Jack Nicholson names his favourite Jack Nicholson movie: “How could you not like it?”
It’s not a requirement for an actor to have one movie from their career that stands out as a personal favourite, especially someone who enjoyed a career as long, illustrious, awards-laden, and legendary as Jack Nicholson.
That doesn’t mean they can’t have a particular feature from their filmography that holds a special place in their heart, though, with the three-time Academy Award winner finally caving to the pressure and settling on a film that he viewed as the pinnacle of his professional life.
With a history-making 12 Oscar nominations to his name and a back catalogue that includes Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Chinatown, The Shining, Terms of Endearment, Batman, As Good As It Gets, and The Departed, among others, Nicholson wasn’t short of candidates.
However, while he did single out one of his pictures as the cream of the crop, he wouldn’t go so far as to pick out a performance. Nicholson was an endlessly versatile and constantly dynamic presence onscreen and sits comfortably among the very few Hollywood icons who could literally do it all.
He was as good at introspective drama and broad comedy as he was scenery-chewing ham and star-crossed romance, which explains why he couldn’t separate the Randall P McMurphys from the Jokers of the world, to name one performance as his definitive on-camera work.
“I don’t make lists or categorise things,” he told Cigar Aficionado. “Actually, I’m none of them and all of them. There’s a little bit of me, I suppose, in every part I play. As an actor, you can’t help inserting yourself, especially if you love acting.”
That said, his beginnings as an aspiring filmmaker clearly influenced his decision. Before he became a superstar, Nicholson penned several screenplays and made his directorial debut in 1971’s Drive, He Said. For someone who’d spent the next four decades under the instruction of other auteurs and drastically scaled back their involvement in other aspects of the industry, having that level of control over his projects never lost its appeal.
“You have so many people on the set fawning over you,” he fondly recalled. “How could you not like it?” With that in mind, Nicholson admitted that if he were forced to choose a favourite film from his extensive list of credits on either side of the camera, he’d opt for 1978’s Goin’ South.
It was a somewhat surprising call, considering that the western comedy was far from being a critical and commercial darling, enduring a fractious production and seeing him make an enemy of co-star John Belushi. Not many of the actor’s staunchest supporters would rank it anywhere near the top of his finest moments, but if it’s good enough for Nicholson, it’s hard to argue.
