A bold, self-sabotaging sequel that swaps comic-book escalation for a grim, meta musical about performance, obsession, and audience expectation. It’s visually polished and often fascinating, but deliberately abrasive and emotionally distancing, so it lands as an artful provocation more than a crowd-pleaser.
Joker: Folie à Deux
Where to watch: Buy
Movie · Drama · Crime
Tue · 2h 18m
Director: Todd Phillips
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson
Overview
While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur Fleck not only stumbles upon true love, but also finds the music that's always been inside him.
Director
Todd Phillips
Cast
Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson
Curator Review
Verdict
A bold, self-sabotaging sequel that swaps comic-book escalation for a grim, meta musical about performance, obsession, and audience expectation. It’s visually polished and often fascinating, but deliberately abrasive and emotionally distancing, so it lands as an artful provocation more than a crowd-pleaser.
Best for
Viewers curious about risky studio sequels that actively reject fan service
Fans of psychological character studies with musical and courtroom elements
People interested in films that critique celebrity, spectacle, and toxic fandom
Audiences open to bleak, ironic, or anti-hero deconstruction
Skip if
You want the first film’s intensity without the self-aware detours
You dislike musicals or genre mashups
You prefer propulsive plotting and clear payoff
You’re looking for a straightforward comic-book sequel or cathartic villain arc
Overview
Joker: Folie à Deux is less a sequel than a rebuttal. Todd Phillips takes the grim, urban-rot energy of the first film and folds it into a stylized, often alienating musical that seems determined to frustrate anyone hoping for a bigger, meaner repeat. The result is polished, committed, and frequently provocative, even when it feels like it’s fighting the very premise that made it exist.
Worth noting
Joaquin Phoenix remains fully inhabiting Arthur Fleck as a damaged, unstable figure whose inner life is expressed through performance as much as violence. Lady Gaga adds a cool, unsettling counterweight, and the film’s best stretches come from the uneasy chemistry between fantasy, romance, and delusion. But the movie is also intentionally anti-release: it withholds the usual sequel pleasures and turns that refusal into the point.
Bottom line
That makes it fascinating to discuss and easy to admire in pieces, but harder to love as a whole. If you’re drawn to abrasive auteur swings, dark satire, and movies that interrogate their own audience, it has real value. If you want momentum, emotional payoff, or a clean continuation of the original, this is likely to feel like a provocation rather than a reward.
Top Letterboxd reviews
ram<3 (1★) · 19063 likes
la la land for couples who match each other’s freak
cob (1.5★) · 17438 likes
j-j-j-joker face, j-j-joker face
Ana V (1.5★) · 16080 likes
This is like when that one mediocre kid somehow got 100% on a test but everyone knew it was just because he copied the actual smart kid but then the smart kid changed seats so he went on to get 0.5% on the next test because he couldn’t rip anyone off anymore. All this to say, this was fucking trash.
demi adejuyigbe · 13305 likes
my ex worked in the art department for this movie over a year and a half ago while we were living together and it was a lot of hard work and i am very proud of her and i know exactly who was not nice on this project and i fully intend to haunt them for the rest of my days :) movie looks good! anyway we went to see it in a big group and she told me i
ElCiulador (3.5★) · 11971 likes
Joaquin Phoenix spawning cigarettes out of nowhere for 2 hours
Themes
psychological breakdown, dual identity, toxic fandom, celebrity and spectacle, romance as delusion, musical fantasy, anti-sequel, institutional confinement