Spoiler warning for Joker
The new DC Comics film from director Todd Phillips tackles Batman lore in a much darker way than we have seen before.
Set in the 1980s, Joker follows an isolated and bullied failing comedian named Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), whose increasingly fragile mental health threatens the people around him and Gotham City at large, a city where the current balance of power and feeling is shifting at an alarming rate.
From the ashes of the life of Arthur Fleck, the deadly and frightening Joker emerges.
The film also stars Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Marc Maron, Brett Cullen, and Frances Conroy.
But how does Joker end? And is there room for a sequel?
*Warning: Spoilers for Joker movie*
Joker movie ending explained
Suffering from various mental illnesses - including a severe nervous laughter condition - and eventually denied his psychiatric medication, struggling comedian Arthur Fleck is abused and bullied by society.
He lives with his mother and dreams of appearing on his favourite show with his comedic hero Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro), who he imagines having a paternal relationship with.
After losing his job, being beaten on various occasions, and humiliated by former co-workers, Fleck is on the subway when he is abused by three city-slicker types after he distracts them from harassing a female passenger by laughing uncontrollably while still in his clown make-up from work.
After they brutally beat him, Fleck produces a gun and proceeds to shoot two of them before chasing the third and murdering him on a deserted station platform.
Following the reveal that the men worked for right-wing mayoral candidate Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen) at Wayne Enterprises, Wayne speaks out against the murders and those celebrating them as a symbol of revolution against the rich elite who are not being hit by the social and economic downturn in Gotham City.
Some in the city celebrate the masked clown who appeared to kill the men, including Arthur's neighbour who he shared an exchange with before in his block elevator, single mother Sophie Dumond (Zazie Beetz).
The pair strike up a romance after Arthur stalks her around the city and she supports him as he performs a poor performance at a comedy night, while Arthur also cares for his ailing mother, Penny (Frances Conroy), who is a former employee of Thomas Wayne, who she displays adoration of.
Eventually, Arthur discovers a letter from Penny to Wayne that begs him for financial aid as she is dying and Arthur is his illegitimate son from an affair years prior.
An enraged Fleck heads to Wayne Manor to confront his father, but spies his young son Bruce Wayne (Dante Pereira-Olson) through the fence and performs magic tricks for him before the family butler Alfred Pennyworth (Douglas Hodge) confronts him for forcing Bruce to smile with his hands.
Fleck reveals his identity to Alfred, who instead accuses Penny of being delusional and revealing that she adopted Arthur while working for the Waynes and also ended up at Arkham State Hospital.
An enraged Arthur chokes Alfred through the fence before leaving.
As he is visited multiple times by police in regards to the subway murders, he soon finds that his mother had a stroke after being visited by police. He waits at the hospital as she recovers, while also being comforted by Sophie.
Forcing his way to the opera while Thomas Wayne is seeing a performance, Arthur confronts the man he believes is his father in the toilets and laughs uncontrollably after Wayne confirms what Alfred had previously told Fleck. Wayne punches Arthur and leaves.
Visiting Arkham State Hospital, Arthur obtains medical and police records after a violent encounter with a clerk (Brian Tyree Henry) and discovers that he was adopted by Penny, who suffered from psychosis and narcissistic personality disorder and was a victim of domestic abuse from a previous boyfriend, who also abused Arthur repeatedly with no resistance from Penny.
These revelations drive Arthur to the hospital where he smothers Penny in her bed. On the hospital television, Arthur sees the Murray Franklin Show unveil a clip of his poor stand-up performance and he is mocked by Franklin.
Returning to his apartment block, Arthur makes his way into Sophie's apartment and sits in wait. Sophie is horrified to find him there and it is revealed she remembers him from their one earlier encounter in the elevator, but their whole 'romance' was a delusion and hallucination of Arthur's.
Sophie tries to calm Arthur down but he stares with sinister intent. Sophie's fate and that of her young daughter are left unclear.
Arthur also receives a call to appear on the Murray Franklin show and he is excited to appear and begins to apply clown make-up and dyes his hair green.
He then receives a visit from two of his old clown co-workers and he proceeds to brutally murder one who bullied him in front of the other who he then lets leave due to previously being kind to him.
Leaving for the show, Fleck soon runs into the policeman from earlier who pursue him onto a subway train where protesters against Thomas Wayne and the economic situation have worn clown masks in resistance, inspired by Fleck's earlier subway killing.
The chase and threatening with a gun to move aside sees a shot ring out and a bystander killed, and the protesters swamp and beat the policemen while Fleck escapes.
Going on the show, Fleck meets Franklin and asks to be called 'Joker' as he takes to the stage and behaves in a manner that is both outlandish and unpredictable.
On camera, Joker confesses to the subway killings, attacks Wayne, Franklin and the abusive people of Gotham and how he has been laughed at and bullied and reveals he will judge what is funny. Franklin is verbally angry back and challenges him and blasts his behaviour and crimes before Joker shoots Franklin dead, causing a major commotion.
Arrested by police, Joker watches from the police car as it drives through the fiery riots in the street until a traffic collision sees him freed by protesters.
Outside he dancers on top of the crashed police car and is cheered by the protesters in clown masks.
Meanwhile, one criminal wearing a clown mask confronts Thomas and Martha Wayne with their son Bruce as they flee a cinema into an alleyway and the criminal guns the Waynes down, leaving a young Bruce Wayne as the sole survivor.
Fleck is arrested and placed in Arkham where he is interviewed by a psychiatrist before laughing uncontrollably, but won't reveal the joke to her.
We then see Fleck walking away down the corridor leaving a trail of bloody footprints before then seeing him chased by orderlies.
The End.
Will there be a Joker sequel?
The Joker movie is intended as a standalone film, but director Todd Phillips has not ruled out the possibility of a sequel when clarifying earlier comments he had made.
Speaking to IGN, Phillips said: "The quote was, 'I will do anything Joaquin wants to do.' And I would. But the movie's not set up to [have] a sequel. We always pitched it as one movie, and that's it."
He added: "We made this movie, I pitched it to Warner Bros. as one movie. It exists in its own world. That's it."
Phillips revealed that the film is not part of a plan for further films, saying: "It's not about world-building, it's not about other versions. It's like, here's our version of the origin story. That's it. That's what I meant."
The film directly ties Fleck to the history of the Wayne family despite not actually being Bruce Wayne's half-brother as it seemed earlier in the film.
The actions of the Joker also resulted in the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne, for despite not being directly responsible for their deaths like in the Tim Burton film Batman (1989), he inspired their killer and effectively created Batman.
This also sets the stage for an eventual confrontation between the pair - but whether we see Batman face-off with this iteration of the Joker remains to be seen.
Joker is in cinemas now.
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