His unique appearance, unpredictable methods, indecipherable past, and insatiable hunger for evil have kept filmmakers and actors coming back for more over 30 years later, which has resulted in several reinventions of the character, most of which feel definitive for their moment. Ever since Jack Nicholson brought this laughing madman to theaters in 1989, film-goers have been obsessed with the supervillain who plagues Gotham City and haunts the Batman‘s nightmares. Few movie villains (not named Dracula or Darth Vader) have been portrayed as many times on the big screen as the Joker, DC’s infamous agent of chaos, the Clown Prince of Crime himself.