In the top 20 greatest American films ever made

Rating: 10/10 (17 September 2005)

Jack Nicholson is committed to a mental institution on a ward run by nurse Louise Fletcher. She's known as Big Nurse and she's the world's worst ball-buster which is exactly what she tries to do to Nicholson and the other male inmates. He engages the other patients by hooking them into poker games. Among the patients are Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd and a tall, mute Indian named Chief Bromden who silently watches over everything.
Director Milos Forman makes a film faithful to Ken Kesey's classic novel. Made in the 70s when Nicholson was still acting and before he started mugging for the camera.
After you see this movie you wonder just who is crazy. Is it Nicholson and the inmates or the system who institutionalized them represented by Big Nurse? This movie has its comic moments, but ultimately it's a deadly serious look at society and mental illness.
The movie swept the Oscars in 1976, the first film in 41 years to do so. One of the top 20 greatest American films ever made.