one flew over the cuckoo's nest movie review

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, black writers week, one flew over the cuckoo's nest.

one flew over the cuckoo's nest movie review

Now streaming on:

The mystery of what McMurphy is thinking is the mystery of the movie. It all leads up to a late scene where he is found asleep on the floor next to an open window. By deciding not to escape, he has more or less chosen his own fate. Has his life force run out at last? After his uprising against the mental institution, after the inmates' rebellion that he led, after his life-affirming transformations of Billy and the Chief, after his comeback from an initial dose of shock therapy, has he come at last to the end of his hope?

"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975) is on every list of favorite films. It was the first film since "It Happened One Night" (1934) to win all five of the top Academy Awards, for best picture, actor (Nicholson), actress ( Louise Fletcher ), director ( Milos Forman ) and screenplay ( Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman ). It could for that matter have won, too, for cinematography ( Haskell Wexler ) and editing ( Richard Chew ). I was present at its world premiere, at the 1975 Chicago Film Festival, in the 3,000-seat Uptown Theatre, and have never heard a more tumultuous reception for a film (no, not even during " E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial " at Cannes). After the screening, the young first-time co-producer, Michael Douglas , wandered the lobby in a daze.

But what did the audience, which loved the film so intensely, think it was about? The film is remembered as a comedy about the inmate revolt led by McMurphy, and the fishing trip, the all-night orgy, and his defiance of Nurse Ratched (Fletcher)--but in fact it is about McMurphy's defeat. One can call it a moral victory, and rejoice in the Chief's escape, but that is small consolation for McMurphy.

The film is based on Ken Kesey's 1962 best-selling novel, which Pauline Kael observed "contained the prophetic essence of the whole Vietnam period of revolutionary politics going psychedelic." Toned down for the 1970s into a parable about society's enforcement of conformism, it almost willfully overlooked the realities of mental illness in order to turn the patients into a group of cuddly characters ripe for McMurphy's cheerleading. We discover that the Chief is not really mute, Billy need not stutter, and others need not be paralyzed by shyness or fear. They will be cured not by Nurse Ratched's pills, Muzak and discussion groups, but by McMurphy liberating them to be guys--to watch the World Series on TV, go fishing, play pick-up basketball, get drunk, get laid. The message for these wretched inmates is: Be like Jack.

The movie's simplistic approach to mental illness is not really a fault of the movie, because it has no interest in being about insanity. It is about a free spirit in a closed system. Nurse Ratched, who is so inflexible, so unseeing, so blandly sure she is right, represents Momism at its radical extreme, and McMurphy is the Huck Finn who wants to break loose from her version of civilization. The movie is among other things profoundly fearful of women; the only two portrayed positively are McMurphy's hooker friends Candy and Rose. I mean this as an observation, not a criticism.

McMurphy's past is hinted at early in the film; he was sentenced to a prison farm for criminal assault against an underage girl ("she told me she was 18"), and has been sent to the mental institution for "evaluation." He is 38 years old, obviously a hell-raiser, and yet deeply democratic: He takes the patients at face value, treats their illnesses as choices that can be reversed, and tries by sheer force of will to bust them loose into a taste of freedom. The movie sees the patients in the same way. The photography and editing supply reaction shots that almost always have the same message: A given patient's fixed expression is misinterpreted because of the new context supplied by McMurphy. Consider the scene where McMurphy has stolen the boat and has his friends on board. When he is questioned, he introduces them all as doctors, and there are quick cuts to closeups of each one looking doctorly on cue. This has nothing to do with mental illness but everything to do with comedy.

Nicholson's performance is one of the high points in a long career of enviable rebels. Jack is a beloved American presence, a superb actor who even more crucially is a superb male sprite. The joke lurking beneath the surface of most of his performances is that he gets away with things because he knows how to, wants to, and has the nerve to. His characters stand for freedom, anarchy, self-gratification and bucking the system, and often they also stand for generous friendship and a kind of careworn nobility. The key to the success of his work in " About Schmidt " is that he conceals these qualities--he becomes one of the patients, instead of the liberating McMurphy.

If his performance is justly celebrated, Louise Fletcher's, despite the Oscar, is not enough appreciated. This may be because her Nurse Ratched is so thoroughly contemptible, and because she embodies so completely the qualities we all (men and women) have been taught to fear in a certain kind of female authority figure--a woman who has subsumed sexuality and humanity into duty and righteousness. Dressed in her quasi-military nurse's costume, with its little hat and its Civil War-style cape, she is dominatrix and warden, followed everywhere by the small, unspeaking nurse who is her acolyte.

Because we respond so strongly to her we hardly see Fletcher's performance. But watch her preternatural calm, her impassive "fairness," her inflexible adherence to the rules, as in the scene where she demands McMurphy get a majority vote in order to turn on the World Series on TV--this despite the fact that a majority of the patients don't understand what they are voting on. At the end, when McMurphy's final fate is decided upon, note how the male administrator tentatively suggests he be sent back to the prison farm, but Ratched firmly contradicts him: "We must not pass our responsibilities on to someone else."

Is "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" not a great film because it is manipulative, or is it great because it is so superbly manipulative? I can see it through either filter. It remains enduringly popular as an anti-establishment parable, but achieves its success by deliberately choosing to use the mental patients as comic caricatures. This decision leads to the fishing trip, which is at once the most popular, and the most false, scene in the movie. It is McMurphy's great joyous thumb in the eye to Ratched and her kind, but the energy of the sequence cannot disguise the unease and confusion of men who, in many cases, have no idea where they are, or why.

Consider by comparison the quiet, late-night speech by the Chief ( Will Sampson ), who speaks of his father. This is a window into a real character with real problems, who has chosen to be considered deaf and mute rather than talk about them. McMurphy's treatment works for him, and leads up to the sad perfection of the very final scenes--during which, if he could see them, McMurphy would be proud of his star pupil.

Milos Forman, born in Czechoslovakia in 1932, has become one of the great interpreters of American manners and mores. A leader of the Czech New Wave, his early films like "Loves of a Blonde" (1965) and " The Firemen's Ball " (1968) won worldwide audiences their use of paradoxical humor. (In what was seen as a parable of life under communism, the firemen arrive too late to save a barn, but when the farmer complains of the cold, they helpfully move him closer to the flames).

After the "Prague spring" came the Soviet crackdown, and Forman fled to America, where he has had extraordinary success (his " Amadeus " in 1984, produced by "Cuckoo" co-producer Saul Zaentz , won seven Oscars, including best picture and director). Look at the quintessentially American topics of his films: The runaway young people and conventional parents of "Taking Off" (1971), the anti-war musical " Hair " (1979), the New York historical romance " Ragtime " (1981), the defense of a rabble-rouser in " The People vs. Larry Flynt " (1996), the portrait of the McMurphy-like prankster Andy Kaufman in " Man on the Moon " (1999). He sees his adopted land in terms of its best nonconformist and outsider traditions, at a time when conformity is the new creed. His McMurphy succeeds and prevails as a character, despite the imperfections of the film, because he represents that cleansing spirit that comes along now and again to renew us.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

Now playing

Matt Zoller Seitz

Handling the Undead

Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge

Nandini balial.

Robot Dreams

Brian tallerico.

The Dead Don't Hurt

Jim Henson Idea Man

Peter sobczynski, film credits.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest movie poster

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

129 minutes

Jack Nicholson as R.P. McMurphy

Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched

William Redfield as Harding

Scatman Crothers as Turkle

Dean R. Brooks as Dr. Spivey

Sydney Lassick as Cheswick

Danny DeVito as Martini

Will Sampson as The Chief

Brad Dourif as Billy

Screenplay by

Lawrence Hauben

Produced by

Saul Zaentz
Michael Douglas

Directed by

Milos Forman

Latest blog posts

Apple TV+'s Land of Women is Pretty and Pleasant

The Most Intriguing Festival Films Still Seeking U.S. Distribution

Suicide by Proxy: An Interview With the Filmmakers of The Devils' Bath

Furiosa Doesn't Feel Like Any Other Mad Max Film, and That's What's Wonderful About It

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Upcoming Movies and TV shows
Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

What's the Tomatometer®?
Login/signup

Movies in theaters

Opening this week
Top box office
Coming soon to theaters
Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

Fandango at Home
Netflix streaming
Prime Video
Most popular streaming movies
What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

Inside Out 2 Link to Inside Out 2
The Bikeriders Link to The Bikeriders
Fancy Dance Link to Fancy Dance

New TV Tonight

The Bear: Season 3
My Lady Jane: Season 1
Land of Women: Season 1
Orphan Black: Echoes: Season 1
That '90s Show: Season 2
Savage Beauty: Season 2
WondLa: Season 1
Zombies: The Re-Animated Series: Season 1

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Reviews

A rare screen adaptation of a beloved novel that maintains the emotional and dramatic power of the original while establishing its own distinctive approach to the story...

Full Review | Aug 19, 2023

Adapted from Ken Kesey’s novel of the same name, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is an electrifying observation of the need for reform in our mental institutions.

Full Review | Jun 8, 2023

[Jack Nicholson's] certainly never been better than in this superb black comedy about life in an asylum.

Full Review | May 9, 2023

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is still one of the most forward-thinking and emotionally complex films about oppression and people’s rights as it relates not just to mental illness but to society as a whole.

Full Review | Apr 21, 2023

A very young Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd and Brad Dourif all appear in great supporting roles.

Full Review | Feb 10, 2023

It is a political film... I mean political in the sense that it is about power, about ideological tyranny, and behind its façade are all the Solzhenitsyns who didn't get out.

Full Review | Aug 8, 2022

Every vice and virtue is explored with humour and compassion in this masterly film. Altogether, an unforgettable experience.

Full Review | Mar 9, 2022

Under the skillful direction of Milos Forman, and with Jack Nicholson in the "heroic" lead, "Cuckoo's Nest" attains its greatest power in the medium of film.

Kesey's story was hardly designed to be naturalistic, and Forman's streamlining isn't the way to make it work (there may not be any way). As it stands, Forman has merely reduced the story without successfully revising it.

It is Jack Nicholson, an actor continually producing profound and stunning performances, who fires a life in McMurphy different from, but not lesser than, Kesey's character. This is a milestone performance.

I found the ending, with its heavily rigged tragedy and trite metaphors, neither believable nor very moving... [But] in its better moments, [One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest] is hilariously and potently effective.

The problem with stripping away the dramatics is, as I see it, that Forman was not able to replace them with the ingredients of a more truly thoughtful film.

Full Review | Mar 8, 2022

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a rousing, open-hearted film full of good performances, including one of Jack Nicholson's most appropriate studies in insolence.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a film I admire as much as I mistrust. And I mistrust it very much indeed.

When it matters the strength is there, together with the feeling that our judgment of who is mad and who is sane, is at best faulty and uncertain and at worst downright disastrous.

Though I think the film as a whole is too aware of its charm for its own good, I wouldn't want to deter you from seeing it. It is a film that articulates the instinctive non-conformism of a whole generation that regards all authority as suspect.

Forman's direction is thoughtful and carefully objective. If the film has a jagged edge to it and a relentlessly downbeat ending, it serves admirably as the vehicle that will doubtlessly provide Jack Nicholson with his now annual Academy Award nomination.

Full Review | Mar 7, 2022

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest ultimately fails as black humor because it is too real for anyone who wants to think about it not to realize what is causing the laughter. Sick persons are not funny. And McMurphy may be the sickest of them all.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a magnificent achievement -- a broad-shouldered, spaced-out "man's movie," full of rowdy, meat-and-potatoes wit and a rare intellectual alertness that provides a haunting afterglow.

An all but flawless film. It is a movie of numbing power with a raw humor that induces laughter made shrill by an undercurrent of despair.

an image, when javascript is unavailable

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

By A.D. Murphy

A.D. Murphy

Domestic B.0. sizzles in record July 31 years ago
$203.5 mil week makes B.O. history 31 years ago
‘Park’ propels June to new high 31 years ago

Despite its seeming more like a fabulous remake of a dated story rather than the first film version of a noted book and play, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is brilliant cinema theatre. Jack Nicholson stars in an outstanding characterization of Ken Kesey ‘s asylum anti-hero, McMurphy, and Milos Forman ‘s direction of a superbly-cast film is equally meritorious. Louise Fletcher is excellent as the arch-nemesis ward nurse of the piece, handsomely produced by Saul Zaentz (of Fantasy Records) and Michael Douglas. The R-rated comedy-melodrama is one of United Artists’ more impressive releases this year.

The past 15 years have covered what seems to be a century of enlightenment. Kesey, a major intellectual catalyst of the Beatnik era, is virtually an elder statesman of the avant-garde; he and others were stirring up the mind when less aware kids were doing their “American Graffiti” numbers. What used to be theatre-of-the-absurd has become, via and after JFK, the Beatles, Vietnam, youthful rebellion, Watergate, etc., almost conventional, cliche storytelling.

Popular on Variety

Sadly, the ideas herein are today as earth-shattering as The Pill, as revolutionary as pot, as relevant as the Cold War. Gladly, however, their transfer to the screen is potent, contemporary, compelling. And so, the young in head like the young in age can be drawn equally to this film as they are to Bette Midler and Manhattan Transfer.

It was Nov. 13, 1963 that Kirk Douglas returned to Broadway in a David Merrick-Edward Lewis Seven Arts-Eric Productions presentation of Dale Wasserman’s legit adaptation of Kesey’s, book, directed by Alex Segal. “Hello, Dolly!” was In its Detroit tryout that week, and John F. Kennedy had two weeks or so left to live. Eleven weeks later, “Cuckoo’s” had closed, a financial flop. But Douglas for years tried to get a film version off the ground, finally yielding to son Michael who pulled it off with Zaentz; meanwhile, both from its ideas and its versatility as a performers’ showcase, local legit productions abounded. (However, play had a very long run, starting March 24, ’71, off-Broadway with William Devane in McMurphy role -Ed.)

The film, made independently for over $3,000,000 before UA bought into it, traces the havoc wrecked in Nurse Fletcher’s zombie-run mental ward when Nicholson (either an illness faker or a free spirit) displays a kind of leadership which neither Fletcher nor the system can handle. The story is a dramatic staple: “Stalag 17,” “Mr. Roberts,” etc. “Us” against “Them-in-authority.” The latter win, but not without a fight.

Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman are credited with the adaptation of the book (Wasserman’s legit version is given separate passing credit). Despite the pointed directions of empathy and revulsion in the original material, the screenplay draws no sharp lines: Fletcher is all the more chilling in her bland autocracy for being apparently sincere in her vocation; Nicholson’s real motives (for the offbeat behavior in a work camp that has sent him to the asylum for observations) are never clarified. All hands appear equally propelled by a perverse destiny.

The lengthy (133-minute) film first stresses broad vulgarity, as if to get all that out of the way, before moving into an ambivalence where one knows not whether to laugh or cry, or both. The cumulative impact is compellingly downbeat (nobody wins, everyone loses) and at the same time confusingly ambiguous (as befits the shallow liberalism of the time it so well depicts).

One must therefore forget the whole and concentrate solely on the excellent theatrics of the parts. Nicholson, Fletcher, Forman, cinematographers Haskell Wexler, Bill Butler and William Fraker; production designer Paul Sylbert; composer Jack Nitzsche (providing some haunting musical excerpts both in complementary and counterpoint effect); supervising editor Richard Chew, among others.

In addition, the major supporting players (with their 1963 Broadway production counterparts noted parenthetically) emerge with authority: Brad Dourif (Gene Wilder), the acne-marked stutterer whose immature sexual fantasies are clarified on the night of Nicholson’s aborted escape; Sidney Lassick (Gerald S. O’Loughlin), a petulant auntie; Will Sampson (Ed Ames), the not-so-dumb Indian with whom Nicholson effects a strong rapport; William Redfield (William Daniels), the over-intelligent inmate.

Also, Sherman (Scatman) Crothers (Milton J. Williams), the night ward attendant whose hankering for liquor and girls precipitates Nicholson’s wild party; Dean R. Brooks (Rex Robbins), in real life a hospital superintendent who makes a superb acting debut as a skeptical chief doctor, plus being the film’s technical advisor; Delos V. Smith (Malcolm Atterbury), William Duell (Charles Tyner), Danny De Vito (Al Nesor), Vincent Schiavelli (Wesley Gale), among other ward-mates; Nathan George (Lincoln Kilpatrick), a male nurse. Joan Tetzel did the head nurse part Fletcher handles so well here. Christopher Lloyd rounds out the crew, while Marya Small and Louisa Moritz are very chipper chippies.

The film’s pacing is relieved by a group escape and fishing boat heist, right out of Mack Sennett, and some stabs at basketball in which Nicholson stations the tall Indian for telling effect. This in turn makes the shock therapy sequences and Dourif’s suicide scene awesomely potent. The film picks one up in a theatrical centrifuge for over two hours; the trip is more than enough to make one forget the mossbound Sixties’ thrust. – until it’s all over.

Production: United Artists release of a Fantasy Films production. Produced by Saul Zaentz, Michael Douglas. Directed by Milos Forman. Screenplay, Lawrence Hauben, Bo Goldman, from novel by Ken Kesey, dramatized for the stage by Dale Wasserman. Reviewed at MGM Studios. Culver City, Nov. 7, '75.
Crew: Camera (DeLuxe Color), Haskell Wexler, Bill Butler, William Fraker; editors, Richard Chew, Lynzee Klingman, Sheldon Kahn; music, Jack Nitzsche; production design, Paul Sylbert; art direction, Edwin O'Donovan; sound, Lawrence Jost, Mark Berger; asst. director, Irby Smith. (MPAA Rating: R.) Original review text from 1975. Running time: 133 MIN.
With: Randel P. McMurphy - Jack Nicholson Nurse Ratched - Louise Fletcher Harding - William Redfield Dr. Spivey - Dean Brooks Orderly Turkle - Scatman Crothers Martini - Danny De Vito Sefelt - William Duell Billy Bibbit - Brad Dourif Cheswick - Sidney Lassick Taber - Christopher Lloyd Chief Bromden - Will Sampson Frederickson - Vincent Schiavelli Scanlon - Delos V. Smith Jr. Candy - Marya Small Rose - Louisa Moritz Nurse Pillow - Mimi Sarkisian Attendant Washington - Nathan George

More from Variety

Saudi producer mohammed al-turki steps down as ceo of the red sea film foundation, peak tv: here’s how deep streamers cut originals output in 1h 2024, is netflix about to turn into a franchise factory, more from our brands, ariana grande shares sweet childhood video to celebrate 31st birthday, onerepublic’s zach filkins lists revamped colonial home in illinois for $3.75 million, nba draft 2024: rookie contracts for every first-round pick, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, jared padalecki reflects on his 24-year tv run (‘i’m pretty tired’) and what’s not next after walker ends, verify it's you, please log in.

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

‘one flew over the cuckoo’s nest’: thr’s 1975 review.

On Nov. 19, 1975, United Artists unveiled the drama adaptation in theaters.

By Arthur Knight

Arthur Knight

Share on Facebook
Share to Flipboard
Send an Email
Show additional share options
Share on LinkedIn
Share on Pinterest
Share on Reddit
Share on Tumblr
Share on Whats App
Print the Article
Post a Comment

'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' Review: 1975 Movie

On Nov. 19, 1975, United Artists unveiled its One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest adaptation in theaters. The film went on to win five Oscars at the 48th Academy Awards, including best actor for Jack Nicholson, best actress for Louise Fletcher, best director for Milos Forman and best picture. The Hollywood Reporter’s original review is below:

Chalk up Jack Nicholson as yet another strong contender for a Best Actor nomination in the 1975 Academy Award sweepstakes. After the lethargies of Passenger and the forced humor of Fortune , Nicholson illuminates the dark recesses of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with the kind of tough, resilient, multi-layered performance that made Five Easy Pieces and The Last Detail so memorable.

THR Newsletters

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Rapper killer mike won’t face charges for grammys arrest, jason kelce on which part of taylor swift’s eras tour made him emotional, probe into matthew perry’s acquisition of ketamine that led to his death has multiple suspects, david tennant labeled “the problem” by u.k. prime minister in lgbtq+ rights clash, jeffrey wright recruited for ‘the agency’ at paramount+ with showtime, wikileaks says founder julian assange has left u.k. after 1,901 days in prison thanks to plea deal.

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

For Parents
For Educators
Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

Get the app
Movie Reviews
Best Movie Lists
Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

Best TV Lists
Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
Common Sense Selections for TV
Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

Book Reviews
Best Book Lists
Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

Game Reviews
Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

Podcast Reviews
Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

App Reviews
Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

YouTube Channel Reviews
YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

Kids' Mental Health Apps and Websites for Anxiety, Depression, Coping Skills, and Professional Support

Family Tech Planners
Digital Skills
All Articles
Latino Culture
Black Voices
Asian Stories
Native Narratives
LGBTQ+ Pride
Best of Diverse Representation List

Multicultural Books

YouTube Channels with Diverse Representations

Podcasts with Diverse Characters and Stories

One flew over the cuckoo's nest, common sense media reviewers.

Classic and brilliant, but violence makes it teens only.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The hospital psychiatric ward can be seen as a met

McMurphy is grandly heroic. An outrageous characte

Patients intermittently get upset, lose control, a

No overt sexual activity, however, there is brief

Frequent swearing and obscenities including multip

Patients smuggle liquor into the ward and drink he

Positive Messages

The hospital psychiatric ward can be seen as a metaphor for one individual’s fight against a power-hungry, cruel oppressor. McMurphy shows the astounding difference one courageous person can make in many lives. He lifts the spirits of the weak, takes steps toward the toppling of a tyrant, and has a lasting effect on those who have been subjected to inhuman treatment.

Positive Role Models

McMurphy is grandly heroic. An outrageous character, he’s loud, assertive, and flaunts all rules and regulations in order to rescue those whom he sees as powerless. The positive role models are the patients, whom despite some unstable, even dangerous behavior, prove to be loyal, compassionate, and honest. In almost every instance, the ward staff is seen as enjoying unrestrained power over the mental patients. Led by the quiet evil of Nurse Ratched, they seem to delight in coercive, patronizing, and even abusive behavior towards those in their care. Senior hospital staff is portrayed as in constant denial, avoiding confrontation, and perpetuating a quiet, untroubled status quo.

Violence & Scariness

Patients intermittently get upset, lose control, and have to be forcibly restrained by staff, sometimes very roughly. There are some violent outbursts, an occasional fight, including one in which a patient attempts to strangle his adversary. A sadistic nurse causes great harm to several of the patients. (Spoiler alert) There are two deaths in the film: one is a bloody victim of suicide, the other dies at the hands of a patient.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

No overt sexual activity, however, there is brief partial nudity. There are several sly sexual jokes, as well numerous humorous references to masturbation. One patient discusses his sexual problems. On two occasions female "party girls" join the patients and ultimately disappear behind closed doors.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Frequent swearing and obscenities including multiple uses of "Goddamn," "son-of-a-bitch," "hell," "s--t", "c--t," "crap," bulls--t," "a--hole," many forms of forms of "f--k" and more. There are several ethnic and homophobic slurs, usually delivered with a sense of humor, such as: “"Mormon a--hole," "dumb Indian," and "queer."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Patients smuggle liquor into the ward and drink heavily during a wild and unorthodox party sequence. Characters smoke cigarettes continuously.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this adult drama laced with humor deals with life-and-death issues and is set in a hospital psychiatric ward. Intense situations alternate with comic moments, and underlying all are the weighty topics of tyranny, sacrifice, and the fragility of the human mind. There are scenes of sustained cruelty, forcible restraint of mental patients, fighting, and two deaths (including a suicide). Language is strong throughout: "f--k," "s--t," "a--hole," "jerk off," and a multitude of other expressions, including slurs such as "queer," "dumb Indian" and more. Characters smoke constantly, drink, and get drunk in one out-of-control party sequence. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

Parents say (29)
Kids say (44)

Based on 29 parent reviews

What's the Story?

Three decades have done little to diminish the power of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. Based on Ken Kesey's novel by the same name, the film addresses the trials of Randle Patrick McMurphy ( Jack Nicholson ), a petty criminal who decides to feign insanity to get out of time behind bars and into the easy life at the mental ward. Once inside the white-walled hospital, McMurphy finds himself pitted against Nurse Mildred Ratched ( Louise Fletcher ). While Nurse Ratched manipulates patients in group therapy and uses a regime of medication and electroshock to maintain control, McMurphy demands the right to watch baseball playoffs and takes the men outside the hospital grounds on a fishing trip. As the conflict escalates, the line between the crazy and the sane grows increasingly blurry.

Is It Any Good?

Milos Forman's 1975 film adaptation of the Ken Kesey novel is a classic for good reason, starting with Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher who turn in near-perfect performances. Supporting cast members, including Danny DeVito as Martini and Christopher Lloyd as Taber, create a band of institution residents who are warm despite evidence of their insanity. Forman's direction is dead-on, as he manages to capture the monotony of routine on the ward without allowing the film to drag.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about classics. Why do you think this film has lasting appeal? Does it seem dated to you in any way? How does it compare to the book?

What are the messages in this movie? Are there any role models? Who is crazy in the movie?

Movie Details

In theaters : September 23, 1975
On DVD or streaming : September 19, 2002
Cast : Danny DeVito , Jack Nicholson , Louise Fletcher
Director : Milos Forman
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : Warner Home Video
Genre : Drama
Run time : 128 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : Violence and Language
Last updated : June 12, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

The Three Musketeers

Want personalized picks for your kids' age and interests?

The Namesake

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

Movies based on books.

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest Review

01 Mar 1976

133 minutes

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

The first movie since Frank Capra's It Happened One Night to sweep the big five Oscars (director, screenplay, actor, actress, film), Cuckoo's Nest remains an unlikely and inspiring triumph.

The dream-like novel was considered unfilmable, the co-producer was a TV actor with a famous dad, the Czech director was still largely unknown outside Europe and every 'name' actress in Hollywood had turned down the role of callous Nurse Ratched. And yet, as soon as Jack Nicholson signed on the dotted line, everything fell into place.

He may be a huge, red-headed Irishman in Ken Kesey's book, but the live-wire misfit Randle P. McMurphy, who turns the mental institution upside down, was the role Jack Nicholson was born to play. With or without shock therapy, Nicholson is simply electrifying.

But this is far from a one-man show, and indeed, even the non-speaking parts make an indelible visual impression. As direct and simple as it is funny and moving, this is a masterpiece of dramatic naturalism.

The Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship Of The Ring

Movies | 23 01 2022

Movies | 01 09 2016

Movies | 15 01 2019

Movies | 27 12 2018

Movies | 16 10 2017

Movies | 05 10 2016

Movies | 30 06 2014

Movies | 04 01 2014

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) | Review by Pauline Kael

May 27, 2024

Pauline Kael’s review of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest praises the film as a powerful and emotionally stirring adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel. While not considering it a great movie, she acknowledges its effectiveness in engaging audiences and its potential to become a part of pop-mythology, akin to films like The Wild One and Rebel Without a Cause . Kael highlights the film’s successful shift from the book’s poetic-paranoid system to a more realistic portrayal, making the patients’ mental conditions ambiguous and relatable. She appreciates Jack Nicholson’s portrayal of McMurphy, noting his ability to balance charisma and vulnerability, and commends Louise Fletcher’s performance as Nurse Ratched for its nuanced humanity. However, Kael criticizes director Milos Forman for a certain detachment and occasional insensitivity in his humor, which prevents full immersion. Despite these critiques, she concludes that the film is a significant achievement, driven by its compelling story and strong performances, though it falls short of the visual and stylistic excitement found in the works of other directors like Scorsese.

The Bull Goose Loony

by Pauline Kael

O ne Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a powerful, smashingly effective movie—not a great movie but one that will probably stir audiences’ emotions and join the ranks of such pop-mythology films as The Wild One, Rebel Without a Cause, and Easy Rider. Ken Kesey ’s novel about a gargantuan rebel-outcast, McMurphy, locked up in a hospital for the insane, was a lyric jag, and the book became a nonconformists’ bible. Written in 1960 and 1961, and published early in 1962, the novel preceded the university turmoil, Vietnam, drugs, the counterculture. Yet it contained the prophetic essence of that whole period of revolutionary politics going psychedelic, and much of what it said (and it really said it; the book intentionally laid out its meaning like a comic strip) has entered the consciousness of many—possibly most—Americans. For young dissidents, the book was the first—the original—hallucinatory trip. Chief Broom, the schizophrenic who narrates the story, has had two hundred rounds of electroshock; his white mother emasculated his Indian-chief father—made him “too little to fight”—and since from childhood people have treated him as if he were deaf and dumb, he’s so depressed he acts the part. In his account of life in the ward of an Oregon hospital for the insane, Big Nurse—Nurse Ratched—runs the place for the Combine, the secret power center that controls society. The Combine sends society’s nonconformists to the hospital, and Big Nurse forces them into submission—if necessary , by turning them into vegetables. Chief Broom’s view is a psychotic metaphor for a society awaiting revelation, and the revelation comes in the person of the red-headed gambler-logger McMurphy. He is presented in the rhapsodic mode that Steinbeck, in The Grapes of Wrath, reserved for the poor. McMurphy, who hasn’t “let the Combine mill him into fitting where they wanted him to fit,” McMurphy, with his “free and loud” laugh, his “broad white devilish grin,” and “the man-smell of dust and dirt from the open fields, and sweat, and work,” is a jock Christ. By standing up to Big Nurse, he proves that the soul-crushing machine can be beaten; he enables the men in his ward to liberate themselves from their fears, and to understand that they’re sane. They are freed, but he is trapped.

Milos Forman , who directed the movie version, with Jack Nicholson as McMurphy, has understood how crude the poetic-paranoid system of the book would look on the screen now that the sixties’ paranoia has lost its nightmarish buoyancy, and he and the scenarists Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman have done a very intelligent job of loosening Kesey’s schematism. It had to be done. As a postgraduate student in the writing program at Stanford, Kesey was in on some early LSD experiments at a veterans’ hospital, and Chief Broom’s subjective vision is full of dislocations and transformations, but Kesey is systematic in fusing Christian mythology with the American myth of the white man and the noble red man fighting against the encroachment of civilization, represented by women. Though in modern society women are as much subject to the processes of mechanized conformity as men (some say more), the inmates of this symbolic hospital are all male, and McMurphy calls them “victims of a matriarchy.” There’s a long literary tradition behind this man’s-man view of women as the castrater-lobotomizers; Kesey updated it, on the theory that comic-strip heroes are the true American mythic heroes, and in terms of public response to the book and to the stage productions of it he proved his point. The novel is comic-book Freud: the man who achieves his manhood (keeping women under him, happy whores in bed) is the free man—he’s the buckaroo with the power of laughter. Leslie Fiedler described Kesey’s novel as “the dream once dreamed in the woods, and now redreamed on pot and acid.” Kesey’s concept of male and female is not so very remote from that in Mailer’s writing, though Kesey celebrates keeping the relationships at a mythic comic-strip level, while Mailer, in his foolhardy greatness, delves into his own comic-strip macho.

The movie (set in 1963) retains most of Kesey’s ideas but doesn’t diagram them; we’re not cued at every step, and the end isn’t so predictable. (On the shock table, McMurphy doesn’t ask, “Do I get a crown of thorns?”—as he did in the book.) Milos Forman appears to have recognized the strong realistic material within Kesey’s conception. We all fear being locked up among the insane, helpless to prove our sanity, perhaps being driven mad; this fear is almost as basic as that of being buried alive. And we can’t formulate a clear-cut difference between sane and insane. So Forman replaces the novel’s trippy subjectivity with a more realistic view of the patients which leaves their mental condition ambiguous. They seem not much more insane than the nurses, the doctors, the attendants. They’re cowards, terrified of Big Nurse (Louise Fletcher), but then the staff is intimidated by her, too.

What has disappeared from the film version is the Combine (to be known a little while after the book came out as the Establishment). Forman could have exploited the Watergate hangover and retained the paranoid simplicities that helped make hits of Easy Rider and Joe , but instead he (with, it appears, the support of his producers, Saul Zaentz, of Fantasy Records, and Michael Douglas) has taken a less romantic, more suggestive approach. McMurphy’s sanity isn’t so clear-cut, and he doesn’t give his buddies the courage to go back out into the world; the ward isn’t emptied, as it is in the book. (Now only the Indian walks out.) Cut off from the concept of the Combine, the ward symbolizes the pressures and ambiguities of society as we know it, and the movie comes at a time when we’re all prepared to accept a loony bin as the right metaphor for the human condition. But this leaves a problem that isn’t completely solved: Big Nurse. Instead of the giant-breasted terror of the novel, Louise Fletcher’s Nurse Ratched resembles Shirley Temple Black. She’s the smiling, well-organized institutional type—the dean of women who was disappointed in you, the phone-company supervisor who tells you why she has to interrupt your service for nonpayment. Nurse Ratched’s soft, controlled voice and girlishly antiseptic manner always put you in the wrong; you can’t cut through the crap in her—it goes too deep. And she’s too smart for you; she’s got all the protocol in the world on her side. In Thieves Like Us, Louise Fletcher played Mattie, the strong, no-nonsense betrayer. Flere, thinner and almost baby-faced, she’s a middle-aged woman wearing her hair in a forties wartime style and still seeing herself as an ingenue. Louise Fletcher gives a masterly performance. Changes in her flesh tone tell us what Nurse Ratched feels. We can see the virginal expectancy—the purity—that has turned into puffy-eyed self-righteousness. She thinks she’s doing good for people, and she’s hurt—she feels abused—if her authority is questioned; her mouth gives way and the lower part of her face sags. She’s not the big white mother that she is in the book; that part of the symbolism has been stripped away. She’s the company woman incarnate; the only way to reach her is to go for her throat—though neither the novel nor the film perceives that women, too, would want to strangle her. Forman isn’t a manhood-and-size obsessive like Kesey, but the film’s plot structure derives from Kesey’s male-female symbolism, and when that is somewhat demythified, the plot goes a little out of kilter, into melodrama. Those who know the book will probably feel that Nurse Ratched is now more human, but those who haven’t read it may be appalled at her inhumanity. The melodramatics are flagrant in the episode involving Billy Bibbit (Brad Dourif), the stuttering, mother-fixated virgin of the ward. McMurphv fixes him up with his own hooker girlfriend Candy (Marya Small), and the next morning Billy is cured of his stutter—until Nurse Ratched tells him that she is going to inform his mother of what he’s done. Then the stutter comes back. Brad Dourif gives the role a fey spark, but without Kesey’s giddy pop view this crybaby-juvenile bit is a bummer—psychiatric dramaturgy circa Lon McCallister and, before him, Eric Linden.

McMurphy has been successfully modified, however. As Jack Nicholson plays him, he’s no longer the Laingian Paul Bunyan of the ward, but he’s still the charismatic misfit-guerrilla. Nicholson is an actor who knows how to play to an audience; he knows how to get us to share in a character. In The Last Detail , his sweet-sadistic alternating current kept us watching him, and we followed his lowlifer’s spoor through Chinatown. Nicholson is no flower-child nice guy; he’s got that half smile—the calculated insult that alerts audiences to how close to the surface his hostility is. He’s the people’s freak of the new stars. His specialty is divided characters— vulgarians, such as J. J. Gittes, with his Racing Form , his dumb jokes, and his flashy clothes, who are vulnerable. Nicholson shows the romanticism inside street shrewdness. As the frizzy-haired, half-bald clown, he provided the few funny moments in The Fortune ; when this lecher for larceny gave himself over to the hysterical joy of confession to the cops, Nicholson demonstrated that he could get his own high going and lift himself single-handed into slapstick, like a demented Laurel & Hardy in one. But that isn’t really what people go to see Jack Nicholson for. He stretched himself right out of the public’s range of interest in The Fortune ; and in The Passenger Antonioni, who seemed to have no idea what kind of actor Nicholson was, wiped him out.

Since Nicholson doesn’t score when he plays unmagnetic characters— and he must know it by now—the danger in Cuckoo’s Nest is that he’ll take over: that he’ll use his boyish shark’s grin, the familiar preening, brutal one-upmanship. He’s won the audience with his cocky freaks, and this is the big one—the bull goose loony. Nicholson can be too knowing about the audience, and the part he plays here is pure temptation. Before Kesey went to Stanford to study writing, he’d gone to Los Angeles in the hope of becoming an actor, and role-playing is built into McMurphy’s character: he’s swept up by the men’s desire for him to be their savior. Except for the red-haired-giant externals, the authority-hating hero of the book is so much of a Nicholson role that the actor may not seem to be getting a chance to do much new in it. But Nicholson doesn’t use the glinting, funny-malign eyes this time; he has a different look—McMurphy’s eyes are farther away, muggy, veiled even from himself. You’re not sure what’s going on behind them. The role-playing is still there, in the grandstanding that McMurphy does when he returns to the ward after shock treatment; it has to be there, or there’s no way of accounting for why he’s sacrificed. But Nicholson tones it down. As McMurphy, he doesn’t keep a piece of himself out of the character, guarding it and making the audience aware that he’s got his control center and can turn on the juice. He actually looks relaxed at times, punchy, almost helpless—you can forget it’s Nicholson. NlcMurphy is a tired, baffled man. and with his character more unresolved he gains depth. Forman hasn’t let the McMurphy character run away with the picture, and it’s Nicholson’s best performance.

The movie is much less theatrical than the romantic, strong-arming book, yet it keeps you attentive, stimulated, up. Those who got a terrific charge from the book and the play may be disappointed by the more realistic approach, but even when there are clashes between Kesey’s archetypes and Forman’s efforts at realism there’s still an emotional charge built into the material. It’s not as programmed a mythic trip, yet Will Sampson, the towering full-blooded Creek who plays Chief Broom, brings so much charm, irony, and physical dignity to the role of the resurrected catatonic that this movie achieves Kesey’s mythic goal. The film has its climactic Indian-white love-death, and at the end Kesey’s reversal of the American legend (now the white man is sacrificed for the Indian) is satisfying on the deepest pop-myth level. When a movie has this much working for it, it doesn’t have to be all of a piece to give an audience pleasure.

However, it has an element (which has nothing to do with Ken Kesey) that may go slightly against the grain of some people’s enjoyment. In 1966, I wrote a review of Milos Forman’s Czech-made Loves of a Blonde and then backed away, filed the sheets in a drawer, and wrote about something else; it is the only occasion on which I’ve done such a thing. Loves of a Blonde seemed to me too painful for the intentionally comic scenes to function as comedy, and when the camera got in close to unattractive people I wasn’t sure what for; we in the audience knew our advantages— not just economic but mental—over the desolate, hopelessly hopeful heroine, which hardly made her plight funny. There wasn’t any of the stylization that makes it possible to laugh at pitiable people in Chaplin’s comedies. Forman himself must have kind feelings for his characters— perhaps even love—and he must be trying to encompass a wider spectrum of ordinary people than most film directors do. His parents were sent to concentration camps (where they died) when he was a small child, and he could be said to be tough-minded and to have a dispassionate, unblinking eye. Neo-realism asked us to identify with ordinary people; he puts us in a neutral position, asking us to accept ordinary people as humorous without the melting gaze of identification. Yet in Loves of a Blonde what he must have thought he was doing was a considerable distance from what I experienced. (Diane Arbus’s photographs affect me similarly.) He might feel at one with his losers; maybe that explained his refusing to spare them from exposure. But what of the audience? The audience laughter at what I found painfully embarrassing—was that the right response, was that what he wanted? Did it really mean humane acceptance?

Forman’s effort in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is to make the situation “real”; he aims for individualized faces and gestures. Yet by American standards (at least by mine) there’s a stolid, impassive element in his humor; I experience a streak of low, buffoonish peasant callousness running through his work. He locks people into their physical properties; he likes faces that don’t take the light—thick features and muddled stares that bespeak a limited, closed-off emotional life. Forman may be drawn to the European myth that the real people are those close to the land. His characters often seem to be sleep-heavy, not yet emerged from clay. In this film, Cheswick (Sydney Lassick), the infantile, bleating middle-aged inmate, is the most glaring example, and perhaps Forman allows the character of the innocent Billy Bibbit to be overstated because he believes in that kind of innocence also. Maybe the reason the inmates remain unaffected when they see Billy lying in his blood—nobody flips out—is that in Forman’s view it is the innocent and the messianically possessed (McMurphy) who pay. He wants us to react to Billy’s body, but he assumes a peasant opacity in the other inmates—assumes that they’ll go back to playing cards.

It’s this opacity in Forman’s own approach, particularly to humor, that keeps me from yielding to his work. In his first American film, Taking Off, he dropped his ambiguous neutrality in the slapstick centerpiece—the meeting of the Society for the Parents of Fugitive Children, where the parents try to get closer to their runaways by receiving instruction from a hairy pothead on how to smoke a joint. He drops it again here when McMurphy takes the inmates on a fishing trip and we are shown the men’s stupefying comic clumsiness about baiting hooks. These inmates are Northwesterners, living in fishing country, and even if they’ve never fished before they’re not ignorant men. But Forman gets laughs by pretending that mental disturbance is the same as ineptitude. The fishing trip, like that pot party, is Forman’s own comic-strip side. (I think I prefer Kesey’s, even with his view of women.) The borderline insensitivity is only a minor aspect of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but it relates to questions about Forman as an artist.

When a director like Sam Peckinpah puts a group like his Wild Bunch on the screen, the men are so alive that the last thing that would ever come into your head is that some of them are plug-uglies. When Forman introduces his characters, that’s the first thing you see, and in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest it takes a while for you to get beyond that introductory shocked response (often a laugh) and begin to know the people and, in some cases, to enjoy them. I’m not sure that we ever get as far with them as we do right smack from the start with Peckinpah. It’s doubtful if anyone else could have made as good a movie out of Kesey’s book, but I miss the sureness, the energy, and the visual style that, say, a Scorsese might have brought to it. Forman gets his effects here through closeups and cutting, and through such staging as the boat scene, when the men desert their posts to peek at what McMurphy is doing below with his girl. An American director would have carried through on this scene, would have made it pay off. Forman is an intelligent, tentative director— which is another way of saying that his virtues are largely negative. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is one hell of a good film, but it works emotionally only because of its story and acting; it lacks the excitement of movie art.

The New Yorker , December 1, 1975

More: Ken Kesey , Milos Forman , Movie reviews , One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) , Pauline Kael

SHARE THIS ARTICLE

Richard Kelly’s “The Box”: A Modern “Twilight Zone” Experience | Review

With The Box, Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly revisits the popular science fiction atmosphere of The Twilight Zone, crafting a film that balances new technologies with a sense of nostalgia.

Hit Man (2023) Directed by Richard Linklater

Hit Man: A Playful Exploration of Disguise and Reality | Review

Hit Man by Richard Linklater tells the story of Gary, a philosophy professor and undercover agent, who pretends to be a hitman. The film artfully navigates themes of identity and deception, blending various genres with a playful and engaging style.

Sex, Lies, and Videotape: A Long Psychoanalytic Session in Search of Truth

Perhaps it was the title that impressed (and misled) some Catholic critics, but Soderbergh’s debut (Palme d’Or at Cannes 1989) is far from being a film of gratuitous and trivial transgressions. It foreshadows a present dominated and influenced by the explosion of social media.

Viridiana: When Obscurantist Power Attacked Buñuel’s Hopeless Utopia

Criticized by Catholics and politicians, banned in Spain until the start of the post-Franco Transition but awarded the Palme d’Or at Cannes: more than religious, it is a visionary and political film, never blasphemous, with a sharp and secular spiritual aura.

Weekly Magazine

Get the best articles once a week directly to your inbox!

Having witnessed some incredibly weak, and occasionally horrid stage adaptations of Broadway plays, it is with great joy that I announce the utter brilliance of the Jack Nicholson led cast of the Milos Forman film "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest." As Randle P. McMurphy, Nicholson brings an electricity, energy and mesmerizing presence that almost dares to be turned away from...as the foil to Louise Fletcher's Nurse Ratched, Nicholson is daring, bold and constantly exciting to behold. However, he is not alone. The entire film radiates with an excitement that is seldom captured effectively onscreen. Based on the novel by Ken Kesey, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is funny yet frightening, original yet entirely believable. Having worked in inpatient psychiatric care for years, I found myself recognizing these characters, patients and professionals, and realizing that there was a fine line between them. Along with Nicholson and Fletcher, the supporting cast shines including the wonderfully understated Will Sampson as Chief, Brad Dourif as Billy Bibbitt, Danny DeVito as Martini and many, many others including Scatman Crothers and Christopher Lloyd. The screenplay by Bo Goldman contains wonderful, authentic dialogue with a well-developed and constantly involving plotline. From the silence of Sampson's Chief to the rowdiness of Nicholson's McMurphy, the entire cast melds together and forms one of cinema's best ensemble performances. Every aspect of this film's production design is stellar from the sets to the costumes to the score to the cinematography. Quite simply, it excels in every area. The film, originally a Broadway production, never feels like one. The staging is such that the film plays like the sum of its parts...it feels whole, looks whole and is incredibly satisfying. Much like many of my truly favorite films, this film isn't what I'd term "enjoyable" in the lighter sense of the word. Yet, it is incredibly enjoyable and deeply satisfying cinema. Nicholson gives, in my opinion, the greatest performance of a mind-bogglingly wonderful career. In his first theatrical performance, DeVito is simply hypnotic. While Fletcher never found a role again that revealed the quality of this performance...nonetheless, in this role she was simply powerful and commanding. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is a scary film...a sad film...and yet, in many ways, it is a celebration of life and freedom and community. It is a film that will stay with you long after you have watched it...and you will remember the lines and the faces and the stares and the feelings. It is American filmmaking at its absolutely finest.

Lolo Loves Films

Monday, february 4, 2019, movie review: "one flew over the cuckoo's nest" (1975).

No comments:

Discovering good movies, one bad movie at a time

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Running the asylum, connect with us.

Support The Show

Cast & crew
User reviews

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

In the Fall of 1963, a Korean War veteran and criminal pleads insanity and is admitted to a mental institution, where he rallies up the scared patients against the tyrannical nurse.
McMurphy has a criminal past and has once again gotten himself into trouble and is sentenced by the court. To escape labor duties in prison, McMurphy pleads insanity and is sent to a ward for the mentally unstable. Once here, McMurphy both endures and stands witness to the abuse and degradation of the oppressive Nurse Ratched, who gains superiority and power through the flaws of the other inmates. McMurphy and the other inmates band together to make a rebellious stance against the atrocious Nurse. — Jacob Oberfrank
1963. With a few months left in his sentence, thirty-eight year old convict Randall Patrick McMurphy - "Mac" - serving time for several assaults and statutory rape, has just been transferred from a labor camp associated with Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton to a psychiatric hospital. Mac has been able to use acting "crazy" - having a belligerent and smart-alecky attitude and anti-authoritarian behavior - to his benefit in not having to do any work. He is at the hospital as the authorities at Pendleton want him to undergo a psychiatric evaluation to prove he is not crazy, believing this is all an act to get out of work. He believes this stint will get him out of any more work while he serves out the remainder of his sentence. He is placed in a ward with a group of men who have differing degrees of lucidity and control of their mental faculties. He continues to behave in the same manner as always to get what he wants, using the other patients either as accessories or things for his own amusement. He adds to his list of goals to do anything to annoy the ward's tyrannical head nurse, Miss Mildred Ratched, whose seeming want is to break the spirit of any of the men in her care. In his battle with Nurse Ratched, Mac eventually tries to help the men get a voice of their own while in the hospital, and for some for their eventual return to the outside world. — Huggo
R.P McMurphy, a convict serving time for statutory rape, pleads insanity to avoid labour duties in prison. Believing its all an act, the authorities send him to a mental institution where he will forego psychiatric evaluation. Whilst there, McMurphy attempts to liven up the patients and starts an uprising against the tyrannical head nurse - Mildred Ratched. — BecksyKane
McMurphy thinks he can get out of doing work while in prison by pretending to be mad. His plan backfires when he is sent to a mental asylum. He tries to liven the place up a bit by playing card games and basketball with his fellow inmates, but the head nurse is after him at every turn. — Colin Tinto <[email protected]>
In 1963 Oregon, Randle Patrick "Mac" McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), a recidivist anti-authoritarian criminal serving a short sentence on a prison farm for statutory sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl, is transferred to a mental institution for evaluation. Although he does not show any overt signs of mental illness, he hopes to avoid hard labor and serve the rest of his sentence in a more relaxed hospital environment. McMurphy's ward is run by steely, unyielding Nurse Mildred Ratched (Louise Fletcher), who employs subtle humiliation, unpleasant medical treatments and a mind-numbing daily routine to suppress the patients. McMurphy finds that they are more fearful of Ratched than they are focused on becoming functional in the outside world. McMurphy establishes himself immediately as the leader; his fellow patients include Billy Bibbit (Brad Dourif), a nervous, stuttering young man; Charlie Cheswick (Sydney Lassick), a man disposed to childish fits of temper; Martini (Danny DeVito), who is delusional; Dale Harding (William Redfield), a high-strung, well-educated paranoid; Max Taber (Christopher Lloyd), who is belligerent and profane; Jim Sefelt (William Duell); and "Chief" Bromden (Will Sampson), a silent American Indian believed to be deaf and mute. McMurphy's and Ratched's battle of wills escalates rapidly. When McMurphy's card games win away everyone's cigarettes, Ratched confiscates the cigarettes and rations them out. McMurphy calls for votes on ward policy changes to challenge her. He makes a show of betting the other patients he can escape by lifting an old hydrotherapy console-a massive marble plumbing fixture-off the floor and sending it through the window; when he fails to do so, he turns to them and says, "But I tried goddammit. At least I did that." McMurphy steals a hospital bus, herds his colleagues aboard, stops to pick up Candy (Marya Small), a party girl, and takes the group deep sea fishing on a commandeered boat. He tells them: "You're not nuts, you are fishermen!" and they begin to feel faint stirrings of self-determination. Soon after, however, McMurphy learns that Ratched and the doctors have the power to keep him committed indefinitely. Sensing a rising tide of insurrection among the group, Ratched tightens her grip on everyone. During one of her group humiliation sessions, Cheswick's agitation boils over and he, McMurphy and the Chief wind-up brawling with the orderlies. They are sent up to the "shock shop" for Electro-Convulsive therapy. While McMurphy and the Chief wait their turn, McMurphy offers Chief a piece of gum, and Chief murmurs "Thank you." McMurphy is delighted to find that Bromden is neither deaf nor mute, and that he stays silent to deflect attention. After the electroshock therapy, McMurphy shuffles back onto the ward feigning illness, before humorously animating his face and loudly greeting his fellow patients, assuring everyone that the ECT only charged him up all the more and that the next woman to take him on will "light up like a pinball machine and pay off in silver dollars." But the struggle with Ratched is taking its toll, and with his release date no longer a certainty, McMurphy plans an escape. He phones Candy to bring her friend Rose (Louisa Moritz) and some booze to the hospital late one night. They enter through a window after McMurphy bribes the night orderly, Mr. Turkle (Scatman Crothers). McMurphy and Candy invite the patients into the day room for a Christmas party; the group breaks into the drug locker, puts on music, and enjoys a bacchanalian rampage. At the end of the night, McMurphy and Bromden prepare to climb out the window with the girls. McMurphy says goodbye to everyone and invites an emotional Billy to escape with them; he declines, saying he is not yet ready to leave the hospital-though he would like to date Candy in the future. McMurphy insists Billy have sex with Candy right then and there. Billy and Candy agree, and they retire to a private room. The effects of the alcohol and pilfered medication take their toll on everyone, including McMurphy and the Chief, whose eyes slowly close in fatigue. Nurse Ratched arrives the next morning and discovers the scene: the ward completely upended, and patients passed out all over the floor. She orders the attendants to lock the window, clean up, and conduct a head count. When they find Billy and Candy, the other patients applaud and buoyed, Billy speaks for the first time without a stutter. Nurse Ratched then announces that she will tell Billy's mother what he has done. Billy panics, his stutter returns, and he starts punching himself in the face; locked in the doctor's office, he kills himself. McMurphy, enraged at Nurse Ratched, chokes her nearly to death until orderly Washington knocks him out. Sometime later, the patients in the ward play cards and gamble for cigarettes as before, only now with Harding dealing and delivering a pale imitation of McMurphy's patter. Nurse Ratched, still recovering from the neck injury sustained during McMurphy's attack, wears a neck brace and speaks in a thin, reedy voice. The patients pass a whispered rumor that McMurphy dramatically escaped the hospital rather than being taken "upstairs." Late that night, Chief Bromden sees McMurphy being escorted back to his bed, and initially believes that he has returned so they can escape together, which he is now ready to do since McMurphy has made him feel "as big as a mountain." However, when he looks closely at McMurphy's unresponsive face, he is horrified to see lobotomy scars on his forehead. Unwilling to allow McMurphy to live in such a state-or be seen this way by the other patients-the Chief smothers McMurphy to death with his pillow. He then carries out McMurphy's escape plan by lifting the hydrotherapy console off the floor and hurling the massive fixture through a grated window, climbing through and running off into the distance, with Taber waking up just in time to see the Chief escape and cheering as the others awake.

Contribute to this page

Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

See more gaps
Learn more about contributing

More from this title

More to explore, recently viewed.

"We waste our money so you don't have to."

"We waste our money, so you don't have to."

Movie Review

One flew over the cuckoo's nest.

US Release Date: 11-19-1975

Directed by: Milos Forman

Starring ▸ ▾

Jack Nicholson , as
Randle McMurphy
Louise Fletcher , as
Nurse Ratched
William Redfield , as
Dale Harding
Will Sampson , as
"Chief" Bromden
Brad Dourif , as
Billy Bibbit
Sydney Lassick , as
Charlie Cheswick
Danny DeVito , as
Christopher Lloyd , as
Dean R. Brooks , as
Dr. John Spivey
William Duell , as
Vincent Schiavelli , as
Frederickson
Delos V. Smith , as
Michael Berryman , as
Nathan George , as
Attendant Washington
Lan Fendors , as
Mimi Sarkisian , as
Nurse Pilbow
Marya Small , as
Scatman Crothers , as
Orderly Turkle
Louisa Moritz , as
Christopher Campagna as

Will Sampson and Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest .

This 1975 Best Picture Oscar winning film was directed by Milos Forman, produced by Michael Douglas, and based on the hugely popular 1962 novel of the same name by Ken Kesey. It was shot at Oregon State Hospital in Salem, Oregon, the exact same location as in the book. The one major change from page to screen was in the point of view of the story. Whereas the book is told from the perspective of the character Chief, the movie omits his narration and instead uses a more straightforward manner to tell Randle Patrick McMurphy's story. For years Kirk Douglas had owned the movie rights to the novel and had even starred in the 1963 stage adaptation on Broadway.

This is one of the most famous and influential movies in Hollywood history based on one of the most critically acclaimed best-selling novels of the second half of the 20th Century so forgive me if I only briefly touch on the plot. McMurphy is a free-spirited antihero with a disdain for authority. He makes the shortsighted decision to get temporarily committed to a mental asylum in order to avoid physical labor at the jail he is currently serving time at for the statutory rape of a fifteen year old girl. In short, he changes the lives of the patients he comes in contact with, teaching them to believe in themselves and to stand up to the totalitarian authority of the head nurse. It is quite similar in plot and theme, to Cool Hand Luke , which predates this movie by eight years but was based on a novel that was most likely influenced by Kesey's.

Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher both won Oscars as McMurphy and Nurse Ratched respectively. It is impossible to picture anyone else in these roles but many other actors were considered or nearly cast in these iconic parts. Gene Hackman was Kesey's choice for McMurphy, but he declined. Next came Marlon Brando who likewise turned it down. Forman next considered both James Caan and even Burt Reynolds, about whom the director was quoted as saying he liked his, “cheap charisma.” As for Nurse Ratched, the part was turned down by Colleen Dewhurst, Geraldine Page, Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn, Jane Fonda, and Angela Lansbury before Fletcher was finally signed just a few weeks before shooting began.

While both Nicholson and Fletcher were deserving of all the praise they received, the movie only works because of the incredible work by the ensemble cast. It is one of the great supporting casts of all time. These actors actually lived at the Oregon State Hospital for several weeks during the filming. Milos Forman assigned each of them a patient to observe to help them prepare for their roles.

Broadway legend William Redfield is brilliant as Harding. He was diagnosed with a terminal case of leukemia midway through filming but bravely insisted on finishing the movie. He died a little over a year later at the age of 49. Future Taxi costars Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd are both good as mental patients whose lives are touched by McMurphy. Brad Dourif is wonderful as the stuttering, tragic Billy (a role originated on Broadway by Gene Wilder) and Sydney Lassick played hysterically indignant better than anyone. Last but not least, Will Sampson is unforgettable as the giant silent Indian known simply as Chief. He represents the human spirit yearning to be free.

Many of the extras in the movie are actual mental patients and several real life doctors were used as well, including the head of the hospital Dean R. Brooks. He plays Dr. Spivey in the movie and has a famous scene where he interviews McMurphy. Most of the dialogue, as well as Nicholson's acting choices such as swatting at an imaginary fly, in this scene were improvised. Brooks' reactions are authentic.

But it is the tug of war for power between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched that propels the story along. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a beautiful cinematic tapestry interweaving comedy and tragedy together to form a breathtakingly powerful movie masterpiece.

Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest .

It had been many years since I watched this movie. It was one that I remember watching quite frequently in the 80s on HBO and loving it. Then in my junior year of high-school I was assigned to read the novel. After reading Ken Kesey's masterpiece, my view of the movie was diminished. I still saw it as an enjoyable and well acted film, but it lacks the depth of the novel.

The change of perspective from Chief Bromden to McMurphy (the equivalent of removing Nick Carraway's voice from the "Great Gatsby") that Patrick mentioned, is the most obvious change from the book. It was one of several changes that made Kesey, who was originally hired to write the screenplay, quit the project. He would proudly state for the rest of his life that he never watched the film. Other changes include amplifying the humor, the removal of certain plot points, including the suicide of Cheswick, and toning down the major themes of the book which are the emasculation and castration of men by domineering women and the homogenization of modern society that kills individuality, labeling those who dare to be different as “insane”.

Putting aside comparisons to the novel however, this movie stands on its own quite well. It's one of just three movies to have won the big 5 Oscars; Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay. It was Nicholson's first Oscar win and this remains, in many ways, his signature performance. He's bigger than life and he brings a breath of fresh air into the lives of those on the mental ward. Fletcher's win was the only Oscar win of her career, and while she would continue to act, this would always remain her most significant part.

I had forgotten how much humor there was in this film. There are several laugh out loud moments. These comedic scenes are in sharp contrast to the tragic ending and make that ending more pronounced. Much of the humor is provided by the supporting cast, who, as Patrick wrote, are played by many recognizable actors.

This film is a classic and Nicholson's performance is iconic. I would, however, suggest to anyone who enjoys it, that they also read the book. As good as it is, the film only scratches the surface of the story.

Louise Fletcher and jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest asks several questions of the audience. The first is whether or not McMurphy is crazy? He walks in and whoops it up. He talks fast and loose with the doctor, justifying his actions that led him to incarceration. Then comes the first group counseling session where we notice how McMurphy observes everything going on. The rest of the inmates quickly take a shine to him and he becomes the unofficial leader of the pack of inmates.

He and Nurse Ratched first conflict over rules. She is strict with them while he wants to break them as he sees fit. She wins the early rounds, forcing him to take his meds and having the inmates vote over whether or not they can watch the World Series. They vote again the next day and still do not get to watch the series. However, McMurphy ends up on top in one of my favorite scenes. With the classical music playing over the intercom, McMurphy pretends he is watching the game, announcing Sandy Koufax's pitch and the hit. The rest of the inmates become very fascinated by his pantomime while it upsets Ratched. I am not sure why McMurphy references "Koufax." He last pitched in a World Series game in 1966.

The second question is whether or not Ratched is a villain. She is clearly intended to be. Patrick called McMurphy an anti-hero while Ratched represents the establishment. Fletcher plays her as a cold domineering rule enforcer, but she could not play her any other way. It is Ratched's job to maintain order and structure on the ward. She does not budge on any of the rules, making her the perfect foil for the unruly McMurphy, but is she really the villain she is made out to be?

The third question is what is the most effective therapy for the men on the ward? They barely talk in the group sessions and when one demands his cigarettes it breaks out into a fight. McMurphy on the other hand entertains the men on the floor and actually gives them a sense of hope. Clearly his therapy for them is intended to seem more affective, as he puts smiles on all of their faces, but it is hardly quantifiable.

Nicholson plays McMurphy as a man full of life but also full of shit. He is a criminal who knowingly had sex with an under aged girl. His excuse, "She was 15 going on 30." shows how his mind works, justifying his actions to suit his wants. Yet, he also shows that he has a heart, empathizing with the men of the asylum whom he brings life to.

The Christmas party he throws for them answers all the questions. No, Randall McMurphy is not crazy. He is always aware of his actions. Ratched is not a villain, she has her hands full with grown men with very special needs. McMurphy only adds greater stress to her life. The answer to the last and most important question is that, of course, his therapy is better than what the hospital provides. It is unconventional and sometimes illegal but it centers on the positive instead of the negative.

We like McMurphy but he is as much the instigator of most of the problems as he is the solution. Only at the end does Ratched truly become a bitch. After Bobby's stuttering is cured, she single handedly brings them back. By the end of the film both Ratched and McMurphy could nearly be considered murderers. Their power struggle makes for a very thought provoking story.

Photos © Copyright United Artists (1975)

Related Review

Screen Rant

One flew over the cuckoo's nest: 10 things you never knew about the movie.

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

Ana De Armas' Ballerina Now Has Serious Competition To Be 2025's Best John Wick Replacement

10 upcoming movies trying to be the "new barbie", why godzilla really likes to sleep in the roman colosseum in godzilla x kong.

Miloš Forman's 1975 adaptation of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is recognized as one of the finest motion pictures ever assembled. The film earned critical plaudits across the board and is currently ranked #18 on IMDB's Top 250 with an 8.7/10 rating. The film also holds a 93% Certified Fresh Rotten Tomatoes rating and an 83/100 Metascore.

RELATED: 10 Continuity Errors in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

The story follows Randle McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), a small-time criminal who pleads insanity to avoid jail time. When he's interned at a mental institution, the independent spirit fosters rebellious change among his fellow inmates. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest won all five major Oscar Awards, including Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Adapted Screenplay.

It Was Produced By Michael Douglas

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest was first adapted to the stage in 1963 and starred Kirk Douglas in the role of McMurphy. Douglas bought the film rights to the novel when he read the story in galley form in 1961, and had plans to reprise his starring role on the big screen.

However, development took far too long and Douglas became too old to take up the role. Douglas then gave the rights to his son, Michael Douglas , to produce with Miloš Forman set to direct after Hal Ashby was initially considered. This turned out to be a wise decision, as Michael Douglas won a Best Picture Oscar for producing.

It Was Filmed In A Real Mental Hospital

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest was filmed at a real-life functioning mental hospital in Salem, Oregon. Several of the extras and background performers were real patients. Forman even spent a month living in the Oregon State Mental Hospital to observe the environment prior to filming and would roll cameras without anyone's knowledge.

Oregon State Mental Hospital was chosen because superintendent Dr. Dean R. Brocks permitted unlimited access to the facility, including the presence of real doctors. At one point during production, a crew-member left a second-story window open to relay cables, resulting in a patient wriggling through the bars, falling to the ground, and injuring himself.

Jack Nicholson Delayed Production When He Was Cast As McMurphy

Randle in One-Flew-Over-The-Cuckoos-Nest

Ken Kesey was highly critical when Jack Nicholson was cast as McMurphy since he felt that the actor just didn't fit the role. What some may not know is that Nicholson was suggested not by Forman but the initial director, Hal Ashby. This would mark a major first in Nicholson's career, since he never played this kind of character before.

RELATED: Jack Nicholson's 10 Best Movies, According To Rotten Tomatoes

Before Nicholson was cast, the role was offered to James Caan, but he turned it down. Others considered for the leading role included Burt Reynolds, Steve McQueen , Marlon Brando, and Gene Hackman . When Nicholson won the role, production was delayed for six months to accommodate his schedule, allowing Douglas to arrange the perfect ensemble.

Nurse Ratched Was A Highly Sought-Out Role At The Time

Nurse Ratched in One-Flew-Over-The-Cuckoos-Nest

Nurse Ratched was one of the most sought-after parts in Hollywood at the time the film was in production. Although Louise Fletcher ultimately won the role just a week before filming, she auditioned multiple times over a six-month span to get it. Other actresses up for the role included Anne Bancroft, Angela Lansbury, Geraldine Paige, Ellen Burstyn, Faye Dunaway, Jane Fonda , Audrey Hepburn , Jeanne Moreau, and Shirley MacLaine.

Fletcher, who gave the character the first name Mildred in the film (she was unnamed in the novel) and is the farthest thing from the sadistic nurse seen in the film, found the role so disturbing that she refused to watch One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest even years after it was released.

Jack Nicholson & Milos Forman Had A Heated Falling Out

While author Ken Kesey was upset with the entire production, friction also began to mount between Forman and star Jack Nicholson during filming. The feud had much to do with the motives of McMurphy as a character and how he should be portrayed. One major disagreement sparked when Nicholson arrived on set with a thick bushy beard that he found appropriate for the part, which Forman didn't agree with.

The tension escalated so much that the star and director began communicating through the cinematographer, Bill Butler. The animosity was so strong that Nicholson even refused to partake in the film's DVD bonus material, which was released decades after the film's completion.

There Were A Total Of 3 Cinematographers

Chief and Randle in One-Flew-Over-The-Cuckoos-Nest

Two-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler worked on the film for 30 days before being replaced by Bill Butler. Wexler claimed he was fired for concurrently making Underground , a documentary about a radical terrorist group The Weather Underground Organization (WUO).

Bill Butler also worked on the film for 30 days before leaving to serve another project. Butler's absence gave William A. Fraker the opportunity to step in and film the boat scene.

The Fishing Scene Was A Nightmare To Film

Fishing trip in One-Flew-Over-The-Cuckoos-Nest

Speaking of the boat and fishing trip, it was the scene last to be filmed. The rest of the movie had been shot in sequence. Initially, Forman did not want the fishing scene, as he felt keeping the story enclosed in the mental ward would be more dramatic. He did eventually get around to filming it, but not without great cost.

RELATED: Danny DeVito: His 5 Best (& 5 Worst) Movies, According To IMDB

Other than Nicholson, the entire cast got seasick while filming the fishing sequence. Worse yet, the entire sequence took a full week to complete to Forman's liking. To this day, Danny DeVito continues to have nightmares about making this part of the movie.

Sydney Lassick's Meltdown Was Real

Call it a case of cabin fever or life imitating art, but actor Sydney Lassick (who plays Cheswick) suffered a serious psychological meltdown while making One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest . His behavior on set became continually erratic to the point that the cast and crew were concerned for his well-being.

Lassick's condition culminated in an emotional breakdown during the climactic scene between McMurphy and Chief. In the end, Lassick burst out into tears and had to be physically removed from the set.

William Redfield Found Out About His Leukemia On Set

Harding in One-Flew-Over-The-Cuckoos-Nest

As part of the all-encompassing collaboration, real doctors were on set during filming. On hand was the aforementioned hospital superintendent and psychiatrist, Dr. Dean R. Brooks.

During production, Dr. Brooks noticed something amiss with actor William Redfield, who plays Harding (above, far left). Upon examination, Dr. Brooks rightly diagnosed Redfield with leukemia, which ultimately claimed Redfield's life 18 months later.

The Author Really Hates The Movie

Ken Kesey, who based his novel on his time working as a volunteer in a mental health facility based in California, was incredibly displeased with how the film supposedly destroyed his vision due to the number of drastic changes it took. One of his biggest issues was how the movie focused on McMurphy, when the book was told from Chief's perspective. As a result, Kesey sued the producers.

Kesey wanted five percent of the movie's grosses and $800,000 in punitive damages, ultimately agreeing on a settlement. Kesey claims to have never seen the film in its entirety, only once seeing it randomly on cable TV before switching the channel when he realized what movie it was.

NEXT: 10 Films To Watch If You Liked One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (United States, 1975)

Arguably, some of the issues addressed by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest are not as relevant in 2006 as they were in the mid-1970s, but that realization in no way diminishes the film's dramatic impact. This was the second English language film for Czech-born filmmaker Milos Forman, who would go on to win two Oscars (one for this movie and one for Amadeus ), and was the picture that catapulted him onto the A-list for directors. The negative aspects of mental health care impugned by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest are largely no longer in place today (electroconvulsive therapy is rarely used, frontal lobotomies are not performed), but the film's other themes are germane. On the surface, the movie is about the struggle of wills between patient R.P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) and Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). Beneath the surface, it's about the attempts of an autocratic force to squash the individual.

Jail is a frequent residence for McMurphy, whose latest conviction is for statutory rape. Rather than spending time behind bars, he decides it might be easier to serve his time in a psychiatric hospital, so he "plays mad." The plan works, but McMurphy soon discovers that life isn't so great in an asylum. The rules are looser, but some of the privileges he associated with prison - like being able to watch the World Series on TV - do not apply. Undaunted, McMurphy begins to make himself the most popular man in the ward, appealing to types as diverse as the diminutive, talkative Martini (Danny DeVito) and the tall deaf-mute American Indian, who is known as "The Chief" (Will Sampson). There to thwart McMurphy at every turn is Nurse Ratched, whose methods of treatment are so proscribed by rules and regulations that she can't see she's sometimes doing more harm than good.

The most evident conflict throughout One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is that between Ratched and McMurphy. They are natural antagonists. She's a strait-laced, by the book individual and he's a freespirit and rule breaker who pushes the envelope at every opportunity. (The reason he's in prison is evidence of that - having sex with a 15-year old.) For much of the film, they probe one another, each winning minor skirmishes. As the narrative accelerates toward its conclusion, McMurphy risks all in a final gambit. When he loses, we know it's over for him. For all that she is the film's villain, Ratched is not inherently malevolent. She's cool and unemotional, but she believes what she is doing is for the betterment of the patients. She's one of those individuals who does bad things while thinking she's doing good. That makes her more complex and interesting than a character who represents evil incarnate.

On a less concrete level, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is about an issue that was prominent in the 1970s (and has re-asserted itself with some force in the 2000s): the struggle of the individual against the establishment. This is a standard theme for movies and literature; what's different here is that the establishment wins. After McMurphy, representing the fly in the ointment, wins an occasional engagement, he is ruthlessly crushed. Ratched is victorious, as she must be in a tale like this. Like Terry Gilliam's Brazil , One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a cautionary allegory of what happens when too much power is ceded to the government. In the Watergate atmosphere of the Nixon administration, this theme resonated forcefully. 30 years later, with many traits of Nixon's presidency replicated in the George W. Bush administration, this aspect of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (unlike that of the state of mental health care) has relevance.

The film's single sequence that arguably doesn't work is one that some consider their favorite. In it, McMurphy escapes and takes a group of the mental patients on a fishing trip. Forman was initially against including this and had to be "talked into it" by producers Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz. I believe his first instincts were correct. It has a whimsical, fairy tale-like quality that carries the scent of emotional dishonesty. Here, the ward patients are viewed not as individuals but as "cute" caricatures. The feel-good nature of the "vacation" marginalizes them as human beings. There's so much truth to be found in the rest of the production that this portion of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest feels forced and artificial.

The film's ending is unsurprisingly its strongest aspect. McMurphy's fate, presented in such an uncompromising manner, is like a punch to the gut, and the last true act of friendship shown to him by Chief brings a tear to the eye. The final scene is meant to be cathartic, but it doesn't seem that way. Although it's accurate to say that freedom has been attained by both Chief and McMurphy (albeit in different ways), it's hard to see the conclusion as anything but a cloud with a silver lining. For a film that is inspiring and upbeat for most of its running length, this change in tone leaves the viewer disoriented.

As portrayed by Jack Nicholson, McMurphy is one of cinema's iconic characters, so it may come as a surprise to learn that Nicholson was not the filmmakers' first choice. He was number three on the list, and was only offered the part after it was turned down by Gene Hackman and Marlon Brando. In 1975, Nicholson's star was on the rise. He had already been nominated for four Oscars and critics were atwitter about his work in Roman Polanski's Chinatown . For the actor, McMurphy would be the role that provided the final boost into superstardom. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest led to Nicholson's initial Best Actor win, the first of three (to-date). It's a top-flight performance, with the performer bringing out the humor and pathos in McMurphy's situation and showing that a sane man, when trapped in a ward full of insane compatriots, might easily go a little crazy.

In bringing Nurse Ratched to life, Louise Fletcher elected not to take the over-the-top approach of developing the character into a harridan. Instead, she portrayed McMurphy's adversary as an inflexible woman who believed in what she was doing. Self-righteousness, not sadism, is her flaw. This interpretation earned Fletcher an Oscar as well, although her post- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest career didn't follow the same trajectory as Nicholson's. This would be her only nomination. Future movies included Firestarter and Flowers in the Attic .

Other notable participants include Danny DeVito, Vincent Schiavelli, and Christopher Lloyd, none of whom were name actors at the time they made the movie. This was the first part for Brad Dourif, who was nominated for an Oscar, but did not win. The pivotal role of Chief was played by Will Sampson, a Native American with no previous acting experience. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest began a 12-year career for the big man that ended with his death in 1987. He was picked out of obscurity by the filmmakers because he was the only American Indian they discovered who matched the description of Chief as a giant of a man.

Ken Kesey, who wrote the book upon which the 1963 Broadway play and the subsequent movie were based, was displeased with the screenplay credited to Bo Goldman and Lawrence Hauben (Milos Forman also had a hand in writing it). He felt it detoured too far from what he had written, and refused to participate in publicizing the finished product. Nevertheless, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest became one of the most celebrated movies of the 1970s, winning the "Big Five" Academy Awards (Actor, Actress, Director, Picture, and Screenplay) and being nominated for an additional four. Although the picture has not aged as well as some of its contemporaries, its themes remain germane, the story has lost none of its punch, and the performances retain their freshness. Viewed 30 years after its release, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest remains a very good motion picture, although one that perhaps just misses the pinnacle of greatness where its reputation suggests it resides.

Comments Add Comment

Cider House Rules, The (1999)
Citizen Kane (1941)
War Zone, The (1999)
Hole in My Heart, A (2005)
Neon Demon, The (2016)
Showgirls (1995)
Chinatown (1969)
Departed, The (2006)
Bucket List, The (2007)
Mars Attacks! (1996)
Batman (1989)
Wolf (1994)
(There are no more better movies of Marya Small)
(There are no more worst movies of Marya Small)
(There are no more better movies of Louisa Mortiz)
(There are no more worst movies of Louisa Mortiz)

BURDA LUXURY
Prestige Online
Pin Prestige
TRAVEL+LEISURE

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and other movies based on books with 8+ IMDb rating

I sometimes feel a little worried when learning that an excellent novel I have enjoyed will be transformed into a movie, as I think that it may spoil my affection for the original text. Contrary to popular opinion, making a movie based on a book isn’t effortless. Although it might seem straightforward since one simply needs to translate text onto the silver screen, the process is far more straightforward. Cinema history is riddled with poor adaptations which failed to encapsulate the essence of the literary work. However, several movies based on books have indeed been outstanding — either because they are faithful to the source material or add something new and interesting to the story. Or both.

As mentioned above, there is a certain degree of skill involved in turning books into movies. But that doesn’t stop studios from investing millions of dollars in them. Why? Because books often come with a readymade fan base and for screenwriters, it is easier to condense a novel into a movie script than dream a whole new story from scratch.

In 2024, we have already seen some solid book-to-movie adaptations, and there are many more to come as we approach the year’s second half. For instance, based on the Dune books and built upon the world established in Dune: Part One (2021), Dune: Part Two , Denis Villeneuve’s second instalment of the film delivers one of the greatest sequels in film history. It is visually awe-inspiring, narratively compelling and true to the vision of author Frank Herbert’s book. It is also a box office hit, grossing USD 711 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.

Meanwhile, Michael Showalter’s The Idea of You , released earlier in May, is based on Robinne Lee’s 2017 book. It features a charmingly unconventional love story between an older woman and a younger man.

Starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine, the film presents a fresh and poignant take on a romance that defies societal norms. Riding on positive reviews, the movie was watched for 714.2 million minutes between 3 and 9 May and was the most-watched streaming movie for that period, according to Variety .

The year 2024 has many more book-to-movie adaptations in store, including Justin Baldoni’s It Ends with Us , which stars Blake Lively and Baldoni in lead roles. It is based on Colleen Hoover’s 2016 novel of the same name and will be released on 9 August.

From page to screen: Best and most popular movies based on books that you should watch

Jump to / table of contents, the shawshank redemption (1994), the godfather (1972), schindler’s list (1993), the lord of the rings: the fellowship of the ring (2001), fight club (1999), forrest gump (1994), goodfellas (1990), one flew over the cuckoo's nest (1975), the green mile (1999), dune: part two (2024), city of god (2002), psycho (1960), jurassic park (1993), no country for old men (2007), the princess bride (1987).

IMDb rating: 9.3

Directed by: Frank Darabont

Cast: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Bob Gunton

Movie duration: 2 hours 22 minutes

Synopsis: Banker Andy Dufresne (Robbins) is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover and is sentenced to life imprisonment at the Shawshank State Penitentiary. Here he befriends a resourceful fellow inmate Ellis Redding (Freeman), usually just called Red. Using his financial skills and maintaining composure in various situations, Andy quickly ingratiates himself to the warden, Samuel Norton (Gunton). Unbeknownst to everyone, he has been plotting an escape for nearly two decades. An inspiration to Red for finding his own path to redemption, will Andy be able to gain freedom?

Why it is great: Based on the novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King of all people (I say that because this movie is all about hope, and King is usually known for writing bleak tales about ghosts and monsters), The Shawshank Redemption bombed at the box office despite positive reviews. Since then, it has gained a cult following and now figures regularly on the list of greatest movies ever made. On IMDb, it is the top-rated movie, above films such as The Godfather (1972) and The Dark Knight (2008). Beautifully shot, scored and acted, it is the film’s theme of hope in adverse circumstances that has struck a chord with millions.

IMDb rating: 9.2

Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola

Cast: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan

Movie duration: 2 hours 55 minutes

Synopsis: Led by powerful crime lord Vito Corleone (Brando), the Corleone family is a crime syndicate in the post-World War II United States. Vito’s youngest son, Michael (Pacino), distances himself from the ‘family business’ but is forced to take control due to circumstances outside his control. The movie focuses on his transformation from a misfit in the world of crime into a capable mob boss.

Why it is great: One of the best movies ever made, The Godfather is based on Mario Puzo’s 1969 book of the same name and is an utter triumph of storytelling. The superb cast brings life to the story about things like family, power and loyalty. The richly sketched characters and story allow both moments of intense drama and quiet reflection. The visual style of the movie, as well as the score, add to the brilliance.

IMDb rating: 9

Directed by: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley

Movie duration: 3 hours 15 minutes

Synopsis: An industrialist and member of the Nazi party called Oskar Schindler (Neeson) becomes an unlikely Good Samaritan to more than a thousand Jews after witnessing the persecution and atrocities inflicted upon their co-religionists by his compatriots during the Holocaust. He enlists the services of a Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern (Kingsley) who ensures that as many Jews are said to be important to German war efforts so that they will not be put inside gas chambers by the Nazis.

Why it is great: Based on Thomas Keneally’s 1982 novel of the same name (and true events; Oskar Schindler really did exist), this film sees Spielberg making a sharp departure from his usual filmmaking style of crafting exciting set pieces, action and jump cuts. Here, the camera lingers on the faces of the characters and the movie is almost entirely black and white. Spielberg is both sensitive and unstinting in his portrayal of the Nazi horrors and is helped greatly by Neeson’s career-defining lead performance.

IMDb rating: 8.9

Directed by: Peter Jackson

Cast: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, Andy Serkis, Dominic Monaghan, Sean Bean, Hugo Weaving

Movie duration: 2 hours 58 minutes

Synopsis: In Middle-earth, a continent that is part of a world called Arda, an ancient evil is stirring again. The Dark Lord Sauron, who was vanquished thousands of years ago by an alliance of elves and men, plots his comeback through the One Ring, which is in the possession of Frodo (Wood), a lowly hobbit of the Shire. The ring is no ordinary piece of jewellery as it is a great burden for someone to carry and can corrupt even the most strong-willed. Pursued by the Nazgûl, Sauron’s undead lieutenants, Frodo and his friends, Samwise Gamgee (Astin), Merry (Monaghan) and Pippin (Boyd), are tasked with taking the One Ring to Rivendell, a settlement of elves ruled over by Lord Elrond (Weaving). They are accompanied by a mysterious man called the Strider (Mortensen).

Why it is great: This movie (and the following two films that collectively make up the trilogy) is based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s hefty tome, The Lord of the Rings , often shortened to LOTR — which is a single book but is often published in three volumes. Diehard LOTR fans were sceptical when Jackson’s movies were announced. But all doubts disappeared when the first movie was released. It had a truly humongous scale to echo the grandeur of Tolkien’s worldbuilding in the book. Despite all that, the trilogy as a whole was really about its well-rounded characters, portrayed by a stellar (and mostly British) cast.

IMDb rating: 8.8

Directed by: David Fincher

Cast: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Meat Loaf, Helena Bonham Carter

Movie duration: 2 hours 19 minutes

Synopsis: An unnamed narrator (Norton) is dissatisfied with his corporate job and materialistic lifestyle and yearns to find a new purpose. He meets a charismatic soap salesman Tyler Durden (Pitt), and together they decide to start an underground fight club as a means of male bonding and a release from the daily stress. As the club grows more and more popular, it devolves into something more dangerous than the narrator had anticipated.

Why it is great: Based on the novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk, this movie explores consumerism, identity and rebellion. While Fincher had directed Se7en (1995) before (arguably his best movie), it was with this movie that he crystallised his unique style. Here, the unreliable narrator and non-linear storytelling are not merely gimmicks; they serve to give a peek into the fractured and chaotic psyche of our hero, if he can be called that. And much like Psycho (1960), Fight Club has a hell of a twist at the end that will boggle your mind.

Directed by: Robert Zemeckis

Cast: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Sally Field, Gary Sinise

Synopsis: A kind-hearted, simple-minded man, the titular Forrest Gump (Hanks) recounts his extraordinary story to strangers at a bus stop. Despite his intellectual disability, he claims to have experienced a truly remarkable life. He was a part of important historical events in 20th-century America. He excelled in college football, fought in the Vietnam War, became a successful ping-pong player, started a lucrative shrimp business, taught Elvis Presley his signature dance move and more. He remains a good and humble man despite his achievements. He also remains in love with Jenny (Wright), his childhood friend.

Why it is great: Forrest Gump is one of those rare movies that vastly improves upon its source material. It is based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom. While the book is not bad at all, the movie is more focused and emotionally resonant — perhaps it’s also Hanks’ affecting performance that makes it so good.

IMDb rating: 8.7

Directed by: Martin Scorsese

Cast: Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci

Movie duration: 2 hours 25 minutes

Synopsis: Former gangster Henry Hill (Liotta) recounts his life story as a young Irish-Italian American who gets involved in the Italian-American Mafia in New York and quickly rises through the ranks, thanks to his intelligence and resourcefulness. He is guided by charismatic Jimmy Conway (De Niro) and volatile (and plain insane, if you ask me) Tommy DeVito (Pesci) in organised crime. The lifestyle he describes is not only glamorous but is also full of dangers lurking around the corner.

Why it is great: Based on the non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, this movie is arguably the best of Scorsese’s mob movies. And if you are even remotely familiar with his oeuvre, you know that is saying something. Loud, rambunctious and stylish, it is a stunningly shot and acted movie that immerses you in beautifully recreated 1960s and 1970s New York that is both seductive and perilous, even for mobsters. The soundtrack is astoundingly good — not just the background score but also songs that pepper the narrative.

Directed by: Miloš Forman

Cast: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Michael Berryman

Movie duration: 2 hours 13 minutes

Synopsis: Randle McMurphy (Nicholson), a statutory rape convict who pretends to be insane, avoids imprisonment and gets transferred to a mental institution instead. But even there, he does not find things as easy as he would have liked. Patients at the facility are tortured, dehumanised and oppressed by Nurse Ratched (Fletcher), a heartless and cruel woman. McMurphy’s arrival, however, augurs change as he inspires other patients to stand up to Ratched.

Why it is great: Based on Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel of the same name, this movie is an engaging examination of institutionalised oppression and human resilience. There is something raw and evocative about this movie that is often sanitised in other movies of this kind. Nicholson proves, even more here than in The Shining (1980), I believe, why he is one of the greatest film actors this world has ever seen. He is electric, filled with a rebellious energy in the film.

IMDb rating: 8.6

Cast: Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan, David Morse

Movie duration: 3 hours 9 minutes

Synopsis: In 1930s Louisiana, Paul Edgecomb (Hanks) is a senior prison guard whose job is to oversee death row inmates. A hulking John Coffey (Duncan) is brought to the Green Mile, as the penitentiary is called because of its green linoleum floor. Turns out, he is accused of raping and murdering two little girls. But Paul and other guards cannot find a mean bone in John, who despite his bulk is gentle and childlike in his disposition. Surely, such a man could not have committed such a heinous crime? Things get stranger when it is revealed that John possesses magical healing powers.

Why it is great: Like The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile is directed by Frank Darabont and is based on a Stephen King novel — both movies are set in a prison and share cast members. Darabont directed a couple of truly great King adaptations (also check out his 2007 movie, The Mist ). Although The Green Mile is a bleak story, unlike The Shawshank Redemption , it is as impressive in its depiction of the human condition. Despite its moments of pathos, it nevertheless gives glimpses of hope.

Directed by: Denis Villeneuve

Cast: Timothée Chalamet , Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson

Movie duration: 2 hours 46 minutes

Synopsis: Following the attack on House Atreides by Harkonnens, Paul Atreides (Chalamet) and his mother Lady Jessica (Ferguson) join forces with the desert-dwelling Fremen to fight for the control of Arrakis. Paul grapples with the weight of being a supposed messiah to the Fremen and his romantic feelings for Chani (Zendaya), a young Fremen woman.

Why it is great: Part Two is, like Dune: Part One , an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune (the first movie covers the first half and the second half covers the rest of the novel). Even more than the first movie, the sequel is a grandiloquent visual marvel that deserves to be seen on the biggest screen available. It is more action-heavy than the first movie, and the scale and scope of the battles and worldbuilding will take your breath away. It’s not just bells and whistles, though. The script is taut, and the story is richly thematic, exploring topics like religion and power.

Directed by: Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund

Cast: Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino, Matheus Nachtergaele

Movie duration: 2 hours 10 minutes

Synopsis: In Rio de Janeiro’s slums, two boys, Rocket (Rodrigues) and Li’l Zé (Firmino) go on diverging paths. While the former becomes a photographer, the latter becomes a ruthless drug lord. The story is also about the birth of organised crime in the city and paints a vivid picture of what life is like in the favelas (the term means slum or ghetto).

Why it is great: Based on Paulo Lins’ novel of the same name, the movie is also inspired by real events. The movie is unflinching, visceral and has a raw quality to it. The filmmaking style makes it almost look like a documentary, as though we are stealing glimpses of real people and their daily lives. City of God was and remains a landmark achievement.

IMDb rating: 8.5

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock

Cast: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles

Movie duration: 1 hour 49 minutes

Synopsis: Marion Crane (Leigh) is a young woman who has stolen a large sum of money from her boss and is on the run. She takes refuge from a storm in Bates Motel. Run by Norman Bates (Perkins), who appears nice enough, there are hints of something sinister beneath the friendly façade. He appears to live in a house beside the motel in the terror of his unseen but controlling mother. As the night wears on, Marion is attacked by a knife-wielding assailant.

Why it is great: Based on Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel, Psycho is the most ‘Hitchockian’ of all Hitchcock movies — the adjective suggesting suspense, unreliable characters, psychological complexity, one-location settings and plot twists. This movie has all of that and more. The twist at the end of the movie is often imitated but never rivalled. Even after multiple viewings, its climactic scene has retained its impact on me. It was a slasher movie before the term was popularised by Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and then Halloween (1978).

IMDb rating: 8.2

Cast: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Ariana Richards, Joseph Mazzello

Movie duration: 2 hours 7 minutes

Synopsis: A billionaire, John Hammond (Attenborough), builds an amusement park on an island and populates it with dinosaurs, genetically engineered by scientists in his employ. To acquire a safety certification, he invites palaeontologist Alan Grant (Neill) and palaeobotanist Ellie Sattler (Dern) to the park. Chaotician Dr. Ian Malcolm (Goldblum) is also invited, though not by Hammond. During a tour, power systems fail and the dreaded Tyrannosaurus rexes break free, causing chaos. Grant finds himself protecting Hammond’s young grandchildren, Tim (Mazzello) and Lex (Richards).

Why it is great: Based on Michael Crichton’s book of the same name, Jurassic Park is simply the best Spielberg movie according to me. And that alone makes it one of the best movies ever. If Spielberg invented the summer blockbuster with Jaws (1975), he perfected it with Jurassic Park . The movie features visual effects, driven by animatronics and CGI, that hold up astonishingly well even today. But more than the visuals, it is the constant sense of tension that made it so successful and influential. The movie also led to a burst of interest in these prehistoric beasts and might have inspired many kids to take up the field of palaeontology.

Directed by: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin

Movie duration: 2 hours 2 minutes

Synopsis: In Texas in the 1980s, Anton Chigurh (Bardem) is a callous and efficient hitman who is tasked with recovering a suitcase of stolen money. The said money is in the possession of Llewelyn Moss (Brolin), a humble welder who found it at the scene of a drug deal gone wrong. The two engaged in a deadly game of cat and mouse. Also involved is Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Jones), a cynical cop who is unable to deal with the new-age violence and chaos in his community.

Why it is great: Based on Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel, this movie nicely illustrates why cinema is primarily a visual medium that does not really require a lot of dialogue or — in some cases — any dialogue. Whatever dialogue is there in No Country for Old Men , however, is punchy and extremely quote-worthy, fleshing out the characters with the precision of Remington Model 700.

IMDb rating: 8

Directed by: Rob Reiner

Cast: Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Robin Wright, Chris Sarandon

Movie duration: 1 hour 38 minutes

Synopsis: Framed as a fairy tale told by a grandfather to his sick grandson, the story-within-a-story follows a beautiful young woman Buttercup (Wright) and her true love Westley (Savage). Westley must rescue Buttercup from the evil Prince Humperdinck (Sarandon), who wishes to marry her against her will. Along the way, Westley encounters numerous challenges and a colourful cast of characters, including a swashbuckling Spaniard swordsman Inigo Montoya (Patinkin) and the gentle giant Fezzik (André the Giant).

Why it is great: Based on William Goldman’s novel of the same name, the movie has everything, be it comedy, romance and adventure. It is also unapologetically derivative and wears its influences on its sleeves. But unlike, say, Shrek (2001), it embraces those tropes instead of parodying them. It’s an instant classic.

(Hero image: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc./ IMDb; Featured image: Courtesy of IMDb)

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

-What is the best movie based on a book?

It’s highly subjective, but I’d say all three of The Lord of the Rings movies (2001-2003) are the best book adaptations, mainly due to their brilliance and a little because of the difficulty that was involved in adapting the source material.

-What is the most successful movie based on a book?

If we go by box office numbers, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is the highest-grossing movie that is also a book adaptation. It earned USD 1.34 billion in 2011. However, if we measure success by how many Oscars a movie won, then The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) and Ben-Hur (1959) take the top spot as they both won 11 Oscars.

-What is the highest-rated movie of all time?

The Shawshank Redemption (1994) is the highest-rated movie on IMDb with a rating of 9.3.

-Which Netflix movies are based on books?

A few movies on Netflix that are based on books include Dune (2021), Extraction (2020), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Enola Holmes (2020) and The White Tiger (2021).

Kshitij Rawat

Kshitij is a journalism graduate who did not initially intend to become a film critic, but such are the vagaries of destiny. Now, Kshitij is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic and a member of the Film Critics Guild, bringing expertise and experience in evaluating entertainment content with him. Additionally, he serves as a jury member on the Critics' Choice Awards in India. When he's not busy wielding words, catch him nose-deep in books or joyfully lost in the realms of gaming and photography.

Yes, I agree to the Privacy Policy

Most Popular

Recommended for you

Super Rich in Korea vs Bling Empire : Richest cast members, OTT moments & more

Park Seo-joon dating history: His rumoured relationships with Lauren Tsai, Xooos and others

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder : Cast, release date, where to watch

A look at all the Korean heartthrobs that are a part of singer IU’s dating history

For your daily updates on all things luxury, follow us at @lifestyleasiahk

Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest updates.

You’re all set

Thank you for your subscription.

COMMENTS

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest movie review (1975)
Directed by. Milos Forman's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is a film so good in so many of its parts that there's a temptation to forgive it when it goes wrong. But it does go wrong, insisting on making larger points than its story really should carry, so that at the end, the human qualities of the characters get lost in the significance of ...
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest movie review (1975)
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975) is on every list of favorite films. It was the first film since "It Happened One Night" (1934) to win all five of the top Academy Awards, for best picture, actor (Nicholson), actress (Louise Fletcher), director (Milos Forman) and screenplay (Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman).It could for that matter have won, too, for cinematography (Haskell Wexler) and ...
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Alexander Walker London Evening Standard One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a film I admire as much as I mistrust. And I mistrust it very much indeed. Mar 8, 2022 Full Review Derek Malcolm ...
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Adapted from Ken Kesey's novel of the same name, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is an electrifying observation of the need for reform in our mental institutions. Full Review | Jun 8, 2023.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (film)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a 1975 American psychological drama film directed by Miloš Forman, based on the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey.The film stars Jack Nicholson as a new patient at a mental institution, alongside Louise Fletcher as a sadistic nurse. The supporting cast is Will Sampson, Danny DeVito, Sydney Lassick, William Redfield, and the film debuts of ...
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Review
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. By A.D. Murphy. Courtesy of United Artists. Despite its seeming more like a fabulous remake of a dated story rather than the first film version of a noted book ...
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
No review of this film is complete without mentioning the notable character of "Chief" Bromden, played effectively by Will Sampson. ... you could see their friendship start to unfold out throughout the movie. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the title "villain" would definitely belong to Nurse Ratched. She gave threats to the patients, she ...
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Directed by Milos Forman. With Michael Berryman, Peter Brocco, Dean R. Brooks, Alonzo Brown. In the Fall of 1963, a Korean War veteran and criminal pleads insanity and is admitted to a mental institution, where he rallies up the scared patients against the tyrannical nurse.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One Flew over the Cuckoo 's Nest is an earnest attempt to make a serious film. But in the end the movie backs away from both the human reality and the cloudy but potent symbolism that Ken Kesey found in the asylum. Read More. By Richard Schickel FULL REVIEW. See All 20 Critic Reviews.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
This slick and entertaining 1975 film of Ken Kesey's cult novel will inevitably disappoint admirers of director Milos Forman's earlier work. 70. The New York Times Vincent Canby. A comedy that can't quite support its tragic conclusion, which is too schematic to be honestly moving, but it is acted with such a sense of life that one responds to ...
'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' Review: 1975 Movie
On Nov. 19, 1975, United Artists unveiled its One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest adaptation in theaters. The film went on to win five Oscars at the 48th Academy Awards, including best actor for ...
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Movie Review
Our review: Parents say ( 30 ): Kids say ( 44 ): Milos Forman's 1975 film adaptation of the Ken Kesey novel is a classic for good reason, starting with Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher who turn in near-perfect performances. Supporting cast members, including Danny DeVito as Martini and Christopher Lloyd as Taber, create a band of institution ...
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Review
29 Feb 1976. Running Time: 133 minutes. Certificate: 18. Original Title: One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. The first movie since Frank Capra's It Happened One Night to sweep the big five Oscars ...
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a powerful, smashingly effective movie—not a great movie but one that will probably stir audiences' emotions and join the ranks of such pop-mythology films as The Wild One, Rebel Without a Cause, and Easy Rider. Ken Kesey 's novel about a gargantuan rebel-outcast, McMurphy, locked up in a hospital for ...
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" Review
The entire film radiates with an excitement that is seldom captured effectively onscreen. Based on the novel by Ken Kesey, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is funny yet frightening, original yet entirely believable. Having worked in inpatient psychiatric care for years, I found myself recognizing these characters, patients and professionals ...
Movie Review: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975)
Movie : "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". Director: Milos Forman. Year: 1975. Rating: R. Running Time: 2 hours, 13 minutes. A convicted felon is transferred to a mental hospital for evaluation, but when his antagonizing antics get him officially committed, he soon realizes that he may have been better off in prison.
The New York Times: Best Pictures
REVIEW | 'ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST' Jack Nicholson, the Free Spirit of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' ... America is much too big and various to be satisfactorily reduced to the dimensions of one mental ward in a movie like this. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST . With Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, William Redfield, Will Sampson ...
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" Movie Review
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Review One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one of those classics that, by being a perfect microcosm of an aspect of our civilization, stands the test of time. This is the story of the struggle of Randle McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) with the system.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
Ken Kesey's 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one of the bibles of the 1960s counterculture in the U.S., a link between the Beats of the late '50s and the hippies of the late '60s and their shared belief in the fundamental rottenness of the The System. That it would be made into a film of some wort was probably inevitable; that it ...
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
Summaries. In the Fall of 1963, a Korean War veteran and criminal pleads insanity and is admitted to a mental institution, where he rallies up the scared patients against the tyrannical nurse. McMurphy has a criminal past and has once again gotten himself into trouble and is sentenced by the court. To escape labor duties in prison, McMurphy ...
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Will Sampson and Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. This 1975 Best Picture Oscar winning film was directed by Milos Forman, produced by Michael Douglas, and based on the hugely popular 1962 novel of the same name by Ken Kesey.
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest: 10 Things You Never Knew About The Movie
Miloš Forman's 1975 adaptation of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is recognized as one of the finest motion pictures ever assembled. The film earned critical plaudits across the board and is currently ranked #18 on IMDB's Top 250 with an 8.7/10 rating.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
A movie review by James Berardinelli. Arguably, some of the issues addressed by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest are not as relevant in 2006 as they were in the mid-1970s, but that realization in no way diminishes the film's dramatic impact. This was the second English language film for Czech-born filmmaker Milos Forman, who would go on to win ...
13 Popular Film Endings from the '70s That Wouldn't Be ...
Released in 1975, 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' had a pretty tragic ending where Randle McMurphy tried to kill himself while fighting against the oppressive mental institution, and his ...
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and other movies based on books with 8
Home > Entertainment > One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and other movies based on books with 8+ IMDb rating. Entertainment. Published: Jun 26, ... Riding on positive reviews, the movie was watched for 714.2 million minutes between 3 and 9 May and was the most-watched streaming movie for that period, ...
The Inspiration Behind Jeff Nichols' 'The Bikeriders ...
Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest resulted from a similar journalistic curiosity, and Hunter S. Thompson wrote Hell's Angels (1967) about the California-based biker club.