“The Passenger” (1975)
In “The Passenger,” Nicholson is once again in a state of flight, but in the hands of Michelangelo Antonioni, the source of his flight is more slippery and philosophical. When Maria Schneider asks him just what he’s running away from, he tells her to turn around in the car and she watches the land recede; he is in perpetual motion, trying to outrun not just his life and baggage, but the very idea of a stable identity. Nicholson stars as David Locke, a frustrated reporter navigating a postmodern world where money, weapons, and information flow freely across national borders. Frustrated with his life, in Africa he pulls a Don Draper and switches identities with a dead man, falling almost effortlessly into the dead man’s profession of gun running. The character’s name invokes the ideas of John Locke, questioning whether identity is a mere function of behavior or something deeper. Nicholson and Antonioni are an unlikely pairing, resulting in a very restrained, self-effacing performance that fits the material perfectly and placing Nicholson inside the most beautiful images of his entire career. – JB
“The King Of Marvin Gardens” (1972)
By 1972, Jack Nicholson and Bob Rafelson were old collaborators. Rafelson had directed Nicholson’s script for “Head” in 1968, before producing “Easy Rider,” the film that made Nicholson a star, through his Raybert banner (soon to change its name to BBS), the following year and “Five Easy Pieces,” which won Nicholson a Best Actor nomination). Their follow-up, two years later, “The King of Marvin Gardens” was virtually savaged by critics at the time. But with a few decades of distance, it’s gained far more critical respect, and if nothing else, stands as a early demonstration of Nicholson’s range and ability to play against type. Riffing on the familiar dysfunctional family dynamics. the actor plays a late-night talk radio host sunk in a deep dark depression, whose brother (Bruce Dern), a wild-spirited con-man, brings him into a real estate scam in run-down Atlantic City, along with his unpredictable girlfriend Sally (Ellen Burstyn) and her step-daughter Jessica (Julia Anne Robinson), with inevitably tragic consequences. The film is a decided oddity, a difficult, episodic watch with jarring, surreal scene after jarring, surreal scene. But even to those who don’t respond to it, the relationship between the two brothers is complex and affecting, with Nicholson’s introverted turn made all the more impressive when put up against Dern’s, the friendship between the two giving the fraternal bond real heft. Despite the critical brickbats, the film was an impressive success — the thirteenth biggest-grosser of 1972 — and Nicholson and Rafelson would continue to work together many, many times, up to 1996’s “Blood and Wine.” – Oliver Lyttelton
“Easy Rider” (1969)
Nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting at the 42nd Academy Awards for his role as George Hanson in Dennis Hopper’s counterculture flick, Jack Nicholson is playing it rather straight compared to the companions who pick him along the way. As the two misanthropic youth travel the country (played by Hopper and Peter Fonda), disillusioned by the government and any established place of power, Nicholson’s Hanson, an alcoholic but wary of drugs, acts as a foil to the main character’s actions. Nicholson wasn’t yet as wily then, or as effortlessly unhinged, but his reaction, when the character drinks first thing in the morning is enough of a signal of just how effectively off-kilter he could be. Jack’s as tremendous in his quiet moments as he is in his broad, demonstrating his prowess in bouts of silence and punctuated flare with a face so expressive it’s impossible to catch everything he’s doing in a single scene to infuse more life into the character. It’s not the biggest part, but it demonstrated the talent he’d go on to showcase for decades. – AJ
“Prizzi’s Honor” (1985) It’s hard to argue that “Prizzi’s Honor” was undervalued at the time as the film was nominated for a brace of Oscars, and Nicholson himself got a Best Actor nod. But its critical reputation has shrunk a little since, and probably correctly so. One suspects that the Academy wanted to honor director John Huston one last time, and had they known he had another bonafide masterpiece in him with “The Dead,” they might not have fallen for an enjoyable, if slight, black comedy. But none of that changes how good Nicholson is in the film. The actor plays Charley Partanna, a mob enforcer for the Prizzi family, who falls for Irene, a rival hitwoman (Kathleen Turner, never better). They’re soon married, but find that work and love don’t mix, and thanks to the interference of Charley’s one-time fiancee Maerose (Nicholson’s then-girlfriend Angelica Huston, who won an Oscar for the part), soon find themselves tasked with taking each other out. Huston gives the film an enjoyably nasty, dark tone, but the treat here is Nicholson, who with padding in his lip that subtly shifts his look and voice, giving him the feel of Humphrey Bogart. And despite the broad comic tone, there’s a grounded, deeply sad feel to Charley, even as he wrings laughs out of his less than towering intellect.– OL
“A Few Good Men” (1992)
Col. Nathan R. Jessep is perhaps best known for that one iconic climatic line that has rung sharply throughout the tunnels of pop culture ever since Jack Nicholson so passionately bellowed it in cinemas all around the world: “You can’t handle the truth!” In 1992’s engrossing courtroom melodrama “A Few Good Men,” an adaptation of Aaron Sorkin’s play, Nicholson plays a U.S. Marine on trial for the murder of a fellow Marine. It is, once again, a heavy and foreboding role for the intense and often heated actor. It is easy to forget that the acclaimed film’s most remembered sequence is only a small portion of it. But that’s a testament to the power Nicholson brings to the role. Though the part isn’t as central as some of the others featured on this list, it remains one of the actor’s most beloved and revered moments all the same, mainly because it captures everything that we love and respect about Jack Nicholson, particularly in that one striking moment of acting bravado. It is passionate and it is triumphant. It is pronounced and it is commanding. It is bold and it is unflinchingly invigorated. Most of all, however, it is filled with emotional honesty. Part of what makes Nicholson great isn’t that he can command all these emotions but that he can command these emotions with both impact and fluidity. Jack Nicholson is an actor that truly demands your attention, but more than that, he earns it. He astounds and mesmerizes. And he conveys so much with such simple grace. Nicholson continues to bring truth and emotional honesty to his performances, whether you can handle it or not. Even in smaller doses, Jack Nicholson demonstrates what an absolute firehouse performer he can be. – WA