# What is the best Jack Nicholson movie?

> Easy Rider counterculture, Overlook Hotel menace and late-career curmudgeons all compete here. Half a century of that grin, sorted by you.

*By YPB Team · Published October 31, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-jack-nicholson-movie*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Prizzi's Honor** — score 1000/1000
   John Huston's 1985 black comedy with Nicholson as a dim-witted Mafia hitman in love with a rival killer.
2. **The King of Marvin Gardens** — score 926/1000
   Bob Rafelson's 1972 drama with Nicholson as a melancholy radio monologist drawn into his brother's Atlantic City scheme.
3. **One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest** — score 833/1000
   Milos Forman's 1975 asylum drama that won Nicholson his first Best Actor Oscar as rebel R.P. McMurphy.
4. **Mars Attacks!** — score 812/1000
   Tim Burton's 1996 sci-fi spoof in which Nicholson plays both the U.S. President and a Las Vegas developer.
5. **The Missouri Breaks** — score 812/1000
   Arthur Penn's 1976 western pitting Nicholson's horse thief against Marlon Brando's eccentric regulator.
6. **Ironweed** — score 778/1000
   A 1987 Depression-era drama with Nicholson as a haunted alcoholic drifter opposite Meryl Streep.
7. **The Border** — score 778/1000
   A 1982 drama with Nicholson as a U.S. Border Patrol agent battling corruption.
8. **The Crossing Guard** — score 714/1000
   Sean Penn's 1995 drama about a grieving father seeking revenge on the drunk driver who killed his daughter.
9. **Chinatown** — score 714/1000
   Roman Polanski's 1974 neo-noir with Nicholson as private eye J.J. Gittes uncovering a Los Angeles water conspiracy.
10. **Terms of Endearment** — score 714/1000
   James L. Brooks's 1983 Best Picture winner, with Nicholson's Oscar-winning turn as a retired astronaut.
11. **The Passenger** — score 641/1000
   Michelangelo Antonioni's 1975 existential thriller about a reporter who assumes a dead man's identity.
12. **About Schmidt** — score 641/1000
   Alexander Payne's 2002 drama starring Nicholson as a lonely retiree on a cross-country road trip.
13. **Easy Rider** — score 641/1000
   The 1969 counterculture road movie whose boozy lawyer George Hanson made Nicholson a star.
14. **Reds** — score 555/1000
   Warren Beatty's 1981 epic in which Nicholson earned an Oscar nomination as playwright Eugene O'Neill.
15. **The Fortune** — score 555/1000
   Mike Nichols's 1975 screwball comedy with Nicholson and Warren Beatty as bumbling con men.
16. **Heartburn** — score 555/1000
   Mike Nichols's 1986 marital drama with Nicholson as a cheating columnist married to Meryl Streep.
17. **The Witches of Eastwick** — score 555/1000
   George Miller's 1987 fantasy comedy starring Nicholson as the devilish Daryl Van Horne.
18. **Ride in the Whirlwind** — score 454/1000
   A 1966 Monte Hellman western, written by Nicholson, about cowboys mistaken for outlaws.
19. **Blood and Wine** — score 454/1000
   Bob Rafelson's 1996 crime thriller with Nicholson as a wine dealer planning a jewel heist.
20. **A Few Good Men** — score 454/1000
   Rob Reiner's 1992 courtroom drama featuring Nicholson's famous 'You can't handle the truth!' as Colonel Jessup.
21. **Anger Management** — score 454/1000
   A 2003 comedy with Nicholson as an unhinged therapist treating Adam Sandler.
22. **The Two Jakes** — score 454/1000
   Nicholson's 1990 directed sequel to Chinatown, returning as detective J.J. Gittes.
23. **The Pledge** — score 454/1000
   Sean Penn's 2001 thriller starring Nicholson as a retired detective obsessed with a child murder case.
24. **The Postman Always Rings Twice** — score 454/1000
   Bob Rafelson's steamy 1981 noir remake with Nicholson as a drifter who plots murder with Jessica Lange.
25. **Carnal Knowledge** — score 454/1000
   Mike Nichols's 1971 drama tracing two friends' sex lives, with Nicholson as the cynical Jonathan.
26. **The Bucket List** — score 454/1000
   Rob Reiner's 2007 comedy-drama about two terminally ill men, played by Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.
27. **Batman** — score 333/1000
   Tim Burton's 1989 blockbuster in which Nicholson played a gleefully menacing Joker.
28. **The Last Detail** — score 333/1000
   Hal Ashby's 1973 comedy-drama with Nicholson as a Navy lifer escorting a young sailor to prison.
29. **Wolf** — score 333/1000
   Mike Nichols's 1994 horror-romance about a book editor who turns into a werewolf.
30. **The Shooting** — score 333/1000
   Monte Hellman's 1966 existential western with Nicholson as a menacing gunfighter.
31. **Hoffa** — score 333/1000
   Danny DeVito's 1992 biopic with Nicholson as Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa.
32. **The Shining** — score 333/1000
   Stanley Kubrick's 1980 horror classic in which Nicholson's Jack Torrance descends into madness at the Overlook Hotel.
33. **Something's Gotta Give** — score 333/1000
   Nancy Meyers's 2003 romantic comedy pairing Nicholson's aging playboy with Diane Keaton.
34. **As Good as It Gets** — score 0/1000
   A 1997 romantic comedy that earned Nicholson his third Oscar as an obsessive-compulsive novelist.
35. **The Departed** — score 0/1000
   Martin Scorsese's 2006 Best Picture winner with Nicholson as Boston crime boss Frank Costello.
36. **The Raven** — score 0/1000
   Roger Corman's 1963 horror comedy in which young Nicholson shared the screen with Vincent Price and Boris Karloff.
37. **Goin' South** — score 0/1000
   A 1978 western comedy directed by and starring Nicholson as an outlaw saved from the gallows by marriage.
38. **Five Easy Pieces** — score 0/1000
   A 1970 drama starring Nicholson as a restless former piano prodigy working on oil rigs.

Tags: movies, actors, classics, jack nicholson