17 Important References In 'Joker' You Might Have Missed

Rather than the traditional Warner Bros. logo we’ve grown accustomed to in recent years, Joker opens with an entirely different, vintage version of the WB logo.

This isn’t some new design the filmmakers came up with to make the film appear dated - it’s the actual logo Warner Bros. used from 1972-1984.

Joker pulls from several important Batman comics to create its story, but the one it perhaps references most directly is The Killing Joke by writer Alan Moore and artist Brian Bolland. In the classic 1988 comic, Joker - who also starts off as a struggling stand-up comedian - suggests it only takes "one bad day" to turn a person into either a hero like Batman or a monster like Joker. 

In the movie, not only do the events happen over the course of just a few days, but Arthur Fleck, the budding Joker himself, says he had "a bad day."

Arthur Fleck's disastrous stand-up set occurred at a comedy club called Pogo's.

This immediately brings to mind Pogo the Clown, which was the clown alias of the notorious John Wayne Gacy.

Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver is considered one of the greatest films of all time. Like Joker, it revolves around an alienated, mentally unstable man living in New York City (Gotham's real-world proxy) and eventually descending into madness and carnage. Taxi Driver is, in many ways, the template for Joker, and as such, the latter makes several references to its 1976 inspiration.

Taxi Driver's most famous scene is Travis Bickle's "You talkin' to me?" moment in front of the mirror, in which he practices pulling his concealed firearm on a hypothetical foe. Joker's Arthur Fleck not only has own share of moments forging his fledgling identity in front of a mirror, but has his own play-acting session with his newfound piece, alone in his living room.

The two protagonists share numerous other similarities, including the fact that they both jot down their increasingly disturbed thoughts in a personal journal. And then of course there's Robert De Niro - Travis Bickle himself - who pops up in a key role in Joker. Perhaps the most overt visual nod, however, takes place early on, during Arthur's first onscreen interaction with his neighbor (and burgeoning crush), Sophie (Zazie Beetz). As they share gestures and small talk about the state of the world - and the state of the rickety elevator they're sharing - Sophie mimes putting a piece to her head in a shot that directly mirrors an iconic image of Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver's bloody climax.

In 2017, Joaquin Phoenix starred in another movie about a dangerous weirdo who lives with his mom - Lynne Ramsay's You Were Never Really Here. Between scenes of Phoenix bashing people with a hammer, viewers are treated to flashbacks of the character’s childhood. The child who played the younger version of Phoenix's character was Dante Pereira-Olson.

In Joker, Phoenix reunites with his once-younger self, as the young Bruce Wayne is played by none other than Dante Pereira-Olson. Maybe the kid is just a good actor, but if they're trying to subtly imply Bruce could be Arthur Fleck's brother, picking somebody a casting director thought looked like a young Joaquin Phoenix is a great place to start.

Arthur's breaking point in Joker loosely references the infamous Bernie Goetz subway shooting in New York City. In 1984, Goetz drew a side arm on the subway and shot four African American teenagers he claimed were preparing to rob him, sparking a wide array of press and backlash in the city and nationally.

In Joker, the men are wealthy finance types who hassle a woman, then move on to Arthur and beat him up before he draws on them. The confrontation is fatal and ignites more angry sentiment toward the rich, with the unknown assailant being propped up as something of a hero, and the Wall Street guys as deserving victims. But the general framework of the reference - an '80s subway shooting igniting a firestorm of tabloid press and varied passionate public opinion - certainly appears intentional.