Joker

Storyline

Todd Phillips' psychological character study Joker took the cinematic world by storm in 2019, winning the prestigious Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival and grossing over $1.074 billion to become the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time. Joaquin Phoenix delivers an astonishing, Oscar-winning transformative performance as Arthur Fleck, an impoverished, mentally fragile party clown living with his ailing mother Penny in the trash-strewn, strike-crippled streets of 1981 Gotham City. Afflicted with a neurological disorder that causes uncontrollable bursts of inappropriate laughter, Arthur is marginalized, beaten, and stripped of social services by an indifferent society. Drawing inspiration from Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, the film charts Arthur's chilling transformation as he guns down three abusive Wall Street businessmen on a subway, inadvertently igniting a populist anti-rich clown protest movement across Gotham. Arthur's descent into homicidal theatricality culminates in a live television confrontation with smug late-night talk show host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro). Powered by Hildur Guðnadóttir's haunting cello score, Joker is a searing exploration of mental illness, systemic neglect, and societal collapse.