Joaquin Phoenix‘s adaptation of Joker has just been met with extremely positive reviews with an eight-minute standing ovation at this weekend’s world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

The first-of-its-kind origins story takes on a film noir approach in telling the story of one of Gotham’s most infamous criminal masterminds.

Director and writer Todd Phillip mentioned that films like The Man Who Laughs, Taxi Driver and Raging Bull were a great source of inspiration in giving the new Joker character a new breath of life.

Phillip has also gone on to say, “We thought this could be an exciting approach to this genre. I’m not sure what it means for DC or Marvel … It was a hard movie for us to get made, to convince DC and the studio at first, but we thought we would keep pushing because we thought it would be special.”

With still a little over a month left until the official release date of the film, some critics have commented that Phoenix’s role could potentially land him a Best Actor nomination at the 2020 Oscars. The film releases on October 4.