Jack Nicholson is 75 today, your favourite Nicholson films ?

Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and for As Good as It Gets. He also won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the 1983 film Terms of Endearment. He is tied with Walter Brennan for most acting wins by a male actor (three). Nicholson is well known for playing villainous roles such as Jack Torrance in The Shining, Frank Costello in The Departed, and the Joker in 1989's Batman, among many other roles.

The Pledge

ive not seen The Pledge, a few of my favourates are, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Shining, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Terms of Endearment, The Witches of Eastwick.

For me it has to be 'Chinatown', with Nicholson ably showing he doesn't have to play a character with a screw loose.

yes i agree with you there horriblebob, Nicholson plays a fab nutter, but he can also be a serious actor too.

For me it has to be 'Chinatown', with Nicholson ably showing he doesn't have to play a character with a screw loose.

Yes he does seem to play this character type particularly well, I have to say my all time favourite of his films has to be Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. However, more recently he played a very good gangster in The Departed.

yes he played Frank Costello superbly in The Departed i do agree Charlie, has anyone seen Ironweed ? the character he plays is a schizophrenic drifter, but Nicholson adds a softer side to him, great film.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Til I watch his other films.

He also played the US President in Mars Attacks. Although IMO one of his best roles was as the Joker in Batman in 1989, trounces the late Heath Ledger's Joker easily IMO.

apparantly Jack Nicholson had been the choice to play the role of the joker since 1986 when one of the Producers of the film Jon Peters first approached him, also Nicholson received a $6 million salary, as well as a large percentage of the box office gross. The fee is reported to be as high as $50 million.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

I watched that last night. Forgot how great he was in it.

He's great in The Shining, though I wish the film had been truer to King's novel. In that, it's clear that Jack Torrance isn't a villain; he's an intelligent, loving father and husband lost to alcoholism, the echoes of his abusive childhood relationship with his father and, ultimately, possession by the physical, psychological and, possibly, supernatural manifestations of the Overlook.

Though Nicholson is magnificent, his portrayal, as defined and directed by Kubrick, loses a great deal of the character's multi-dimensional subtlety and sympathy.

(Thanks goes to Nicholson too for inspiring Christian Slater's performance in Heathers, one of the best films of the 80s).