Jack Nicholson: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

1. R.P. McMurphy - One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Jack's best performance ever? Undoubtably this one. Milos Forman's wonderful (perhaps even perfect) movie, based on the novel of the same name by Ken Kesey, features Jack Nicholson in a role his was born to play. As charismatic delinquent R.P. McMurphy (and what is Jack Nicholson if not a charismatic delinquent), a convict who fakes insanity and lands himself in a mental institution to escape jail time, Nicholson is working at the height of his powers.

Combining all that his good about his talents as an actor, he's the perfect cross of sleazy and charismatic. Murphy isn't a particularly good guy, of course, and a lesser actor might have struggled to win us around to his side - what Nicholson manages is a compromise. He allows McMurphy to be a real person, with flaws and faults, but one who also inhabits a strange moral centre.

When the calculating Nurse Ratched tries to play the inmates against one another for her own amusement, Nicholson's facial expressions are masterful in their telling power. Not just one of the best Nicholson performances, then, but one of the best - if not the best - of all-time.

And now on to the less brilliant...