Heath Ledger (Joker) or Daniel Day-Lewis (Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting)?

Which is the better performance?


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Both great performances. I'll give the nod to DDL though because, as another poster mentioned, he brought more depth to the character.
I thought part of the point of the Ledger Joker was his mysterious origins. You weren't necessarily supposed to know (or believe) his motivations or backstory.

Anarchy and chaos don't have a raison d'etre, after all.
 
Denzel in training day...

Good performances but not the most fantastic like many people make them out to be.

Those are two of the greatest performances in film history.

You are therefore the worst.

Anyways, Ledger by a mile. DDL's performance in There Will Be Blood was considerably more impressive than this one imo.

Also, Bale's performance in TDK is criminally underrated because of the Ledger's performance.
 
I thought this was a "who would win in a fight" thread. Acting wise, I'd go for DDL. Heath went balls out for Joker and all that but DDL was better.

...but in a fight, Joker wins. The pencil trick scene implies he knows at least some martial arts/self defence.
 
Bill the Butcher reminds me of father, they share the same mannerisms and look somewhat the same with there snakey eyes, bent nose and mustache.

For that I vote Bill
 
Joker, but it could go either way honestly. DDL is a beast, but joker would put him down easily.
 
Heath's Joker made more of an impact on me, so I'll go with that.
 
I thought part of the point of the Ledger Joker was his mysterious origins. You weren't necessarily supposed to know (or believe) his motivations or backstory.

Anarchy and chaos don't have a raison d'etre, after all.
This is a valid point, and it did occur to me. But even assuming that to be the case, the Joker would be a one-dimensional character, essentially a caricature, with the audience never seeing beyond superficial one-liners and anecdotes. Bill, in contrast, is an abstract character, the nuances of which DDL would have to convey to the audience through his rhetoric, body language, etc.

Both played the roles to damn-near perfection. The point is, Bill the Butcher would be the more difficult character to pull off flawlessly, and DDL did exactly that. Hence, why I give him the tie-breaker.
 
Gangs of New York is the epithome of overrated Scorcese flicks.
 
I gotta go with Joker here. It's hard to re-invent a character to be more successful compared to previous iconic portrayals.
 
I gotta go with Joker here. It's hard to re-invent a character to be more successful compared to previous iconic portrayals.

Not neccesaarily. And there have only been a handful of portayals of The Joker. It's not like Hamlet or something, which hundreds, if not thousands of actors have attempted to play.

You could also argue that a role like Joker is built up, and you can draw on so much from the comics and animated versions, that it's easier for an actor to come up with a performance.
 
Ddl is always over rated here. Joker takes it
 
Not neccesaarily. And there have only been a handful of portayals of The Joker. It's not like Hamlet or something, which hundreds, if not thousands of actors have attempted to play.

You could also argue that a role like Joker is built up, and you can draw on so much from the comics and animated versions, that it's easier for an actor to come up with a performance.
There have been a lot of portrayals of the Joker. Some of them quite iconic. And the fact that Heaths version and interpretation was vastly different is part of what made his performance so great.

End of the day we are really talking about two great performances and arguing about which one was better is a little silly. I wouldn't say anyone who chose DDL was wrong. Only that I preferred the Joker.
 
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