| | | "Winner of 5 Academy Awards, Including Best Picture."
Features: DVD, Pan and Scan (TV Format), Widescreen, Slip Sleeve
A nice rest in a state mental hospital beats a stretch in the pen, right? Randle P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), a free-spirited con with lightning in his veins and glib on his tongue, fakes insanity and moves in with what he calls the "nuts." Immediately, his contagious sense of disorder runs up against numbing routine. No way should guys pickled on sedatives shuffle around in bathrobes when the World Series is on. This means war! On one side is McMurphy. On the other is soft-spoken Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), among the most coldly monstrous villians in film history. At stake is the fate of every patient on the ward.
"...a triumph of the human spirit..." Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide
"A masterpiece." Mike Clark, USA Today
"A powerful, smashingly effective movie." Pauline Kael, The New York Times
"A deeply disturbing film...[that is] compelling to the point of obsession...[a] jarring and electrifying drama..." The Motion Picture Guide
"...touching, hilarious, dramatic and completely effective..." VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever
Editor's Note
Milos Foreman's ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, based on the novel by Ken Kesey and the play by Dale Wasserman, presents a biting and ultimately tragic satire about mental institutions and the human spirit. A disturbing, witty, and electrifying drama, the film won the 1975 Academy Award for Best Picture. R.P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), a misbehaved con who shirks authority, finds himself in an asylum after faking insanity to get out of work detail in prison. The vivacious troublemaker soon finds himself in a worse kind of prison--one presided over by the repressed, terrifyingly quiet Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), whose set of rules and regulations are meant to suppress patients' psychotic outbursts, and their spirits. It's not long before McMurphy is reaching out to his new inmates, trying desperately to bring life to an otherwise dead atmosphere. To Ratched, however, Nicholson's free spirit is as dangerous as a schizophrenic impulse. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST is brilliantly acted by an ensemble that includes Brad Dourif, Christopher Lloyd, Vincent Schiavelli, and Danny DeVito.
| Features | Audio: English Dolby Digital Stereo | | Audio: French Dolby Digital Mono | | Dubbed: French | | Exclusive O-Sleeve Packaging! | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Warner |
| Release Date: 1/8/2008 |
| Original Release Date: 1975 | | Catalog ID: 1000036153 | | UPC: 00883929005505 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Winner (1976) | | | Golden Globe, Brad Dourif, Best Acting Debut in a Motion Picture - Male | | | Golden Globe, Milos Forman, Best Director - Motion Picture | | | Golden Globe, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Best Motion Picture - Drama | | | Golden Globe, Jack Nicholson, Best Motion Picture Actor - Drama | | | Golden Globe, Louise Fletcher, Best Motion Picture Actress - Drama | | | Golden Globe, Lawrence Hauben, Bo Goldman, Best Screenplay - Motion Picture | | | Oscar, Jack Nicholson, Best Actor in a Leading Role | | | Oscar, Louise Fletcher, Best Actress in a Leading Role | | | Oscar, Milos Forman, Best Director | | | Oscar, Michael Douglas, Saul Zaentz, Best Picture | | | Oscar, Lawrence Hauben, Bo Goldman, Best Writing, Screenplay Adapted From Other Material |
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| | Professional Reviews | USA Today
"...[A] masterpiece..." 01/09/1998 p.3DChicago Bulletin
"...Nicholson's performance is one of the high points in a long career of enviable rebels..." 02/02/2003 p.5 Sight and Sound
"...[Nicholson's] flamboyant performance is balanced perfectly by superb character turns from Brad Dourif, Christopher Lloyd and Danny DeVito..." 12/01/2002 p.64 Premiere
"Nicholson's manic and slightly corrosive charm motors this study of one roistering inmate's effect on an entire mental institution." 04/01/2004 p.70 Total Film
"Milos Forman's masterpiece." 03/01/2004 p.5 ReelViews 9 of 10
Arguably, some of the issues addressed by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest are not as relevant in 2006 as they were in the mid-1970s, but that realization in no way diminishes the film's dramatic impact. This was the second English language film for Czech-born filmmaker Milos Forman, who would go on to win two Oscars (one for this movie and one for Amadeus), and was the picture that catapulted him onto the A-list for directors. The negative aspects of mental health care impugned by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest are largely no longer in place today (electroconvulsive therapy is rarely used, frontal lobotomies are not performed), but the film's other themes are germane. On the surface, the movie is about the struggle of wills between patient R.P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) and Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). Beneath the surface, it's about the attempts of an autocratic force to squash the individual...As portrayed by Jack Nicholson, McMurphy is one of cinema's iconic characters, so it may come as a surprise to learn that Nicholson was not the filmmakers' first choice. He was number three on the list, and was only offered the part after it was turned down by Gene Hackman and Marlon Brando. In 1975, Nicholson's star was on the rise. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 10 of 10
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975) is on every list of favorite films. It was the first film since "It Happened One Night" (1934) to win all five of the top Academy Awards, for best picture, actor (Nicholson), actress (Louise Fletcher), director (Milos Forman) and screenplay (Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman). It could for that matter have won, too, for cinematography (Haskell Wexler) and editing (Richard Chew). I was present at its world premiere, at the 1975 Chicago Film Festival, in the 3,000-seat Uptown Theatre, and have never heard a more tumultuous reception for a film...Nicholson's performance is one of the high points in a long career of enviable rebels. Jack is a beloved American presence, a superb actor who even more crucially is a superb male sprite. The joke lurking beneath the surface of most of his performances is that he gets away with things because he knows how to, wants to, and has the nerve to. His characters stand for freedom, anarchy, self-gratification and bucking the system, and often they also stand for generous friendship and a kind of careworn nobility. The key to the success of his work in "About Schmidt" is that he conceals these qualities--he becomes one of the patients, instead of the liberating McMurphy. - Roger Ebert
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