One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Reviews
Top CriticOne Flew over the Cuckoo 's Nest is an earnest attempt to make a serious film. But in the end the movie backs away from both the human reality and the cloudy but potent symbolism that Ken Kesey found in the asylum.
Even granting the artist his license, America is much too big and various to be satisfactorily reduced to the dimensions of one mental ward in a movie like this.
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| Original Score: 2/5
The Nation
I enjoyed the picture because it is an action romance, worked out in wonderfully inventive detail and presented with mesmeric immediacy by one of the screen's most resourceful directors.
Is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest not a great film because it is manipulative, or is it great because it is so superbly manipulative? I can see it through either filter.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Viewed 30 years after its release, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest remains a very good motion picture, although one that perhaps just misses the pinnacle of greatness where its reputation suggests it resides.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
Arizona Daily Star
A rousing, rock-the-boat feel pulses throughout the film, overpowering its weaknesses.
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| Original Score: 4/4
DVD Clinic
This superlative 2-disc set ranks among my favorite DVDs of 2002, and I absolutely recommend it as a purchase.
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| Original Score: 5/5
Matt's Movie Reviews
A great cast, great screenplay and great performance makes One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest an enjoyable and thought provoking movie.
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| Original Score: 4/5
Filmcritic.com
Along with It Happened One Night and The Silence of the Lambs, these are the only three films to win all four major Oscars (actor, actress, director, picture). It's still the only film to deserve it.
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| Original Score: 5/5
ColeSmithey.com
The genius of the film is that you never feel you're being preached at, but rather being allowed a fly-on-the-wall view of a systematic crushing of humanity.
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| Original Score: A+
Combustible Celluloid
It's mostly Nicholson that makes the film work, with his fun, but very intelligent, canny turn.
There's a lot here. But with a classic like Cuckoo's Nest, too much is never enough.
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| Original Score: A
Cinema Crazed
A marvel of contemporary filmmaking with intelligence, entertainment value, and ponderings on life, manhood, and how society can be much scarier than nurses in white coats...
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| Original Score: 4/4
Jack Nicholson stars in an outstanding characterization of Ken Kesey's asylum anti-hero, McMurphy, and Milos Forman's direction of a superbly-cast film is equally meritorious.
Flick Filosopher
Quietly shocking.
Full Review
| Original Score: 9/10
