too raw. I was watching it and thinking to myself, God, if this came out a year into Obama's time in office, I don't think we'd be feeling as worried about it".[209] Filmmaker David Fincher said of the film's unexpected success, "Nobody would have thought they had a shot at a giant hit with Joker had The Dark Knight not been as massive as it was. I don't think anyone would have looked at that material and thought, 'Yeah, let's take [Taxi Driver's] Travis Bickle and [The King of Comedy's] Rupert Pupkin and conflate them, then trap him in a betrayal of the mentally ill and trot it out for a billion dollars'".[210] Actor Brendan Gleeson felt that Phoenix's performance as the Joker was absolutely "indelible" and one of the most magnificent achievements in cinema he has ever seen, incidentally being that the reason he opted to join the film's sequel Joker: Folie à Deux (2024).[211] Filmmaker Ridley Scott, who had previously worked with Phoenix in Gladiator (2000), felt "blown away" by the film; while he disliked the apparent way it celebrated violence, Scott felt that Phoenix's performance was remarkable enough to make Phoenix an "amazing asset" for his film Napoleon (2023) in a "creative and commercial sense".[212]

Accolades

In September 2019, Joker was awarded the Golden Lion, the festival's highest prize, at the 76th Venice International Film Festival.[213] At the 92nd Academy Awards, the film won the Best Actor (Phoenix) and Best Original Score awards. It received overall eleven nominations (including Best Picture) from the ceremony, breaking the record of eight held by The Dark Knight for the most nominations received by a film based on a comic book, comic strip or graphic novel.[214] Hildur Guðnadóttir also became the first woman to win an original score Oscar since The Full Monty (1997) in 1998.[215] At the 73rd British Academy Film Awards, the film won Best Actor in a Leading Role (Phoenix), Best Casting and Best Original Music out of a leading eleven nominations including Best Film.[216] The film was nominated for four Golden Globe Awards for the 77th ceremony, winning the awards for Best Original Score and Best Actor (Phoenix).[217] The film was nominated for seven awards at the 25th Critics' Choice Awards, winning Best Actor (Phoenix) and Best Score and was included in the American Film Institute and Cahiers du Cinéma's top 10 films of 2019.[218][219]

Having won an award at the 26th Screen Actors Guild Awards for Phoenix's performance, Joker also received nominations from other guilds including the Writers Guild of America Awards and the Producers Guild of America.[220][221] It won a Best Period and/or Character Make-Up in a Feature-Length Motion Picture award from the Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild.[222]