What are Jack Nicholsons top 3 performances

Not in any particular order...

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Five Easy Pieces

Chinatown

Honorable mention for Easy Rider

Carnal knowledge

Last Detail

Five Easy Pieces.

Began to go a bit downhill with Cuckoo's Nest. Or maybe the one after that

It is tough to rank his performances because he first hit the scene during the greatest period of American cinema in the 60s and 70s. His performances in One Flew, Chinatown and Five Easy Pieces, Easy Rider, The Shining, Carnal Knowledge, etc. are all excellent, but stand out so much because those were all such incredible films. Everything that came after doesn't seem to compare even though Nicholson may have given even better performances. For example, Terms of Endearment is a terrible movie, but may just be one of Nicholson's best performances.

I think the better list is the top three Jack Nicholson performances you probably have never seen.

1. The Last Detail

2. The Pledge

3. About Schmidt

1. The Shining

2. One Flew over

3. A Few Good Men

Precious Roy wrote:

It is tough to rank his performances because he first hit the scene during the greatest period of American cinema in the 60s and 70s. His performances in One Flew, Chinatown and Five Easy Pieces, Easy Rider, The Shining, Carnal Knowledge, etc. are all excellent, but stand out so much because those were all such incredible films. Everything that came after doesn't seem to compare even though Nicholson may have given even better performances. For example, Terms of Endearment is a terrible movie, but may just be one of Nicholson's best performances.

I think the better list is the top three Jack Nicholson performances you probably have never seen.

1. The Last Detail

2. The Pledge

3. About Schmidt

Great post

OK, so I will admit I don't think I've seen three of his films and I don't want to put the ones in I've seen as people will be like oh those are rubbish ones... so maybe I will watch some of these.

Precious Roy wrote:

It is tough to rank his performances because he first hit the scene during the greatest period of American cinema in the 60s and 70s. His performances in One Flew, Chinatown and Five Easy Pieces, Easy Rider, The Shining, Carnal Knowledge, etc. are all excellent, but stand out so much because those were all such incredible films. Everything that came after doesn't seem to compare even though Nicholson may have given even better performances. For example, Terms of Endearment is a terrible movie, but may just be one of Nicholson's best performances.

I think the better list is the top three Jack Nicholson performances you probably have never seen.

1. The Last Detail

2. The Pledge

3. About Schmidt

I don't necessarily disagree but it's difficult to separate the performance from the film. Would Pieces have been as good a film with a different actor? Would anyone remember it today? OTOH Cuckoo had great source material and followed it closely so in some ways the performers were more interchangeable.

I agree with you about Terms but MacLaine's performance was also great.

Start with Chinatown

the departed

cukoos nest

the shining

Primo Numero Uno wrote:

1. The Shining

2. One Flew over

3. A Few Good Men

this would be my ranking as well.

one flew over

the shining

witches - come on!!!

Primo Numero Uno wrote:

1. The Shining

2. One Flew over

3. A Few Good Men

My three as well although if I had to rank them I would invert your #1 & #2.

Personally, I evaluate acting ability by whether it feels to me like it is that character or someone acting to be that character. In those three and other JN roles I only see the character. I was watching RP McMurphy, not JN portraying RP.

1. The Shining

2. A Few Good Men

3. 1986 Masters

loverboy wrote:

1. The Shining

2. A Few Good Men

3. 1986 Masters

Solid list. I could see his 86 Masters win being #2 though. It was just so out of nowhere and unexpected. A performance for the ages. He had literally won 2 of his previous 100 tournaments before that Masters. Shot a final round 75.

Great idea for a thread. It's hard to narrow it down to three.

1- "The Fortune" (An underappreciated classic co-starring Warren Beatty. One of the funniest movies I've ever seen.) ("Two of 'em")

2- "The Postman Always Rings Twice "(Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange together!)

3- "Five Easy Pieces" (One of my favorite movies)

Hard to believe I had to leave "Chinatown" and "The Last Detail" off my list. He has at least ten great, great performances. This gives me an idea for a new thread: Five favorite actors.

It was a pretty deep bench back then. Newman, DeNiro, Pacino, Beatty, Hackman, Voigt, Dreyfuss, Redford, what was left of Brando, and so on. Even a young Martin Sheen or Richard Greer were doing amazing things in films the late 70s like Apocalypse Now, Days of Heaven and Badlands.

I think you could have subbed out Nicholson on quite a few of his films in the 60s and 70s and still had great films. I think only Chinatown and The Shining had Jack Nicholson make or break it. No one else had the square jaw and film noir inflection that he had in Chinatown. And there is nothing to say about The Shining.

Yet Stephen King HATED Nicholson's performance in The Shining. He believed that there was no descent into madness that Nicholson was nuts from the beginning.

1. The Shining

2. Chinatown

3. A Few Good Men

Speaking of Brando, anyone remember The Missouri Breaks? It had both Nicholson and Brando in the starring roles and was pretty hyped at the time. Jack was coming off Cuckoo and Brando had last appeared in Last Tango. It goes to show that great actors can never save a bad movie. And it even had a John Williams musical score, pre-Star Wars.