One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Movie: Key Facts

Full Title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Director: Milos Forman

Lead Cast: Jack Nicholson as Randle P. McMurphy, Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched

Supporting Cast: William Redfield, Brad Dourif, Will Sampson, Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, Scatman Crothers, Marya Small, Sydney Lassick, Nathan George, Mwako Cumbuka, William Duell, Delos V. Smith Jr., Dean R. Brooks, Mimi Sarkisian, Vincent Schiavelli, Josip Elic, Peter Brocco, Michael Berryman, Louisa Moritz

Writer: Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman (adapted from the novel by Ken Kesey)

Producers: Saul Zaentz and Michael Douglas

Genre: Drama

Language: English

Awards

1975 Academy Awards:

Won: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Jack Nicholson), Best Actress (Louise Fletcher), Best Adapted Screenplay (Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman)

Date of release: 1975

Setting (time & Place): The Oregon State Mental Hospital in Salem, OR in 1963

Major conflict: McMurphy struggles against the forces of tyranny, conformity, insanity, evil, and death embodied by his nemesis, the head nurse of the mental hospital, Nurse Ratched.

Rising action: Energized by his love for life, McMurphy opposes Nurse Ratched’s control and challenges the system of reality she imposes by coaching the patients to take risks, escaping with them to go fishing, and encouraging them to question authority.

Climax: After Nurse Ratched discovers Billy Bibbit in bed with Candy, she makes him feel so ashamed that he commits suicide. McMurphy, upon learning of the suicide, strangles Nurse Ratched until guards take him away.

Falling action: Nurse Ratched escalates her efforts to break McMurphy through electroshock treatment, destruction of his disciples, and surgical lobotomy, but the Chief thwarts her by freeing McMurphy’s spirit in an act of mercy killing.

Foreshadowing: McMurphy’s history of assaults; Billy Bibbit’s first suicide attempt; McMurphy’s escape over the fence on the Chief’s back; McMurphy’s zombie walk after electroshock therapy; blood on the starched white uniforms