44 Years Later, Martin Scorsese’s Dark Comedy That Inspired ‘Joker’ Is Streaming for Free

3 weeks ago 17

Joaquin Phoenix wearing his joker makeup and looking over his shoulder in 'Joker'

Published Mar 7, 2026, 11:40 AM EST

Rohan Naahar is a Weekend News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he'll watch anything once.

He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.

Martin Scorsese didn't exactly gush about Todd Phillips' Joker after dropping out as a producer. Joker was eventually co-produced by Emma Tillinger Koskoff, who worked with Scorsese on the films The Wolf of Wall Street, The Irishman, and Silence. The dark thriller was marketed as an ode to Scorsese's psychological thrillers, focusing on themes of urban loneliness and mental illness. It defied controversy to become the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time — a record that has since been broken by Deadpool & Wolverine. In an unfortunate case of art imitating life, Joker was followed by a sequel that tanked at the box office, mainly because of the genre-switch that Phillips attempted to pull off by making it a musical. Many years ago, Scorsese experienced the biggest box office setback of his career with his first musical film, New York, New York. However, the first Joker remains a landmark hit, and you can trace its provenance back to the two Scorsese thrillers that inspired it. One of them is streaming for free this month.

The most obvious movie that Joker was compared to was Taxi Driver, Scorsese's career-defining 1976 classic featuring Robert De Niro as a vigilante. Taxi Driver is regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, and one of the most personal movies of Scorsese's career; it reflected the inner turmoil that he was going through at that point in his life. In Joker, Joaquin Phoenix's protagonist is also portrayed as a victim of urban isolation. The movie's sympathetic depiction of the character's descent into madness became controversial, which was reflected in its divisive reviews. Joker holds a 68% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, but it won the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival and was nominated in 11 categories at the Oscars. The film's sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, was critically panned. It barely recouped its bloated $200 million budget.

The People's Choice Awards-iversary — The Collider TV Quiz!

On this date in 1975, the first-ever People's Choice Awards ceremony was held. Here are some notable PCA television winners from the last 51 years.

Here's the Martin Scorsese Movie That 'Joker' Borrowed Heavily From

In addition to Taxi Driver, the first Joker film was inspired heavily by Scorsese's The King of Comedy. Released in 1982, The King of Comedy was headlined by De Niro, who played a supporting role in Joker. Scorsese's film underperformed at the box office, grossing just $2.5 million worldwide against a reported budget of $19 million. It followed an aspiring comedian named Rupert Pupkin, who kidnaps a popular television personality in an attempt to become famous. The King of Comedy was as divisive as Joker, and Scorsese has expressed lingering resentment about the late critic Pauline Kael's dismissal of his film. The satirical dark comedy has emerged as a cult classic over the years, and is available to stream for free on Pluto TV this month. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.