Movies Alan Rickman in Die Hard or Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight - Who gave the better acting performance?

[Takes Two To Tango]

Two absolute legendary performances in movie history.

Both are absolute scene stealers throughout their films.

Alan Rickman accent and mannerisms were so good in Die Hard. I thought he was really Hans Gruber.

Same goes with Heath Ledger magical performance.

So who do you got?

 

[Darkavius]

I'm going with Ledger. He is the best parts of The Dark Knight in my view. In fact, I think his Joker is so good he is still the best Joker in any of the Joker or Batman franchises and one of, if not the best, villain in comic book movie history. In the past decade or so in regards to comic movies the only one who comes close imo is Josh Brolin as Thanos.

Rickman is really good but the cast for Die Hard was done better than the casting for The Dark Knight. Bruce was an absolutely great choice as McClaine, Bonnie Bedlia was a good Holly and even the minor characters were good such as McClaine's limousine driver and Reginald Vel'Johnson as the LAPD cop. One of the worst castings for Batman was to go from Katie Holmes to Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes.

 

[Thrawn33]

Gotta go with Herr Gruber.

Heath was great as Joker, but so was Jack, Hamill and Romero.

There is only one Hans Gruber

 

[Zer]

I went with Rickman

Ledger was great, but he wasn't in the movie enough. He had like 20 minutes of screentime kind of sprinkled around randomly. Totally stole the show though, it was boring af whenever he wasn't on screen

 

[WhiteMousse]

Oh man that is tough. I genuinely cannot decide

 

[LEWIS540]

If only Rickman would have ODed before Die Hard was released......then it would've been an even more legendary performance.


Rickman in Robin Hood was great, too, in an Anthony Hopkins playing Hanibal Lecter kinda way.

 

[stalehotdog]

Even though I thought Heath gave the performance of a lifetime I have to give it to Rickman. Rickman managed to make a super grounded terrifying villain in the era of campiness.

 

[Big Nasty Edison]

Jean Claude van Damme had a better performance in JCVD than Heath Ledger had in The Dark Knight. Don't @ me

 

[Plissken]

Rickman. Ledger admitted he was somewhat miming Tom Waits during an Aussie interview back in the day while Rickman is all an original performance.

 

[I Fusion I]

Ledger and it’s not close, same as the comparison between the two director and/or movies.

 

[Zer]

Rickman in Robin Hood was great, too, in an Anthony Hopkins playing Hanibal Lecter kinda way.

Rickman plays an amazing villain in general. Gruber was great but my fav is the Sheriff of Nottingham

 

[Adamant]

Heath Ledger Joker was a once in a generation performance.

 

[Takes Two To Tango]

Interesting when I looked at this thread mid yesterday, it was Rickman by a huge lead. Now it's very close with Ledger with a slight lead.

 

[LEWIS540]

I'm guessing most competent actors with a good script/director, could do a good Joker. By it's very nature, it's a flashy, show stealing role, and pretty hard to fuck up. Inb4 Jared Leto.

Painfully obvious that as good as Ledger was, the circumstance around his death increased the role's recognition.

 

[Takes Two To Tango]

I'm guessing most competent actors with a good script/director, could do a good Joker. By it's very nature, it's a flashy, show stealing role, and pretty hard to fuck up. Inb4 Jared Leto.

Painfully obvious that as good as Ledger was, the circumstance around his death increased the role's recognition.

So you're saying he's only getting the praise that he got from back then till even now, because he died during that time?

Not because he gave a brilliant performance as The Joker? Who I believe most people think was the best portrayal of The Joker ever.

Even if he lived he would've won the Oscar for best supporting actor easily. There was no other performance that year that came close to what he did. It was extraordinary.

 

[LEWIS540]

So you're saying he's only getting the praise that he got from back then till even now, because he died during that time?

Not because he gave a brilliant performance as The Joker? Who I believe most people think was the best portrayal of The Joker ever.

Even if he lived he would've won the Oscar for best supporting actor easily. There was no other performance that year that came close to what he did. It was extraordinary.

It was a good performance which is 100% revered more because he died shortly after. No way it’d been seen as an ATG performance if he hadn’t died.

Saying he would have won the Oscar regardless is purely speculation and asinine before even considering what winning an Oscar even means.

Like Nicholson, Ledger and Phoenix all played the role differently and all nailed it. Ledger’s performance by no means stands out over the other two, imo. I don’t think it’s a particularly challenging role, tbh.

I bet if Barry Keoghan gets a chance to play it in an expanded role, he’ll be lauded too.

Like Hopkins Hannibal Lecter, both were really good performances but both were overrated, imo.

 

[Takes Two To Tango]

It was a good performance which is 100% revered more because he died shortly after. No way it’d been seen as an ATG performance if he hadn’t died.

Saying he would have won the Oscar regardless is purely speculation and asinine before even considering what winning an Oscar even means.

Like Nicholson, Ledger and Phoenix all played the role differently and all nailed it. Ledger’s performance by no means stands out over the other two, imo. I don’t think it’s a particularly challenging role, tbh.

I bet if Barry Keoghan gets a chance to play it in an expanded role, he’ll be lauded too.

Like Hopkins Hannibal Lecter, both were really good performances but both were overrated, imo.

His death has nothing to do with how great his performance was. It doesn't matter if he died before it was released or not. That's irrelevant. Personally I don't judge a performance based on someone recent death. How many years later it doesn't make a difference if he died before the movie was released. People still talk about it as being one of the greatest acting performances of all-time. Up there with anything Daniel Day-Lewis has done. And people are not that shallow minded as you think they would be. They can see a performance for what it is and judge for themselves. Without being influenced by outside forces that they can't control.

All I know most people think Leger performance is superior than the rest of the Joker performances before and after. That to me says a lot in my books.

Yes I'm guessing he would've won the Oscar, nonetheless I'd bet a lot of money he would have won that night regardless if he was still alive. The only two real challengers that night are RDJ performance in Tropic Thunder and Philip Seymour Hoffman performance in Doubt. No question in my mind he would have been the massive favorite to win.

You have to also consider the movie he was in how positively received by many people. Everything was leaning towards him winning.

If someone death made a performance more revered, if that's true why didn't James Dean get an Oscar for his roles posthumously?

But anyways I've seen you downplay and belittle that win by Ledger for years now. So obviously I'm not going to change your mind. So will leave it to that.

 

[LEWIS540]

His death has nothing to do with how great his performance was. It doesn't matter if he died before it was released or not. That's irrelevant. Personally I don't judge a performance based on someone recent death. How many years later it doesn't make a difference if he died before the movie was released. People still talk about it as being one of the greatest acting performances of all-time. Up there with anything Daniel Day-Lewis has done. And people are not that shallow minded as you think they would be. They can see a performance for what it is and judge for themselves. Without being influenced by outside forces that they can't control.

All I know most people think Leger performance is superior than the rest of the Joker performances before and after. That to me says a lot in my books.

Yes I'm guessing he would've won the Oscar, nonetheless I'd bet a lot of money he would have won that night regardless if he was still alive. The only two real challengers that night are RDJ performance in Tropic Thunder and Philip Seymour Hoffman performance in Doubt. No question in my mind he would have been the massive favorite to win.

You have to also consider the movie he was in how positively received by many people. Everything was leaning towards him winning.

If someone death made a performance more revered, if that's true why didn't James Dean get an Oscar for his roles posthumously?

But anyways I've seen you downplay and belittle that win by Ledger for years now. So obviously I'm not going to change your mind. So will leave it to that.

Such an odd post.

His death had nothing to do with his performance. Rather the perception. Barely debatable.

James Dean has nothing to do with it. Pretty sure he did get nominated though.

It’s like I’ll say it was a really good performance, but obviously overrated, and you nuthuggers get offended because I don’t believe it is the greatest artistic endeavor ever achieved by man.

Never belittled the performance at all. Said consistently it was very good.

You have always been massively hung up on “who is the best” and “who deserved the Oscar”. Both are extremely beige. Like a discussion a 14 year old would start.

 

[Berserker13]

It was a good performance which is 100% revered more because he died shortly after. No way it’d been seen as an ATG performance if he hadn’t died.

Saying he would have won the Oscar regardless is purely speculation and asinine before even considering what winning an Oscar even means.

Like Nicholson, Ledger and Phoenix all played the role differently and all nailed it. Ledger’s performance by no means stands out over the other two, imo. I don’t think it’s a particularly challenging role, tbh.

I bet if Barry Keoghan gets a chance to play it in an expanded role, he’ll be lauded too.

Like Hopkins Hannibal Lecter, both were really good performances but both were overrated, imo.

You are obviously biased towards Comic book movie roles like a child

 

[LEWIS540]

You are obviously biased towards Comic book movie roles like a child

DaFuq you talking about?

Terrible comment.