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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Year of Release: 1975
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Brad Dourif, William Redfield, Will Sampson, Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd
Director: Milos Forman
Writer: Ken Kesey, Bo Goldman
Rating: R
Running Time: 129 Minutes (2 hours, 9 minutes)
Academy Awards: Best Picture, Actor (Nicholson), Actress (Fletcher), Director (Forman), Adapted Screenplay.
Academy Award Nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Dourif), Cinematography, Editing.
Nicholson is superb in his well-known role as Randle Patrick McMurphy, a small-time criminal who thinks he has found an easy way out of jail time by playing crazy. However, when he is sent to a mental hospital headed by the tyrannical Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), he finds out that he would have been better off in jail. Fletcher is perfectly icy in her role as the hard-hearted, dictatorial nurse. Both Nicholson and Fletcher won Oscars, and Brad Dourif is also wonderful in his role as Billy. The movie won many awards and wide critical acclaim for its realistic and hard-edged look into the world of mental institutions and the abuse of power that sometimes occurs there. One of only 3 movies in history to win all 4 of the top Oscars -- Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Picture (the other two films to take the top 4 are 1991's The Silence of the Lambs and Frank Capra's It Happened One Night in 1934). A very powerful and moving film that packs an emotional punch.
- Excellent
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