Adapted from Ken Kesey's novel, this film is one the classic movies of the 1970s, thanks in no small measure to the talents of director Milos Forman, who propelled the comic antics to a horrifyingly poignant finale and resounding critical and commercial success; it became one of the few to be awarded all the major Oscars, winning for best picture, director, screenplay, actor (Jack Nicholson) and actress (Louise Fletcher). Nicholson's legendary performance as McMurphy, a free spirit at loose in a state mental home, is one of his greatest characterisations, as he stirs up rebellion against the oppressive regime of Fletcher's ward sister, in which drugs make patients' decisions. And among those patients are such then almost unknowns as Danny DeVito, Brad Dourif and Christopher Lloyd. The rights to the script had been bought by Michael Douglas - he was one of the film's producers years before for father Kirk, who'd played McMurphy on stage but was by this time too old for the part. This then became the great turn-down movie (with James Caan refusing McMurphy while Anne Bancroft, Angela Lansbury and Ellen Burstyn declined the nurse), but the awards proved just how wrong they were.

A petty criminal fakes insanity to serve his sentence in a mental ward rather than prison. He soon finds himself as a leader to the other patients—and an enemy to the cruel, domineering nurse who runs the ward.