Summary

  • Jake Gyllenhaal's performance in Nightcrawler showcased his potential to play a chilling and nihilistic version of The Joker, even though the film had no relation to the superhero genre.
  • Nightcrawler understood the true nature of The Joker as an "anti-hero" better than many recent interpretations, portraying Lou as a willing monster who actively chose to be evil.
  • Lou in Nightcrawler was a darker embodiment of chaotic evil compared to recent versions of The Joker, lacking any sympathy or tragedy and showcasing the true depths of his cruelty and narcissism.

The Joker is among the most iconic characters, not just in the superhero genre, but in modern fiction as well. His rise in prominence far surpassed the infamy that other legendary Batman villains and other equally famous comic characters enjoyed. The Clown Prince of Crime has appeared in numerous live-action Batman movies. Talented actors like Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, Jared Leto, Joaquin Phoenix, and Barry Keoghan all gave Joker performances that made the villain their own, and left a permanent mark on pop culture history.

While the appearance and motivation of The Joker have remained relatively consistent across these various cinematic iterations, each performer brought their own unique energy and delivery to the part. However, one of the best Joker performances was delivered by Jake Gyllenhaal, and it wasn't even in a superhero film. Believe it or not, the movie that best captured The Joker's chaotic spirit and nihilism was Nightcrawler, a dark thriller that had nothing to do with Batman or the superhero genre as a whole.

Updated on January 31, 2024, by Angelo Delos Trinos: The debate about which movie is truly the best Joker movie has been raging on in the DC Comics fandom for years. Nightcrawler may be one of this race's most unexpected picks, but its inclusion has been proven right in recent years. This article was updated to further examine what made Nightcrawler one of the best Joker movies ever made, even if it wasn't a comic book movie.

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Batman’s arch-rival, The Joker, is a legendary character, but he casts a shadow over DC’s cinematic villains, for better and worse.

Nightcrawler Showed Jake Gyllenhaal's Joker Potential

Nightcrawler's Critical Reception

IMDb Score

Meta Critic Score

Rotten Tomatoes

7.8/10

  • Meta Score: 76/100
  • Audience Score: 8.6/10
  • Tomatometer: 95%
  • Audience Score: 89%
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Nocturnal Animals vs. Nightcrawler: Which Jake Gyllenhaal Film Is More Chilling?
Nocturnal Animals and Nightcrawler are both neo-noir psychological thrillers. But which Jake Gyllenhaal movie is more chilling?

Writer/Director Dan Gilroy's 2014 psychological thriller Nightcrawler starred Gyllenhaal as Lou Bloom, a petty thief who found unlikely work as a freelance photographer who then made a living by selling footage of gruesome crime scenes to local tabloids and news stations. In brief, Lou sold snuff films. As Lou became more successful, he increasingly exhibited a dangerously competitive, disturbed, and ruthless side. His actions revolved around arranging for events such as accidents and crimes to play out in his favor, or outright trickery to deal with his enemies—tactics that wouldn't feel out-of-character for someone like The Joker.

In comparison to Gyllenhaal's previous roles, in such films as the disaster blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow and the romantic drama Brokeback Mountain, the seedy Nightcrawler demonstrated what a terrifying presence the actor can have onscreen. One of Nightcrawler's most iconic scenes showed Lou snapping from a seemingly detached look to a furious scream while staring into the mirror. This served as a good shorthand for Gyllenhaal's stellar performance. Similar to The Joker, Gyllenhaal imbued Lou with the slightest veneer of charm and confidence to paper over the dark and heartless man who lurked beneath. There was something clearly wrong with Lou, which made his ability to slither his way to success by capitalizing on others' pain and death while maintaining a positive public image all the more frightening.

Jake Gyllenhaal's Best Performances, According to Rotten Tomatoes

Donnie Darko: 15th Anniversary

  • Tomatometer: 100%
  • Audience Score: 91%

John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch

  • Tomatometer: 96%
  • Audience Score: 75%

Nightcrawler

  • Tomatometer: 95%
  • Audience Score: 86%

Wildlife

  • Tomatometer: 94%
  • Audience Score: 72%

Source Code

  • Tomatometer: 92%
  • Audience Score: 82%
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Gyllenhaal's turn as Lou in NIghtcrawler exuded the exact energy one expects from a strong Joker performance in the best Joker movies. Especially when compared to the late, great Heath Ledger's legendary portrayal in The Dark Knight, both performances found little vestiges of unexpected humor and off-putting closeness before shifting into a full-throated and brutal performance. Whether it was in Todd Phillips' revisionist Joker or Matt Reeves' brutalist The Batman, the Clown Prince of Crime's greatest asset was his unpredictability. Gyllenhaal perfectly channeled this in Nightcrawler.

The actor later imbued that unpredictability into a superhero villain, albeit not The Joker or anyone in DC Comics. Gyllenhaal played Mysterio in Spider-Man: Far From Home, where he tricked everyone from Spider-Man himself to the public into believing that Mysterio (really him and a team of computer experts) was a superhero from an alternate universe as part of a plan to steal technology and exact petty vengeance on the now-dead Tony Stark Jr. While Gyllenhaal vwas strong in the role, appearances in films like John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch and Nightcrawler highlighted how Gyllenhaal might be an ideal star for the best Joker movie that only exists in fans' dreams.

*Nightcrawler’s Lou Bloom Was a Better Joker Than the Joker Himself

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Nightcrawler was not the first or last movie to star a villainous character who reminded viewers of The Joker, even if the movie in question had nothing to do with DC Comics or the wider superhero genre. Nightcrawler joined the ranks of Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, Natural Born Killers, and more that Batman fans jokingly but earnestly declared to be the best Joker movies. The three most famous movies that fell under this category were undeniably Fight Club, The King of Comedy, and Taxi Driver. Unsurprisingly, The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver were two of the biggest influences on Joker. These movies reminded Batman fans of The Joker because their protagonists and The Joker were some of the most popular depictions of an all-too familiar archetype. The Joker and villainous protagonists like Lou were all variations of the modern edgy anti-hero.

These edgy anti-heroes were almost always misanthropic and nihilistic men who felt that they were pushed to the brink. They avenged themselves by attacking society, regardless of how many innocent bystanders got in their way. They were best known for pontificating about the world's ills, how they specifically were wronged by society, and how they were the only ones enlightened enough to see through the sham. Those who opposed them were either too naive, or hypocrites who benefited from the status quo. These anti-heroes may have been evil, but were right and vindicated because society, not them, was to blame. It's not uncommon to see these anti-heroes being praised for being "complex" or "realistic" by artists of all stripes, nor is it surprising to hear these anti-heroes' words being quoted by their admirers. The truth was that these anti-heroes were edgy power fantasies whose pretenses were wrongly depicted as and equated to profundity and depth. The few anti-heroes who were actually satirical, like Patrick Bateman from American Psycho or Tyler Durden from Fight Club, were overshadowed by their countless clones who either misunderstood or ignored the points they were created to make. The Joker was this misreading's biggest offender and most well-known example, especially after fans turned him into pop culture's most iconic firebrand in light of The Dark Knight, which to this day is rightly seen as one of the best Joker movies of all time. This, despite the fact that the Joker's anti-hero characterization was a fairly recent phenomenon, even if it arguably did more harm than good to pop culture.

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The classic campy Joker was modernized into a monstrous nihilist in the late '80s to make Batman comics "grow up." This change was received so well that it has become the Joker's default interpretation ever since. The Joker's most recent incarnations clearly drew inspiration from famous cinematic anti-heroes like Tyler Durden or Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver, and he in turn influenced the anti-heroes who came after him. It got to the point where The Joker was seen by some as an anti-hero because his love of chaos for its sake and his atrocities against society were justified by the fact that Batman was somehow the "real villain." The revisionist Batman: White Knight and Joker are some of (if not) the biggest examples of The Joker's questionable rehabilitation yet. This could be partly blamed on the zeitgeist of the '90s and '00s that equated edgy yet often surface-level deconstructions to mature storytelling—a mindset that still endures to this day.

What made Nightcrawler one of the best Joker movies was that Nightcrawler actually understood the kind of "anti-hero" The Joker was better than most of Joker's recent incarnations. This was because Gyllenhaal was not afraid to portray Lou as a willing monster who chose to be evil. Gyllenhaal also didn't bother making Lou relatable or sympathetic in the way Joker was turned into a tragic villain who had no control over his actions or fate. Lou was charismatic and witty, but this was a performance he mastered. Lou was really a hollow shell of a person who used cynicism and nihilism to justify the apathy and cruelty he inflicted or let happen to others. To Lou, ethics, morals, and basic human decency were jokes. These parallels to The Joker made Lou more of a Clown Prince of Crime than expected. This was made better by how Lou lacked the supervillain's anti-hero characterization. Lou was an empty person with little in the way of depth or personality beyond cruelty, greed, and narcissism. Lou had none of the Joker's sympathy, tragedy or pretense, and he was not misunderstood in any way. The only thing Nightcrawler's other characters "misunderstood" about Lou was how amoral and vile he really was. Lou was a monster. Neither Gyllenhaal nor Nightcrawler made excuses for Lou, thus making him a darker and better embodiment of chaotic evil than most of Joker's recent interpretations. Gyllenhaal may not have been directly inspired by The Joker when he brought Lou to life, but his performance turned Nightcrawler into one of the most realistic and best Joker movies ever seen.

Jake Gtllenhaal in Nightcrawler 2014 Poster
Nightcrawler
R
Crime
Drama
Thriller

When Louis Bloom, a con man desperate for work, muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism, he blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story.

Release Date
October 31, 2014
Director
Dan Gilroy
Cast
Jake Gyllenhaal , Michael Papajohn , Rene Russo , Marco Rodríguez
Runtime
1 hour 57 minutes
Main Genre
Drama
Writers
Dan Gilroy
Production Company
Bold Films, Nightcrawler, Sierra / Affinity