Joaquin Phoenix’s ‘Joker’ Scores 11 Oscar Nominations, Including Best Picture

Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker is the most nominated comic book movie in Oscars history.

Joker was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, becoming the first movie based on a DC Comics character nominated in that category. The film is also up for Best Original Music Score, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Director.

The Todd Phillips-directed movie had the most nominations this year, followed by Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, The Irishman and 1917, which each received ten mominations. The Academy Awards will air live February 6 on ABC.

Joaquin Phoenix is the latest actor to don the Joker makeup and costume on the big screen following the likes of Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger and Jared Leto. Joker is separate from the DC Extended Universe in an effort to create new and unique storylines to expand the DC canon.

Warner Bros. tried to tap into Scorsese classics such as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull with Joker, with the Joaquin Phoenix starrer set in a gritty and grounded 1980s Gotham City. In addition to directing Joker, Todd Phillips also wrote the movie’s script with Scott Silver, the man behind the 2002 drama 8 Mile starring Eminem.

Here is the official synopsis for Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker:

Director Todd Phillips “Joker” centers around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone fictional story not seen before on the big screen. 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. A clown-for-hire by day, he aspires to be a stand-up comic at night…but finds the joke always seems to be on him. Caught in a cyclical existence between apathy and cruelty, Arthur makes one bad decision that brings about a chain reaction of escalating events in this gritty character study.

Directed by Todd Phillips from a script he co-wrote with Scott Silver, Joker stars Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Bill Camp, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Glenn Fleshler, Douglas Hodge, Marc Maron, Josh Pais, and Shea Whigham.