One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

To avoid a prison sentence, troublemaker Randle P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) pretends to be mentally ill. He thinks life will be more comfortable in a psychiatric clinic. This soon turns out to be a mistake. The authoritarian Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), who runs the ward, leaves no stone unturned in asserting her authority and tolerates no dissent. The patients, including shy Billy and the tall, half-Indian “Chief Bromden”, walk around the ward beaten down and apathetic. The rebellious McMurphy is determined to break through this apathy and increasingly comes into conflict with Ratched. The conflict escalates.

In 1962, Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was published, a fierce indictment of everyday practices in the world of psychiatry, where electroshock therapy and lobotomy were still commonplace at the time. Dale Wasserman adapted it into a play, Milos Forman filmed it – and with success: this impressive drama won five Oscars, including Best Director. Nicholson and Flechter also received Oscars.