‘Illegal’ comic book movie with 96% Rotten Tomatoes score now streaming for free
Vera Drew in The People’s Joker. (The People’s Joker)
Vera Drew in The People's Joker. (The People's Joker)
Fans of low-budget, unhinged trans parodies of comic book movies are in luck this week as The People’s Joker finally becomes available to stream online.
The infamous independent fan film inspired by the titular DC Comics character is now available to watch from the comfort of your own home almost three years after it was controversially banned.
Clown-clad comedian, director, writer, and actress, Vera Drew, announced in a wonderfully chaotic Instagram video on Wednesday (21 January) that the film is now available to watch on streaming platforms Tubi and MUBI.
“You can watch Vera Drew’s critically acclaimed, legally precarious, Gotham award-winning hit film, The People’s Joker, wherever you get your -ubis,” Drew told viewers in the clip.
The film, which features the work of over 200 artists, follows the journey of an “unfunny aspiring clown”, played by Drew, who has spent years numbing herself with a fictional inhalant dubbed “Smylex” after showing signs as a child that she might be transgender.
Eventually, she overcomes the fears and anxieties of living her truth and quite literally transforms into “Joker the Harlequin”, a criminal comedian defying Gotham’s anti-comedy laws.
It was infamously pulled from the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) following legal pressure from DC Comics and its parent company Warner Bros over the film’s prolific use of copyrighted content.
The move prompted widespread backlash from fans who called for the TIFF organisers to show the self-described “illegal comic book movie”.
A movement calling to “Free The People’s Joker” eventually grew into an international phenomenon among cinephiles who demanded the film be available to watch.
It finally received its first official viewing in July 2023 at the Outfest Film Festival in Los Angeles. It then made its physical Blu-ray and VHS debut in 2024 and eventually premiered in the UK and Ireland in February 2025.
Following its physical release, the movie was added to review site Rotten Tomatoes, where it quickly achieved a 96 per cent approval rating among critics.
Richard Brody, reviewing the film for The New Yorker, called it the “best superhero movie I’ve ever seen” for its “deep” and “personal” themes.
Writing for PinkNews, Amelia Hansford wrote that the film’s “aesthetically fractured” scenes are sporadic, but that, if taken together, “speak to a deeper feeling that’s been bubbling under the surface”.
Alongside its streaming debut, Drew also revealed an array of new merchandise inspired by the film, currently available on the US clothing site Yeyo. The available items also include purchasable behind the scenes clips.
The People’s Joker is available to stream on MUBI in the UK and both MUBI and Tubi in North America.
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