Quick story! Back in 1997, Helen Hunt hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live and said during her monologue that she was honored to be starring in the movie As Good as It Gets with Jack Nicholson. One by one, cast members joined her onstage with their best Nicholson impressions. You know the hallmarks: the mischievous smile, the arched eyebrows, the twangy voice on the verge of rage or a snappy retort.
Then, the sunglasses-wearing legend himself walked on to wild applause. In one second, he became the biggest and coolest celebrity in the room … if not all of New York City. Because here’s the truth that we all can handle: Nicholson’s unmistakable charisma is often imitated—but never, ever duplicated.
Yet beyond the megawatt star power is an immensely talented actor with a six-decade career, 12 Oscar nominations and three wins to show for it. Credit his ability to imbue his characters with magnetism, intensity, masculinity and live-wire unpredictability—and to deliver some of the most memorable movie quotes of all time. He boasts the gravitas to yell at Tom Cruise (A Few Good Men), harm Leonardo DiCaprio (The Departed), torment the Caped Crusader (Batman) and still spare enough charm to woo fellow icons Diane Keaton (Something’s Gotta Give), Shirley MacLaine (Terms of Endearment) and Anjelica Huston (Prizzi’s Honor). And I didn’t even include his amazing output from the 1970s! Or the four films he’s directed!
Alas, Nicholson—who turns 89 on April 22—quit the business years ago in favor of a quieter life in L.A. (His last movie was How Do You Know? in 2010). So let’s put him back in the spotlight where he belongs and rank his 10 most memorable movies. Heeeeeeere’s the list!
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10. About Schmidt (2002)
To convince his star to portray the titular Warren Schmidt, director Alexander Payne told him, “Jack, I want you to play a small man.” Indeed, Nicholson dropped his larger-than-life persona to play a mild-mannered Nebraska retiree (with a comb-over!) who becomes emotionally adrift after his wife suddenly dies. He soon hits the road in a Winnebago, headed to Denver to see his estranged daughter (Hope Davis) get married … and finds himself in the process. At age 65, Nicholson gave a soulful, Oscar-nominated performance that evoked both belly laughter (the hot tub scene!) and ugly-cry tears. A third-act gem.
9. Five Easy Pieces (1970)
This explosive drama, in which Nicholson’s piano-prodigy-turned-oil-rig-worker Bobby Dupea travels home to see his dying dad, established the actor as bona fide leading-man material. Caught between his upper-class and blue-collar worlds, Bobby struggles to forge his own path. Nicholson received his first Best Actor Oscar nomination for his performance, which is capped by his iconic tirade in a diner: He asks the waitress for a chicken salad sandwich but says to “hold the chicken.” She balks at his request, and he snaps back, “I want you to hold it between your knees” … then clears the table in one swoop. Wow.
8. Batman (1989)
Before Barry Keoghan, Joaquin Phoenix, Jared Leto and Heath Ledger put on white pancake makeup and took on the Joker, we all danced with Jack’s devil in the pale moonlight. Hello, who else could bring the Caped Crusader’s most diabolical nemesis to life for the first time on the big screen? In director Tim Burton’s pioneering Gothic blockbuster, Nicholson, playing opposite Michael Keaton’s Batman, channeled the campy villain from the OG 1960s TV show while showing his sinister side by killing the residents of Gotham City for maniacal fun. Highlight: the purple-suited actor strutting his stuff in a museum to Prince’s “Partyman” and gleefully defacing masterpieces. This one’s a masterpiece too.
7. Terms of Endearment (1983)
One of the greatest tearjerkers of all time features Nicholson’s most winsome performance. In fact, his irresistible bad-boy retired-astronaut character, Garrett Breedlove, is peripheral to the central story of the stormy bond between a mother (Shirley MacLaine) and her dying grown daughter (Debra Winger). But there’s palpable electricity every time Garrett pops up to match wits with MacLaine’s crusty Aurora. Take their first date, when he tells her she needs a lot of drinks. “To break the ice?” Aurora asks. No, he retorts, “to kill the bug you have up your ass!” The film won the Oscar for Best Picture, MacLaine won Best Actress, and Nicholson took Best Supporting Actor.
6. Easy Rider (1969)
Your stars are Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, who co-wrote this iconic road-trip classic about two drug-smuggling bikers who travel through the South. Your stand-out is Nicholson, who helped usher the project to the screen. He comes on the scene as an alcoholic lawyer named George Hanson who just spent the night in jail after a bender. George soon joins the pair on their journey, offering comedy, despair and insight (“[the establishment] is scared of what you represent to them … and what you represent to them is freedom”) along the way. Even in a supporting role (which led to his first Oscar nomination), Nicholson displayed his unparalleled screen presence and showed why his ultimate destination was Hollywood.
5. The Shining (1980)
“Mr. Nicholson’s Jack is one of his most vibrant characterizations, furiously alive in every frame and fueled by an explosive anger. He is also devilishly funny.” That’s how Janet Maslin of the New York Times originally assessed the actor in Stanley Kubrick’s terrifying adaptation of Stephen King’s novel—and the audacious turn has become even more legendary over time. His Jack Torrance is a troubled family man with a serious case of writer’s block who takes over as caretaker of a haunted hotel. His inner monster ultimately emerges in the most terrifying and fascinating of ways. Sure enough, the image of wild-eyed Jack threatening his family with an ax while shouting, “Heeeere’s Johnny!”—a nod to the Tonight Show’s introduction of Johnny Carson—will live rent-free in the heads of movie lovers forever.
4. A Few Good Men (1992)
Nicholson appears in only four scenes, or roughly 15% of this military drama. But lordy, does he make the most of that limited screen time. Playing the ultra-intimidating commander Col. Nathan Jessup, he dishes out orders before and after two young men are charged with the hazing death of a fellow Marine. The tension builds to an epic courtroom scene, where Tom Cruise’s Navy lawyer puts Jessup on the witness stand and asks if he ordered the illegal “Code Red.” You know what happens next: Cruise demands, “I want the truth!” and Jessup shouts back, “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!” Nicholson, who received his 11th Oscar nomination for the portrayal, actually ad-libbed the immortal reply. The original line? “You already have the truth!” Yeah, not the same.
3. Chinatown (1971)
This is a glorious throwback to Old Hollywood noir classics like The Maltese Falcon, with Nicholson delivering a sublime version of Humphrey Bogart. In 1930s Los Angeles, his private eye Jake Gittes is hired to expose an adulterer—and stumbles upon a tangled web of corruption. The investigation involves a nose-slicing gangster (director Roman Polanski in a cameo), a suspicious senior home and a water baron’s black-widow daughter, Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), who’s hiding a very big secret. Like many of Nicholson’s greatest films, this too features a catchphrase that remains in the cultural lexicon: “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.” The moody mystery was up for 11 Oscars, including a Best Actor nod for Nicholson; it won only Best Original Screenplay.
2. As Good as It Gets (1997)
Romance novelist Melvin Udall is mean, obsessive-compulsive and bigoted, and he thinks nothing of tossing his gay neighbor’s adorable Brussels griffon dog down their apartment building’s garbage chute. You want to hate him. And in the hands of any other actor, you most certainly would. Yet as Melvin learns to love Hunt’s harried single-mom waitress in this charming Oscar-nominated, New York City–set romantic comedy, you can’t help but root for him. That’s a testament to both Nicholson’s effortless acting skills and his innate likability. (The dog, who survives the fall, helps here too.) And when Melvin compliments Hunt’s character by gently telling her, “You make me want to be a better man,” the actor essentially sealed his third Oscar win.
1. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Truth: The only thing we love more than a big-screen hero is an antihero fighting the establishment, especially when a captivating Nicholson is the one leading the uprising. He’s Randle McMurphy, a proud rascal and anarchist who fakes mental illness to avoid hard labor on a prison farm. He ends up at Oregon State Hospital, where he tries to liberate his fellow patients and stands up to ice-hearted Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). In the end (mild spoiler), Randle sacrifices himself to help his friends. The film, based on Ken Kesey’s novel, is one of only three films in history to win all of the “top five” Oscar categories: Screenplay, Picture, Director, Actress and Actor (which went to Nicholson). And while Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman both passed on the role, it’s come to perfectly encompass Nicholson’s hell-raising spirit and remains his golden calling card.
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Sources:
- Sight and Sound: “American Audiences’ Greater Education Seems to Have Evaporated: Jack Nicholson Interviewed in 1974”
- People: “You Can’t Handle the Truth! 10 Famous Movie Lines That Were Actually Improvised”
- The New York Times: “Rebels Who Were More Angry than Mad”
- YouTube: “Helen Hunt Monologue: Jack Nicholson Impressions – Saturday Night Live”
- The New York Times: “FILM; Nicholson On Age, Acting And ‘Being Jack’”
- The New York Times: “Nicholson and Shelley Duvall in Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’”