Pictures: Who played the iconic DC villain 'Joker' best?

The first actor to ever bring Joker to life, Cesar Romero played the Clown Prince of Crime in the ABC-TV show Batman, which ran from 1966-1968

Starting from 1992’s ‘Batman: The Animated Series’, Mark Hamill has voiced the iconic villain in other animated series, movies and video games.

Being the first ever 'Movie Joker', following Cesar Romero’s TV stint from two decades ago, Nicholson was tasked with reinventing the wheel, and he went on to give a performance of a lifetime in Tim Burton’s 1989 film, ‘Batman’, which saw Michael Keaton take up the lead Caped Crusader role

Heath Ledger's Joker was a loner, schemer, anarchist and ultimately, a terrorist. But in his portrayal, it was easy to see that Joker and Batman were but two sides of a coin, two “freaks” out to change the world in different ways, and both products of the same society, ready to be cast out at a moment’s notice

Cameron Monaghan on the TV series Gotham.

Jared Leto gave audiences a Joker unlike anything they’ve ever seen before, really pushing his psychopathic tendencies to the fore, while adopting a rock star persona and fashioning himself as a ladies’ man (Leto is a good-looking guy and no amount of clown make-up was going to hide the fact).

Zach Galifianakis’s Joker in 'The Lego Batman Movie' is memorable for being as funny and bizarre as the actor himself.

While Joaquin Phoenix has attracted some negative press over his set antics, he has received unanimous praise for his performance from critics and fans alike. His sensitive portrayal of a man chewed up and spit out by the system and his subsequent transformation into a criminal psychopath is a thing of marvel, and we wouldn’t be surprised if more awards came his way.