Jack Nicholson’s 15 Best Performances: From ‘Batman’ to ‘Chinatown’ (2024)

Role: Jerry Black

Distributed by: Warner Bros

Directed by: Sean Penn

Written by: Jerzy Kromolowski, Mary Olson-Kromolowski (based on “The Pledge” by Friedrich Dürrenmatt)

The scene that proves it: “No strings attached, no obligations – but I’ve seen these things go from bad to worse.”

Teamed up with writer and director Sean Penn, Nicholson’s work as a retiring cop who promises a mother to find the killer of her murdered daughter, his heartbreaking portrayal stands as one of his most visceral of his later roles. With a stellar cast that includes Patricia Clarkson, Benicio del Toro, Aaron Eckhart, Sam Shepard, Mickey Rourke, Vanessa Redgrave, Helen Mirren and Robin Wright — and a haunting score by Hans Zimmer — “The Pledge” presents one of his most thrilling outings. –Clayton Davis

Role: Charley Partanna

Distributed by: 20th Century Fox

Directed by: John Huston

Written by: Richard Condon, Janet Roach

The scene that proves it: “I broke that vase.”

Under the direction of the great John Huston, Nicholson’s turn as the mafia hitman Charley Partanna in the dark comedy “Prizzi’s Honor” was one of Jack’s coolest, most remarkable creations. With outstanding chemistry with Kathleen Turner and an Oscar-winning turn from the incredible Anjelica Huston, the chuckles are plentiful. The love story is also acutely intact, with Nicholson firmly in his element. –CD

Role: Garrett Breedlove

Distributed by: Paramount Pictures

Directed by: James L. Brooks

Written by: James L. Brooks (based on “Terms of Endearment” by Larry McMurtry)

The scene that proves it: “I was just inches from a clean getaway.”

One of three films that stars Nicholson to win best picture, his turn as a retired astronaut and neighbor Garrett Breedlove, who falls for the affections of Aurora (played by Oscar-winner Shirley MacLaine), is a favorite for many cinephiles. He won the Oscar for best supporting actor, likely another reason the film managed to pull in an extra supporting nom for his co-star John Lithgow (but sadly not Jeff Daniels, who should be there as well). He finds the balance of laughs and insecurity in a film heavy on emotion and shows why he’s always been so damn good at the rom-com genre. –CD

Role: Warren R. Schmidt

Distributed by: New Line Cinema

Directed by: Alexander Payne

Written by: Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor

The scene that proves it: Every time he says “Dear Ndugu”

Most of Nicholson’s acting is powered by a spark plug of naughty joy, so it’s fascinating to see him deliver one of his most accomplished performances as Warren Schmidt, a newly retired and widowed insurance-company actuary from Omaha, Nebraska, who is such a curmudgeon of conventionality that he seems to have spent his entire life walling off everything life is really about. As Schmidt goes on a solo Winnebago odyssey to try to connect with his daughter — mouth drawn into a tight line of restraint — Alexander Payne’s film turns into a brilliant study of Middle American narcissism. —Owen Gleiberman

Role: Jack Napier/The Joker

Distributed by: Warner Bros.

Directed by: Tim Burton

Written by: Sam Hamm, Warren Skaaren

The scene that proves it: “Wait till they get a load of me!”

In the decade that led up to it, Nicholson had played over-the-top evil (“The Witches of Eastwick”) and stylized criminality (“Prizzi’s Honor”), but in Tim Burton’s pop landmark of dark-knight grandeur, it was great to see Nicholson, in his early 50s, bust out with his wildest, merriest, most insanely baroque performance, portraying the Joker as a freak demon clown who’s like a walking homicidal palm buzzer. He did more than just steal the movie from Michael Keaton. He became its madly cackling center of gravity, making Gotham City the Joker’s world, which everyone else, including Batman, just lives in.—OG

Role: Robert “Bobby” Eroica Dupea

Distributed by: Columbia Pictures

Directed by: Bob Rafelson

Written by: Adrien Joyce

The scene that proves it: “What do you mean you don’t make side orders of toast?”

In Bob Rafelson’s classic that brought Jack Nicholson his first nomination as a leading man, his work as Bobby can warm the coldest of hearts. Alongside a beautiful and talented Karen Black, “Five Easy Pieces” has him step into the role of a musician running away from his past and snatching the era’s spirit. He also keeps the tempers of a fellow brimming in each scene but never going overboard, a skill that very few actors have mastered. –CD

Role: Eugene O’Neill

Distributed by: Paramount Pictures

Directed by: Warren Beatty

Written by: Warren Beatty, Trevor Griffiths

The scene that proves it: “It’s a poem telling you that I love you.”

Winning the Oscar for best director, Warren Beatty’s epic drama chronicles the life and career of John Reed. Beatty harnesses the softer side of Jack as playwright Eugene O’Neill, a role for which he received an Oscar nomination for supporting actor. His interpretation of the famed artist stands as one of his most intoxicating as he shepherds poetry and sultry eyes that hypnotize the viewer and the actors he shares scenes with. Watching him make magic with Diane Keaton is easily the film’s best moments. Coincidentally, it is probably one of his more overlooked efforts despite the critical love and accolades. –CD

Role: Freddy Gale

Distributed by: Miramax

Directed by: Sean Penn

Written by: Sean Penn

The scene that proves it: “Tell me the truth, Mary, you want me to kill John Booth.”

There are plenty of Nicholson performances with him playing the villain, unconventional hero, or a romantic leading man. However, Jack’s “grief-stricken” interpretations have very few pop-ups in cinema history, and it’s put to best use with one of his most underrated outings. Raw intensity, grief and the undying urge for revenge are wrapped into the Nicholson’s Freddy Gale, a jeweler sworn to kill the drunk driver that killed his little girl in Sean Penn’s sophom*ore directorial effort. Alongside great actors such as Anjelica Huston and David Morse, he finds the connection that becomes a harrowing tale of forgiveness. –CD

Role: Billy “Badass” Buddusky

Distributed by: Columbia Pictures

Directed by: Hal Ashby

Written by: Robert Towne

The scene that proves it: Facing down a bartender with a big gun under the bar

Hal Ashby’s haunting 1973 road odyssey is nothing more (or less) than the tale of two sailors, led by Nicholson, who take a saddened young seaman to the brig, the three of them loping from city to city, looking and acting like the restless outsiders they are. Nicholson, expressing his co*ckeyed brashness in quiet forlorn bursts, gives what some regard as his finest performance, and it’s almost certainly the mostgroundedacting from his great 1970s period. You believe in your bones that this man is a sailor — a grizzled, hardened, rootless soul who has used military discipline as a frame to hang his heart on, even as it covers the wreckage he feels inside.—OG

Role: George Hanson

Distributed by: Columbia Pictures

Directed by: Dennis Hopper

Written by: Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Terry Southern

The scene that proves it: “Here’s the first of the day, fellas.”

What has made Jack so essential to the cinema landscape isn’t only the films he’s led but the supporting turns he chose throughout his career. His work proves the theory under the skillful eyes of Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, who star in and co-write the road trip drama about two bikers who travel through the South. It stands as one of Nicholson’s most important cinematic contributions. As the alcoholic George Hanson, he takes one of the most accurate snapshots of dreams and despair, wrapped in a heartbreaking character ending that permeates in retrospective. Love, love and more love for everything associated with “Easy Rider.” –CD

Role: Jack Torrance

Distributed by: Warner Bros.

Directed by: Stanley Kubrick

Written by: Stanley Kubrick, Diane Johnson

The scene that proves it: “I’m not gonna hurt ya — I’m just gonna bash your brains in!”

When Stanley Kubrick’s grand spooky conceptual gothic horror film was released in 1980, Nicholson’s performance — like the movie itself — was greeted with mixed reviews. From that very first interview scene, he was perceived to be acting on a weirdly high-camp level of sinister foreboding. But just as “The Shining” aged into being thought of as a classic, the audacity of Nicholson’s performance never stops surprising you, no matter how many times you’ve seen it. His Jack Torrance, a failed writer and troubled alcoholic husband and dad, is, from the start, nursing a hidden insanity, and when it finally bursts out of him, Nicholson becomes operatic in his rage. Yes, the performance has a spark of camp — and of kabuki, and seething sarcasm, and raw terror and reality. All work and no play make Nicholson a funny, mesmerizing boy.—OG

Role: Col. Nathan R. Jessup, USMC

Distributed by: Columbia Pictures

Directed by: Rob Reiner

Written by: Aaron Sorkin

The scene that proves it: “You can’t handle the truth!”

It didn’t take long for the one five-word line from Rob Reiner’s 1992 film version of Aaron Sorkin’s play to become a cultural meme. And that was all because of how Nicholson delivers it. When he sits there on the witness stand, X-ray glaring at Tom Cruise’s military lawyer, and shouts“You can’t handle the truth,”Nicholson puts a lifetime of military ideology behind those words. He means it — that military reality is too horrific for a civilian to accept — and that’s how he justifies his lies. The rest of Nicholson’s small but powerful performance has a seething vitality, implosive in its menace and control.—OG

Role: J.J. “Jake” Gittes

Distributed by: Paramount Pictures

Directed by: Roman Polanski

Written by: Robert Towne

The scene that proves it: “Who is she? And don’t give me that crap about your sister.”

Roman Polanski’s moody 1974 noir is the closest any movie of the post-studio-system era has ever come to recreating the clockwork mystery and élan of a film from Old Hollywood, and Nicholson, like Bogart with a touch of Cagney, is masterful in conjuring a cynical fury that is deviously contained. His L.A. private detective Jake Gittes has stumbled upon a corruption bigger and wider than anything he could have imagined, but that corruption is also embodied in his love for Faye Dunaway’s damaged heroine. Nicholson’s performance, with its downbeat investigative zeal, turns the very action of being a detective into a trigger of tragedy.—OG

Role: Melvin Udall

Distributed by: Sony Pictures

Directed by: James L. Brooks

Written by: Mark Andrus, James L. Brooks

The scene that proves it: “You make me want to be a better man.”

The horrors, antics and behavior of Melvin Udall would only be those simplicities in the hands of any other actor. Still, Jack makes him a figure the audience can love in James L. Brooks’s romantic comedy. It’s the role that brought Nicholson his third Oscar statuette, second for best actor, as we see him leading an impeccable ensemble that includes Helen Hunt, Greg Kinnear and others. He slides into darker scenes of laughter, steps up to the plate in moments that ask for dramatic heft and unspools all the tricks and trades of the greatest parts of Jack Nicholson. –CD

Role: Randall P. McMurphy

Distributed by: United Artists

Directed by: Milos Forman

Written by: Bo Goldman, Lawrence Hauben

The scene that proves it: Leading the vote to watch the World Series

Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel anticipated the counterculture (it’s set on a mental ward and centers on a rebel who society isn’t ready for), but the fact that the movie version didn’t get produced until 1975 altered the story’s meaning in a nearly poetic way. It was now about the swan song of the counterculture, with Nicholson playing the free-spirited screwup R.P. McMurphy as an anarchist-hellraiser whose time has passed. It’s his single most exhilarating performance, and arguably his greatest —a pure effusion of triumphant Jack hostility tinged with desperation. McMurphy’s war with Nurse Ratched, played by Louise Fletcher as a diabolically passive-aggressive student-council president, allows Nicholson to attain new heights of insurrectionary glee, even as he’s shadowed by a kind of beautiful doom.—OG