“Here’s Johnny”: 10 Jack Nicholson Movies, Ranked

Jack Nicholson is a Hollywood legend. A man responsible for some of American cinema’s greatest movies and most iconic and revered characters. From his appearances in groundbreaking New Hollywood cinema in Easy Rider, Chinatown and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to his unforgettable performances in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, Hal Ashby’s The Last Detail, and Alexander Payne’s About Schmidt, Nicholson’s career is peppered with classics.

The youngest actor to be awarded the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award, an accolade he won in 1994, Nicholson, who was born in New Jersey in 1937, has won three Academy Awards – two for Best Actor (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and As Good as It Gets) and one for Best Supporting Actor (Terms of Endearment).

What are the best Jack Nicholson movies?

Like so many contemporary Hollywood greats, Jack Nicholson started his career under the guidance of B-movie legend Roger Corman. After about a decade of acting in various exploitation films and minor flirtations with mainstream Hollywood, Nicholson wrote The Trip, a psychedelic LSD fuelled movie, produced and directed by Corman and starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper.

Jack Nicholson in Roger Corman’s Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

This clearly laid the foundations for Nicholson’s breakthrough into the mainstream when he appeared alongside Fonda and Hopper in 1969’s Easy Rider, a movie which can be seen as the true start of the New Hollywood period for which Nicholson basically became the poster child.

His maniacal non-conformist and anti-hero-like qualities made him perfect for the period and it’s these very same qualities which have defined the man’s 65-year long career, which has earned him the most Oscar nominations for any male actor ever (twelve) and a tie for most wins with Daniel Day-Lewis and Walter Brennan as all three men have three statues to their name.

The best films of Jack Nicholson…

Jack Nicholson in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.

Honourable Mention

The Passenger

Dir. Antonioni (1975)

Jack Nicholson in Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger.

Writes Martin Carr in his Top 10 Films review: “From Terms of Endearment onward you might argue Nicholson has been doing “Jack” for quite some time, with exceptions which include but are not limited to About Schmidt and As Good As It Gets.

What Michelangelo Antonioni’s film The Passenger does is catch Nicholson before his work drifted into that default phase. Falling around the same time as Five Easy Pieces and Carnal Knowledge, The Passenger shows us a Nicholson in full possession of that brass ring moment.”

10. Prizzi’s Honor

Dir. Huston (1985)

Whilst the two had acted together in 1974’s Chinatown, it wasn’t until 1985 that Jack Nicholson starred in Prizzi’s Honor, the final film by one of Hollywood’s greatest directors and sometimes actor, John Huston.

His portrayal of a not-too-smart and matter-of-fact mob hit man was without a doubt one of the strongest suits in this pitch-black comedy. Not Nicholson’s nor Huston’s best film, Prizzi’s Honor is well-worth checking out for fans of either Hollywood legend.

9. As Good As It Gets

Dir. Brooks (1997)

Perfect casting would have contributed greatly to Jack Nicholson’s second Academy Award win for Best Actor here. Playing a dysfunctional narky misanthropic novelist who is suffering from a obsessive-compulsive disorder to boot, it is hard to imagine any other actor having been able to nail this part so perfectly.

Add to that a film that balances drama, comedy and romance effortlessly and you end up with the most light-hearted entry in this rundown of Jack Nicholson’s best movies. And who wouldn’t want to see a cynical and grumpy Nicholson interact with a waitress, a homosexual artist and a little lapdog?

8. About Schmidt

Dir. Payne (2002)

In the year that Jack Nicholson turned 65 in real life, he starred in the age appropriate role of Warren Schmidt, a bitter man who has just retired, loses his wife shortly afterward and seeks purpose in a life, which he feels he has wasted and that has not mattered to anyone around him.

In one of the actor’s most controlled performances, he also manages to give one of his career’s best. A poignant character study of a man who at the end of his life realises how empty the experience has been all along.

7. The Departed

Dir. Scorsese (2006)

In the film that finally gave Martin Scorsese his coveted Best Director and Best Picture Academy Awards, Jack Nicholson turned in one hell of a performance as the menacing and ruthless Irish gangster Frank Costello, who as a result of a suggestion by the actor himself ended up being based on real-life mobster and informer Whitey Bulger.

In a film stuffed with impressive performances, Nicholson nearly stole the show with his truly frightening portrayal of the gangster. And now that I have your attention: if you have never seen the Hong Kong classic Infernal Affairs, which The Departed is based on, change your plans tonight and simply right that wrong.

6. Easy Rider

Dir. Hopper (1969)

An independently produced biker movie which nonetheless became a monumental film as it gave a voice to the sixties’ counterculture, Easy Rider handed Nicholson his real breakthrough (and his first Oscar nomination) and truly announced the arrival of the Hollywood New Wave, a movement which would rule American cinema throughout the seventies.

Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider.

In a twist of fate, Nicholson scored the pivotal role of a drunk lawyer when Rip Torn, a Texan actor who the role was originally written for, almost came to blows with director Dennis Hopper after he expressed his dislike for rednecks, which he encountered whilst scouting locations for the movie in the South. Nicholson managed to make his minor role stand-out and the rest is history.

5. The Last Detail

Dir. Ashby (1973)

Jack Nicholson was quick to capitalise on his new found success through Easy Rider and quickly became the face of the New Hollywood movement with some true classics of the era, The Last Detail being one of them.

Playing “Badass” Buddusky, one of two Navy men escorting a young sailor to jail for a minor crime, Nicholson received his third Academy Award nomination for Best Actor here.

The character of Buddusky saw Nicholson play a subversive non-conformist with verve and that trademark smirk. He convinces his partner that they have to use the week they have to show the young goodhearted sailor a great time before he starts his lengthy sentence and wastes the most important years of his life.

Notable for its incessant cursing at the time, the studio decided to only give The Last Detail a wide release after Nicholson was awarded Best Actor at Cannes.

Of the three hit scripts penned by Robert Towne during Hollywood’s golden age of the 1970s – The Last Detail (1973), Chinatown (1974) and Shampoo (1975) – it is arguable the opening salvo of this impressive trio is also its best.

While there are many who would say this acknowledgement should be lauded upon the far more influential Chinatown, which was directed by Roman Polanski and received 1974’s Best Original Screenplay Oscar, there are a few qualities in Towne’s previous work (adapted from a novel by Darryl Ponicsan) that not only make its narrative a tad more complex, but helps establish a broader canvas when it comes to character development.

At its bleak heart The Last Detail is a road movie wherein the travelers (three sailors who, interestingly, never board a boat) know exactly where they are going, why they are making the journey and how long it will take to reach their destination.

It is also about the pragmatic nature of comradeship, the fragility of freedom and the obligation to play by the rules – even if the game involves bending them a little.

4. Five Easy Pieces

Dir. Rafelson (1970)

Another New Hollywood classic and another Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards for Jack Nicholson, Five Easy Pieces is the film in which the actor really cemented his hold on the non-conformist role.

Playing Bobby Dupea, a man from a wealthy family who was poised to become a well-respected concert pianist but turns his back on his family and upbringing, Nicholson gives a towering performance as an alienated individual who is mad at the entire world and is looking for more meaning in his life.

Watch out for the scene where he fights with a waitress at a diner over a chicken salad sandwich; it is pure gold.

3. The Shining

Dir. Kubrick (1980)

Jack Nicholson’s ability to play intense maniacal characters has maybe never been put to better use than when he played Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick’s horror masterpiece The Shining.

Stephen King, the author of the novel the film is based on, although the two differ significantly, objected to Nicholson’s casting as he felt the actor’s previous roles would give away immediately that the character would go insane.

On top of that it has been widely documented that King despised the final film in its entirety. Clearly King knows a lot more about writing than he does about filmmaking as The Shining is now widely considered as one of the best horror films of all time and Nicholson’s performance in it as pitch perfect. “Heeeere’s Johnny!”

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2. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

Dir. Forman (1975)

If the New Hollywood films of the early seventies made Jack Nicholson into a respected and successful actor, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was the film that truly turned him into a bona fide movie star in the mid-seventies.

Finally winning the Oscar for Best Actor, after having been nominated for it three times previously in the four years leading up to this win, Nicholson’s stunning portrayal a free-spirited man who feigns insanity in order to avoid jail time and ends up in an mental hospital instead was a true tour-de-force performance.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is only one of three films in the history of the Academy Awards to win all five major awards (Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Actor and Actress). An undeniable classic of American cinema and one of Nicholson’s most iconic roles.

1. Chinatown

Dir. Polanski (1974)

The top three films in this list are basically interchangeable as all of them are masterpieces in their own right but Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, his last film made in the United States and arguably the best neo-noir ever committed to celluloid, is our number one.

Jack Nicholson gives a stunning take on the character of a smart-ass private investigator who is in over his head, a role which would have been played by Humphrey Bogart had this movie been actually made in the forties.

All other elements of the film just come together perfectly, with special mention of the screenplay by Robert Towne, which has become the stuff of legend amongst screenwriters. If you have never seen Chinatown do yourself a favour and get onto that. You won’t regret it.

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