Film Forum

U.S., 1975
Directed by Miloš Forman
Starring Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Will Sampson, Danny DeVito, Sydney Lassick, William Redfield
Produced by Saul Zaentz
Approx. 133 min. DCP.

“Only three films in Oscar history have swept all five major categories (picture, actor, actress, director and screenplay): IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, and Forman’s adaptation of the novel by Ken Kesey, which frames the conflict at a mental hospital as an allegory for a polarized culture. At the center of that conflict is a battle of wills between Randal P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), a convict who bluffs his way into the psyche ward, and Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), who runs the place like a sinister warden. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST has a big, generous sense of humor, but there’s humanity, too, in McMurphy’s championing of patients who are more vulnerable to Ratched’s abuses than he is.” – Scott Tobias, The New York Times

Reviews

“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.”
– The Guardian

“He (Forman) 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

“Mr. Nicholson slips into the role of Randle with such easy grace that it's difficult to remember him in any other film.”
– Vincent Canby, The New York Times