I wouldn't call say it's my favorite film in the genre, but I would say it's a film fit to be a classic

Rating: 9/10 (23 April 2007)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest has a wonderful message, an amazing villain, and one of the most trouble-making protagonists in the most root-worthy of senses I have ever seen in moviedom. R.P. McMurphey is put in a mental hospital, where he must rebel against the evil establishment. A classic story of will versus the meanies. Essentially a tragicomedy, we get a film that works in both exposition and exploration of the mental hospital concept as it relates to the free-spirited protagonist, newly inserted as a patient, as well as the other patients, who are men, bought down by the wo"man".
This is the stuff classics are made out of, though I do not think it's the definitive piece in the asylum genre. The film really doesn't operate on the same level that a lot of other piefces in that genre, do, focusing more on on stuff more about the soul than the "psyche". I think that's what lends the film it's whole flavor, but if you be looking in the genre, this is satisfying in a different (more life-affirming way). I wouldn't call it a personal favorite, but I would call it superb work.
It's also anti-psychiatry, like myself, and I gotta give it that. Comparing other mental hospital films to this is unfair, however. Besides the setting, I cannot recall a single mental hospital film out there with the guts to be like this film. This film totally is a different animal from something like say "Girl, Interrupted" or "The Snake Pit" or many other films which have bits like that. The film is about the affirmation of the human spirit against a seething institution. I'd say that this movie has more in common with prison movies.