DVD/Blu-Ray Release Date: 22/01/2020

Golden Lion, 76th Venice Film Festival

11 Academy Award nominations including best director (Todd Philips) and best actor (Joaquin Phoenix)

11 BAFTA nominations including best film, director (Todd Philips) and leading actor (Joaquin Phoenix)

2 Golden Globes: best actor in a drama (Joaquin Phoenix) and best original score (Hildur Gudnadottir)

2 Critics’ Choice Awards: best actor (Joaquin Phoenix) and best score (Hildur Gudnadottir)

Screen Actors’ Guild Award: outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role (Joaquin Phoenix)

Forever alone in a crowd, Arthur Fleck seeks connection.  Yet, as he trods the sooted Gotham City streets and rides the graffitied mass transit rails of a hostile town teeming with division and dissatisfaction, Arthur wears two masks.  One, he paints on for his day job as a clown.  The other he can never remove; it’s the guise he projects in a futile attempt to feel he’s a part of the world around him, and not the misunderstood man whom life is repeatedly beating down.  Fatherless, Arthur has a fragile mother, arguably his best friend, who nicknamed him Happy, a moniker that’s fostered in Arthur a smile that hides the heartache beneath.  But, when bullied by teens on the streets, taunted by suits on the subway, or simply teased by his fellow clowns at work, this social outlier only becomes even more out of sync with everyone around him.

Directed, co-written and produced by Todd Phillips, “Joker” is the filmmaker’s original vision of the infamous DC villain, an origin story infused with, but distinctly outside, the character’s more traditional mythologies.  Phillips’ exploration of Arthur Fleck, who is indelibly portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix, is of a man struggling to find his way in Gotham’s fractured society.  Longing for any light to shine on him, he tries his hand as a stand-up comic, but finds the joke always seems to be on him.  Caught in a cyclical existence between apathy and cruelty and, ultimately, betrayal, Arthur makes one bad decision after another that brings about a chain reaction of escalating events in this gritty, allegorical character study.

Three-time Oscar nominee Phoenix (“The Master,” “Walk the Line,” “Gladiator”) stars in the titular role alongside Oscar winner Robert De Niro (“Raging Bull,” “The Godfather: Part II”).  The film also stars Zazie Beetz (TV’s “Atlanta,” “Deadpool 2”), Frances Conroy (TV’s “American Horror Story,” Hulu’s “Castle Rock”), Brett Cullen (“42,” Netflix’s “Narcos”), Glenn Fleshler (TV’s “Billions,” “Barry”), Bill Camp (“Red Sparrow,” “Molly’s Game”), Shea Whigham (“First Man,” “Kong: Skull Island”), Marc Maron (TV’s “Maron,” “GLOW”), Douglas Hodge (“Red Sparrow,” TV’s “Penny Dreadful”), Josh Pais (upcoming “Motherless Brooklyn,” “Going in Style”) and Leigh Gill (HBO’s “Game of Thrones”).

Oscar nominee Phillips (“Borat,” “The Hangover” trilogy) directed from a screenplay he co-wrote with Oscar-nominated writer Scott Silver (“The Fighter”), based on characters from DC.  The film was produced by Phillips and Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper (“A Star Is Born,” “American Sniper”) under their Joint Effort banner, and Oscar nominee Emma Tillinger Koskoff (“The Wolf of Wall Street”).   It was executive produced by Michael E. Uslan, Walter Hamada, Aaron L. Gilbert, Joseph Garner, Richard Baratta, and Bruce Berman.

Behind the scenes, Phillips was joined by director of photography Lawrence Sher (“Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” “The Hangover” trilogy), production designer Mark Friedberg (“If Beale Street Could Talk,” “Selma”), editor Jeff Groth (“War Dogs,” “The Hangover Part III”), and Oscar-winning costume designer Mark Bridges (“Phantom Thread,” “The Artist”).  The music is by Hildur Guðnadóttir (HBO’s “Chernobyl,” “Sicario: Day of the Soldado”).

Warner Bros. Pictures Presents, in Association with Village Roadshow Pictures, in Association with BRON Creative, a Joint Effort Production, a Film by Todd Phillips, “Joker.”  It will be in theaters beginning 2 October 2019 and will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures.