Jack Nicholsons 15 Best Performances: From Batman to Chinatown

One of the best actors of his generation, Jack Nicholson built a prolific career of rich, dynamic, emotionally complex and often terrifying performances. To narrow down his best performances is a daunting task and likely will garner varying answers from people when asked, whats your favorite from Jack? To celebrate the Nicholsons birthday, Variety is

One of the best actors of his generation, Jack Nicholson built a prolific career of rich, dynamic, emotionally complex and often terrifying performances. To narrow down his “best” performances is a daunting task and likely will garner varying answers from people when asked, “what’s your favorite from Jack?” To celebrate the Nicholson’s birthday, Variety is ranking his 15 best performances.

Born in New Jersey, the die-hard Los Angeles Lakers fan has been an integral figure in the landscape of cinema for seven decades. His first credited film role was in the tiny B-movie “The Cry Baby Killer” (1958). After more than a dozen roles through the 1960s, his big break came in Dennis Hopper’s timeless classic “Easy Rider” (1969), leading him into the 1970s, in which he dominated with memorable turns in “Five Easy Pieces” (1970), “Carnal Knowledge” (1971), “The Last Detail” (1973) and “Chinatown” (1974). He even stepped into the director’s chair during that period with his debut “Drive, He Said” (1971). What a run.

His first Oscar win came for Milos Forman’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975), which is one of three movies to win the “Oscar Big Five” (picture, director, actor, actress and screenplay). The others are “It Happened One Night” (1934) and “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991). But the accolades didn’t stop there and were seemingly never-ending. He’s received 12 Oscar nominations in his career, the most nominated male performer in Oscar history. More specifically, with eight nominations for lead actor he’s tied for second alongside Paul Newman and Peter O’Toole, and behind Laurence Olivier and Spencer Tracy.  He’s also the most nominated supporting actor with four nods alongside Walter Brennan, Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall, Arthur Kennedy, Al Pacino and Claude Rains. He’s won three statuettes overall for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975), “Terms of Endearment” (1983) and “As Good as It Gets” (1997), one of seven people who have won three or more — alongside Meryl Streep, Ingrid Bergman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Frances McDormand, Walter Brennan and Katharine Hepburn (the only to win four).

With 10 films nominated for best picture throughout his career, he’s currently tied in second place for the most credited appearances in the Academy’s top category alongside Leonardo DiCaprio. He’s behind Robert DeNiro, who has 11.

People may not be aware that Nicholson is also a Grammy winner for best recording for children for “The Elephant Child,” alongside Bobby McFerrin and Mark Sottnick.

The actor has never expanded into the television realm aside from guest spots on shows like “Bronco” and “The Andy Griffith Show,” but sadly never hosted “Saturday Night Live,” which would have been perfect to see. He’s also presented best picture a few times, including the controversial “Crash” (2005) and his own movie, “The Departed.”

It’s been more than 12 years since his last credited film role in James L. Brooks’ “How Do You Know” (2010) with Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson, which failed to light up the box office (or come anywhere close to making this list). Aside from the rumors that he would star in an American remake of the international feature “Toni Erdmann,” there’s been no sign of a new Nicholson role on the horizon.

Let’s all get our prayer groups together and ask the almighty for one more from one of our greatest quintessential movie stars.

Read the list below and watch a clip of his best scene from each film.

Honorable mentions: “Carnal Knowledge” (1971), “The Departed” (2006), “Something’s Gotta Give” (2003)

  • The Pledge (2001)

    Role: Jerry Black

    Distributed by: Warner Bros

    Directed by: Sean Penn

    Written by: Jerzy Kromolowski, Mary Olson-Kromolowski (based on “The Pledge” by Friedrich Dürrenmatt)

    The scene that proves it: “No strings attached, no obligations – but I’ve seen these things go from bad to worse.”

    Teamed up with writer and director Sean Penn, Nicholson’s work as a retiring cop who promises a mother to find the killer of her murdered daughter, his heartbreaking portrayal stands as one of his most visceral of his later roles. With a stellar cast that includes Patricia Clarkson, Benicio del Toro, Aaron Eckhart, Sam Shepard, Mickey Rourke, Vanessa Redgrave, Helen Mirren and Robin Wright — and a haunting score by Hans Zimmer — “The Pledge” presents one of his most thrilling outings. –Clayton Davis

  • Prizzi's Honor (1985)

    Role: Charley Partanna

    Distributed by: 20th Century Fox

    Directed by: John Huston

    Written by: Richard Condon, Janet Roach

    The scene that proves it: “I broke that vase.”

    Under the direction of the great John Huston, Nicholson’s turn as the mafia hitman Charley Partanna in the dark comedy “Prizzi’s Honor” was one of Jack’s coolest, most remarkable creations. With outstanding chemistry with Kathleen Turner and an Oscar-winning turn from the incredible Anjelica Huston, the chuckles are plentiful.  The love story is also acutely intact, with Nicholson firmly in his element. –CD

  • Terms of Endearment (1983)

    Role: Garrett Breedlove

    Distributed by: Paramount Pictures

    Directed by: James L. Brooks

    Written by: James L. Brooks (based on “Terms of Endearment” by Larry McMurtry)

    The scene that proves it: “I was just inches from a clean getaway.”

    One of three films that stars Nicholson to win best picture, his turn as a retired astronaut and neighbor Garrett Breedlove, who falls for the affections of Aurora (played by Oscar-winner Shirley MacLaine), is a favorite for many cinephiles. He won the Oscar for best supporting actor, likely another reason the film managed to pull in an extra supporting nom for his co-star John Lithgow (but sadly not Jeff Daniels, who should be there as well). He finds the balance of laughs and insecurity in a film heavy on emotion and shows why he’s always been so damn good at the rom-com genre. –CD

  • About Schmidt (2002)

    Role: Warren R. Schmidt

    Distributed by: New Line Cinema

    Directed by: Alexander Payne

    Written by: Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor

    The scene that proves it: Every time he says “Dear Ndugu”

    Most of Nicholson’s acting is powered by a spark plug of naughty joy, so it’s fascinating to see him deliver one of his most accomplished performances as Warren Schmidt, a newly retired and widowed insurance-company actuary from Omaha, Nebraska, who is such a curmudgeon of conventionality that he seems to have spent his entire life walling off everything life is really about. As Schmidt goes on a solo Winnebago odyssey to try to connect with his daughter — mouth drawn into a tight line of restraint — Alexander Payne’s film turns into a brilliant study of Middle American narcissism. —Owen Gleiberman

  • Batman (1989)

    Role: Jack Napier/The Joker

    Distributed by: Warner Bros.

    Directed by: Tim Burton

    Written by: Sam Hamm, Warren Skaaren

    The scene that proves it: “Wait till they get a load of me!”

    In the decade that led up to it, Nicholson had played over-the-top evil (“The Witches of Eastwick”) and stylized criminality (“Prizzi’s Honor”), but in Tim Burton’s pop landmark of dark-knight grandeur, it was great to see Nicholson, in his early 50s, bust out with his wildest, merriest, most insanely baroque performance, portraying the Joker as a freak demon clown who’s like a walking homicidal palm buzzer. He did more than just steal the movie from Michael Keaton. He became its madly cackling center of gravity, making Gotham City the Joker’s world, which everyone else, including Batman, just lives in.  —OG 

  • Five Easy Pieces (1970)

    Role: Robert “Bobby” Eroica Dupea

    Distributed by: Columbia Pictures

    Directed by: Bob Rafelson

    Written by: Adrien Joyce

    The scene that proves it: “What do you mean you don’t make side orders of toast?”

    In Bob Rafelson’s classic that brought Jack Nicholson his first nomination as a leading man, his work as Bobby can warm the coldest of hearts. Alongside a beautiful and talented Karen Black, “Five Easy Pieces” has him step into the role of a musician running away from his past and snatching the era’s spirit. He also keeps the tempers of a fellow brimming in each scene but never going overboard, a skill that very few actors have mastered. –CD

  • Reds (1981)

    Role: Eugene O’Neill

    Distributed by: Paramount Pictures

    Directed by: Warren Beatty

    Written by: Warren Beatty, Trevor Griffiths

    The scene that proves it: “It’s a poem telling you that I love you.”

    Winning the Oscar for best director, Warren Beatty’s epic drama chronicles the life and career of John Reed. Beatty harnesses the softer side of Jack as playwright Eugene O’Neill, a role for which he received an Oscar nomination for supporting actor. His interpretation of the famed artist stands as one of his most intoxicating as he shepherds poetry and sultry eyes that hypnotize the viewer and the actors he shares scenes with. Watching him make magic with Diane Keaton is easily the film’s best moments. Coincidentally, it is probably one of his more overlooked efforts despite the critical love and accolades. –CD

  • The Crossing Guard (1995)

    Role: Freddy Gale

    Distributed by: Miramax

    Directed by: Sean Penn

    Written by: Sean Penn

    The scene that proves it: “Tell me the truth, Mary, you want me to kill John Booth.”

    There are plenty of Nicholson performances with him playing the villain, unconventional hero, or a romantic leading man. However, Jack’s “grief-stricken” interpretations have very few pop-ups in cinema history, and it’s put to best use with one of his most underrated outings. Raw intensity, grief and the undying urge for revenge are wrapped into the Nicholson’s Freddy Gale, a jeweler sworn to kill the drunk driver that killed his little girl in Sean Penn’s sophomore directorial effort. Alongside great actors such as Anjelica Huston and David Morse, he finds the connection that becomes a harrowing tale of forgiveness. –CD

  • The Last Detail (1973)

    Role: Billy “Badass” Buddusky

    Distributed by: Columbia Pictures

    Directed by: Hal Ashby

    Written by: Robert Towne

    The scene that proves it: Facing down a bartender with a big gun under the bar

    Hal Ashby’s haunting 1973 road odyssey is nothing more (or less) than the tale of two sailors, led by Nicholson, who take a saddened young seaman to the brig, the three of them loping from city to city, looking and acting like the restless outsiders they are. Nicholson, expressing his cockeyed brashness in quiet forlorn bursts, gives what some regard as his finest performance, and it’s almost certainly the most grounded acting from his great 1970s period. You believe in your bones that this man is a sailor — a grizzled, hardened, rootless soul who has used military discipline as a frame to hang his heart on, even as it covers the wreckage he feels inside. —OG

  • Easy Rider (1969)

    Role: George Hanson

    Distributed by: Columbia Pictures

    Directed by: Dennis Hopper

    Written by: Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Terry Southern

    The scene that proves it: “Here’s the first of the day, fellas.”

    What has made Jack so essential to the cinema landscape isn’t only the films he’s led but the supporting turns he chose throughout his career. His work proves the theory under the skillful eyes of Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, who star in and co-write the road trip drama about two bikers who travel through the South. It stands as one of Nicholson’s most important cinematic contributions. As the alcoholic George Hanson, he takes one of the most accurate snapshots of dreams and despair, wrapped in a heartbreaking character ending that permeates in retrospective. Love, love and more love for everything associated with “Easy Rider.” –CD

  • The Shining (1980)

    Role: Jack Torrance

    Distributed by: Warner Bros.

    Directed by: Stanley Kubrick

    Written by: Stanley Kubrick, Diane Johnson

    The scene that proves it: “I’m not gonna hurt ya — I’m just gonna bash your brains in!”

    When Stanley Kubrick’s grand spooky conceptual gothic horror film was released in 1980, Nicholson’s performance — like the movie itself — was greeted with mixed reviews. From that very first interview scene, he was perceived to be acting on a weirdly high-camp level of sinister foreboding. But just as “The Shining” aged into being thought of as a classic, the audacity of Nicholson’s performance never stops surprising you, no matter how many times you’ve seen it. His Jack Torrance, a failed writer and troubled alcoholic husband and dad, is, from the start, nursing a hidden insanity, and when it finally bursts out of him, Nicholson becomes operatic in his rage. Yes, the performance has a spark of camp — and of kabuki, and seething sarcasm, and raw terror and reality. All work and no play make Nicholson a funny, mesmerizing boy. —OG

  • A Few Good Men (1992)

    Role: Col. Nathan R. Jessup, USMC

    Distributed by: Columbia Pictures

    Directed by: Rob Reiner

    Written by: Aaron Sorkin

    The scene that proves it: “You can’t handle the truth!”

    It didn’t take long for the one five-word line from Rob Reiner’s 1992 film version of Aaron Sorkin’s play to become a cultural meme. And that was all because of how Nicholson delivers it. When he sits there on the witness stand, X-ray glaring at Tom Cruise’s military lawyer, and shouts “You can’t handle the truth,” Nicholson puts a lifetime of military ideology behind those words. He means it — that military reality is too horrific for a civilian to accept — and that’s how he justifies his lies. The rest of Nicholson’s small but powerful performance has a seething vitality, implosive in its menace and control. —OG

  • Chinatown (1974)

    Role: J.J. “Jake” Gittes

    Distributed by: Paramount Pictures

    Directed by: Roman Polanski

    Written by: Robert Towne

    The scene that proves it: “Who is she? And don’t give me that crap about your sister.”

    Roman Polanski’s moody 1974 noir is the closest any movie of the post-studio-system era has ever come to recreating the clockwork mystery and élan of a film from Old Hollywood, and Nicholson, like Bogart with a touch of Cagney, is masterful in conjuring a cynical fury that is deviously contained. His L.A. private detective Jake Gittes has stumbled upon a corruption bigger and wider than anything he could have imagined, but that corruption is also embodied in his love for Faye Dunaway’s damaged heroine. Nicholson’s performance, with its downbeat investigative zeal, turns the very action of being a detective into a trigger of tragedy. —OG

  • As Good as It Gets (1997)

    Role: Melvin Udall

    Distributed by: Sony Pictures

    Directed by: James L. Brooks

    Written by: Mark Andrus, James L. Brooks

    The scene that proves it: “You make me want to be a better man.”

    The horrors, antics and behavior of Melvin Udall would only be those simplicities in the hands of any other actor. Still, Jack makes him a figure the audience can love in James L. Brooks’s romantic comedy. It’s the role that brought Nicholson his third Oscar statuette, second for best actor, as we see him leading an impeccable ensemble that includes Helen Hunt, Greg Kinnear and others. He slides into darker scenes of laughter, steps up to the plate in moments that ask for dramatic heft and unspools all the tricks and trades of the greatest parts of Jack Nicholson. –CD

  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

    Role: Randall P. McMurphy

    Distributed by: United Artists

    Directed by: Milos Forman

    Written by: Bo Goldman, Lawrence Hauben

    The scene that proves it: Leading the vote to watch the World Series

    Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel anticipated the counterculture (it’s set on a mental ward and centers on a rebel who society isn’t ready for), but the fact that the movie version didn’t get produced until 1975 altered the story’s meaning in a nearly poetic way. It was now about the swan song of the counterculture, with Nicholson playing the free-spirited screwup R.P. McMurphy as an anarchist-hellraiser whose time has passed. It’s his single most exhilarating performance, and arguably his greatest — a pure effusion of triumphant Jack hostility tinged with desperation. McMurphy’s war with Nurse Ratched, played by Louise Fletcher as a diabolically passive-aggressive student-council president, allows Nicholson to attain new heights of insurrectionary glee, even as he’s shadowed by a kind of beautiful doom. —OG

Read More About:

Jump to Comments

More from Variety

Most Popular

Must Read

Sign Up for Variety Newsletters

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. // This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Variety Confidential

A Variety and iHeartRadio Podcast

ncG1vNJzZmiukae2psDYZ5qopV%2BhtrTA0mihmpubYruqr8eoo6ynnmKvpr%2FTZqSorpmawG6%2BwKeinpxf

 Share!