Joker
Warner Bros. | Release Date: October 3, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
59
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 60 Critic Reviews
Positive:
33
Mixed:
16
Negative:
11
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
CNNBrian LowryOct 2, 2019
Director Todd Phillips is best known for "The Hangover" trilogy, and has seemingly overcompensated for his comedy roots by delivering a movie virtually devoid of humor. Read full review
60
Vanity FairRichard LawsonAug 31, 2019
The movie is, for a good stretch, a troubling and arresting character study, one done with nervy conviction. Eventually, though, Phillips has to more tightly attach this downward spiral to the larger Gotham mythology, which is where the provocative ambivalence of the film gives way to veneration. Read full review
58
IndieWireDavid EhrlichAug 31, 2019
It’s good enough to be dangerous, and bad enough to demand better. It’s going to turn the world upside down and make us all hysterical in the process. For better or worse, it’s exactly the movie the Joker would want. Read full review
55
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeAug 31, 2019
The broadness of Phoenix’s work allows the rest of the ensemble — particularly Conroy, Zazie Beetz as a single-mom neighbor, and MVP character actors like Bill Camp, Shea Whigham and Brian Tyree Henry — to dial it down and give effectively human-size performances. Read full review
50
Screen RantSandy SchaeferFeb 4, 2020
At the end of the day, Joker comes off as Scorsese-lite in the same way that Phillips' last movie, War Dogs, did - albeit, with great acting from Phoenix to elevate it, but also a sense of self-seriousness that borders on self-parody and pretentiousness that War Dogs did not have. Read full review
50
The Associated PressJake CoyleOct 3, 2019
A calculatedly combustible concoction, designed, like its chaos-creating character, to cause a stir. To provoke and distort. I wish it was as radical as it thinks it is. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerGary ThompsonOct 3, 2019
Having unleashed Phoenix, Phillips doesn’t seem to know how to contain or couch the performance. At some point he seems to have surrendered, and when the movie is over you realize Arthur is its only substantial character. Read full review
50
Paste MagazineDom SinacolaOct 2, 2019
Do not let anyone tell you that Joker captures our specific time, represents our specific society, both births and defines our specific zeitgeist, grabs ahold of our specific faces and breathes smoke down our throats. It doesn’t. Joker is, more than anything, fine. And we, more than anything, are not. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 2, 2019
If the Marvel/Disney comic-book movies tend toward the chromium brio of the “Avengers” series, the DC superhero movies purveyed by Warner Bros. have taken their cue over the years from the 1986 revisionist graphic novel “The Dark Knight Returns,” and they are very dark indeed. Joker is the culmination of that approach, a slab of self-important pop-culture masonry whose only bright spot is the figure dancing brilliantly along its top. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayOct 1, 2019
The truth is, it’s just a movie — a fine movie, not a great movie, a movie that will please the specific subculture of fans it aims to service, while those who have survived this long without caring about comic-book movies can go on not caring. Read full review
50
VoxAlissa WilkinsonSep 12, 2019
Joker is a well-made movie, with a killer performance from Joaquin Phoenix, who seems born to play the role. But there’s nothing “bonkers” about it. It has nothing to say about the Joker himself or what he represents, or even about the world in which his brand of evil exists. Go ahead and crack open the movie. It’s hollow to the core. Read full review
50
ConsequenceSarah KurchakSep 11, 2019
Neither Todd Phillips’ hollow script nor his hey-check-this-shit-out direction offer much to work with, but Phoenix still manages to wring enough out of Fleck to make Joker almost work as a character study. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyAug 31, 2019
As social commentary, Joker is pernicious garbage. But besides the wacky pleasures of Phoenix’s performance, it also displays some major movie studio core competencies, in a not dissimilar way to what “A Star Is Born” presented last year. Read full review
45
The AtlanticDavid SimsOct 2, 2019
As Joker gets grimmer and descends further into bloody violence, it becomes little more than a horror show, bludgeoning its viewers out of any chance at insight. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawOct 3, 2019
This Joker has just one act in him: the first act. The film somehow manages to be desperately serious and very shallow. Read full review
40
UproxxMike RyanSep 12, 2019
Joker is a movie that thinks it has a lot to say and fancies itself The Social Commentary Of Our Time, but in reality it’s a mishmash of Hot Button Social Issues without anything interesting to say at all. So, in that respect, it’s the perfect movie for 2019. Joker is our comeuppance. Read full review
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