Who played the best live-action version of Frank Castle?:

Dolph Lundgren (The Punisher-1989):

Tom Jane (The Punisher-2004):

Ray Stevenson (Punisher: War Zone-2008)

Jon Bernthal (DareDevil S2/Marvel's The Punisher {Netflix}-2016/2017)

My vote goes to Bernthal. Lundgren and Stevenson were a bit too one note for my taste (though Stevenson easily has the best, most Punisher-esque fight scenes) and Tom Jane was basically PINO. Bernthal easily captures the spirit of that character through dialog in the Netflix shows (especially the court scene, great stuff) while offering some nice brutal action in his own right (though not quite up to Stevenson's in that regard), the prison fight was awesometacular and vintage Punisher. He was easily the best part of DDS2. I also dug S2 of The Punisher when he fully becomes The Punisher.

The writing for Frank in Daredevil S2 was good, but I'm not the biggest fan of Bernthal's portrayal of the character. I greatly prefer the cold hatred of the comics over the hot fury of his interpretation. DDS2 was great, but I ended up having to skim through later episodes of the Punisher show because I was losing so much interest. It's been a while since I've seen the movies but I think Ray Stevenson was most reminiscent of comic Frank. It's a shame his movie wasn't better.

I only really started reading comics in the last few years, but the Punisher MAX line is among my favorites, as is Garth Ennis' writing in general. I haven't put much thought into it til now but I wonder who my ideal casting today would be...

Thomas Jane is the best actor to play Punisher. Jakes Netflix version, he seemed like a screaming idiot. Thomas Jane was more cold,brutal and calculating.

I esp loved Laundry Day.

Jon Bernthal for me, everything fit right in for that series and I very much like him in the role.
I also have a soft spot for Thomas Jane because his punisher is a cheesefest, not just his portrayal but the overall movie, "its so bad its good" kinda thing.

Will they let him be as ruthless as he needs to be to see that character done right, though (we already saw how much Kingpin was "nerfed" for the MCU "proper" in Hawkeye)? Sure, we have Deadpool 3 which they said they weren't gonna mess with and Jon Bernthal DID make his desires for the character known (good on him for doing that BTW, just like Ryan Reynolds did for Fox handling Deadpool), but Moon Knight was the closest thing we got to all-out adult fare in the MCU (outside of the Netflix shows if you want to count them) and it's still nowhere near dark OR brutal enough for Frank Castle (seriously). The talking hippo and Kate Bishop shock charge device for taking down Fisk won't cut it for an MCU Punisher movie and/or D+ series.

Bernthal was 100% spot-on when he said:

I'm more and more warming up to Blade and DareDevil being dialed back for the MCU, but Punisher NEEDS to be R (he's the big bad Punisher for God's sake). It's simple really: just have Bernthal show up in a post-credits scene of Deadpool 3 and show up Wade like only he can and fans will get the heads up with it being a Disney movie. You can even have Jon drop a 4th wall red band joke promoting his next "adventure" or something since that's his thing.

I liked the Tom Jane portrayal the best. Jon Travolta messed up the movie though.