Metacritic Film

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Starring Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, William Redfield, Brad Dourif, Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, Will Sampson, and William Duell

MPAA RATING: R

Warner Bros.
Drama
133 minutes | Color
USA
Released In Theaters November 19, 1975

A nice rest in a state mental hospital beats a stretch in the pen, right? Randle P. McMurphy (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 (Fletcher), among the most coldly monstrous villains in film history. At stake is the fate of every patient on the ward. (Warner Bros.)

WRITTEN BY
Ken Kesey (novel)
Bo Goldman
Lawrence Hauben

DIRECTED BY
Milos Forman

Overall Metascore

This is a weighted, normalized average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

79 / 100

Critic Reviews

100	Empire Jake Hamilton Too many classic set pieces to mention but keep your ears cocked for that immortal line "Mmmm, Juicy Fruit." Certified brilliance.
100	USA Today A masterpiece. (9 Jan 1998, p.3D)
100	Variety Staff (Not credited) Brilliant cinema theatre.
80	TV Guide Staff (Not credited) Jarring and electrifying drama.
75	Chicago Sun-Times So good in so many of its parts that there's a temptation to forgive it when it goes wrong. But it does go wrong, insisting on making larger points than its story really should carry, so that at the end, the human qualities of the characters get lost in the significance of it all. And yet there are those moments of brilliance.
70	Chicago Reader This slick and entertaining 1975 film of Ken Kesey's cult novel will inevitably disappoint admirers of director Milos Forman's earlier work.
70	The New York Times A comedy that can't quite support its tragic conclusion, which is too schematic to be honestly moving, but it is acted with such a sense of life that one responds to its demonstration of humanity if not to its programmed metaphors.

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