Favorite Nicholson Role??

What is your ultimate Jack Nicholosn movie/character?

I don't know about you but 'The Shining' takes it for me. He plays such a great nut case!

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Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens. ~ Jimi Hendrix

It would either be The Shining or One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest for me.

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I'm rating these below by Nicholson's performance, not necessarily the overall quality of the film (I think the best film Jack's been a part of is Chinatown, my all-time favorite flick, bar none)...



1. The Passenger (1975)
2. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
3. Five Easy Pieces (1970)
4. The Pledge (2001)
5. The King of Marvin Gardens (1972)
6. About Schmidt (2002)
7. The Last Detail (1973)
8. Chinatown (1974)
9. The Crossing Guard (1995)
10. Reds (1981)

Nicholson's work in Antonioni's existential The Passenger is his best in my eyes, and also one of his least-known. The Pledge and The King of Marvin Gardens also contain two of his best but less mainstream roles. And I think his performance as Eugene O'Neill in Beatty's Reds is the best of his supporting roles - though admittedly less campy and fun than Easy Rider, A Few Good Men, Batman or Terms of Endearment. Personally, I prefer the more subduded, interior performances from Jack. The Shining is great over-the-top Kabuki stuff, but give me The Passenger or Chinatown any day of the week.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Yeah, totally Jack Torrance

One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest for me.

I liked him a lot in The Shining.

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"Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything..."

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and About Schmidt.

The Joker (Batman)


The Mob Boss (The Departed)


The Detective (The Pledge)

He was brillant in Cuckoo's Nest.

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jack torrance all the!

'HERES JOHNNY!

The Joker is my favorite. Perhaps because I always loved Batman movies.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest followed closely by The Shining would have to be my favorites… least favorite is The Departed…

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Jack Nicholson is probably my favourite actor. He's always good, always fun or interesting to watch. There's of course all the big charismatic roles that made him famous but I was really impressed by him in The Pledge and About Schmidt. Those were roles written for an older man and Nicholson, without any fear of being viewed as just that - old, delivers totally convincing performances.

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

Truth is I never cared for Nicholson’s movies until I saw his turn as Daryl Van Horne in The Witches of Eastwick. His speech against women after being blown through the church doors by a supernatural wind won me over (hey, I was going through a divorce at the time!). I liked his cowboy roles as the comical Henry Moon in Goin’ South and horse thief Tom Logan in The Missouri Breaks where he managed to upstage even Brando’s really weird performance. Liked him as Harry Langer playing his age with a leading lady his own age in Something’s Gotta Give. In Hoffa, he looked and sounded more like Hoffa than Hoffa. His role as Charley Partanna mixing comedy with mayhem in Prizzi’s Honor is a sentimental favorite. But his best role I think was as Jack Napier, aka The Joker, in Batman. That role as a comic book character was perfect for Nicholson’s over-the-top style of acting. The whole movie hinged on Nicholson's ability to make the Joker believeable in all of that makeup.

i liked him in anger management....that was funny...

i always liked him playing the role of some nut job...

he just has that crazy look in him

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I liked him as the deranged dental patient in Little Shop of Horrors (the old black and white, not the musical).

I'm with The Saucy One on this.

Nicholson isn't an actor who I've got a great amount of time for but he was wonderful in The Psssenger, followed by About Schmidt.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan