This best Jack Nicholson movies list features the top Jack Nicholson films of all time, including only titles that he has starred in that have already released. In order to be included in this top 5 Jack Nicholson movies list Nicholson must have played a prominent role. Author discretion is the final criteria used to distinguish these best Jack Nicholson films.
5. Batman (1989)Box Office Gross: $251,188,924 Adjusted: $0
After witnessing his parents brutal murder as a child, millionaire-philanthropist Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton) pledges his life to fighting crime disguised as Batman. His long-time nemesis, The Joker (Jack Nicholson), has sinister plans for the citizens of Gotham City. His greed is matched by his obsession with photojournalist Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger). But Batman is there to counter the Joker’s every move. With the fate of Gotham and Vicki in the balance, will good or evil prevail?
4. The Shining (1980)Box Office Gross: $44,017,374 Adjusted: $0
A married couple (Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall) with a small son are employed to look after a resort hotel high in the Colorado mountains. As a result they are the sole occupants during the long winter. The hotel manager warns them not to accept the job because of a tragedy that occurred during the winter of 1970. Based on the book by Stephen King.
3. The Departed (2006)Box Office Gross: $132,384,315 Adjusted: $0
In South Boston, where the state police force is waging war on organized crime, young undercover cop Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is assigned to infiltrate the mob syndicate run by gangland chief Costello (Jack Nicholson). While Billy is quickly gaining Costello’s confidence, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon), a hardened young criminal who has infiltrated the police department as an informer for the syndicate, is rising to a position of power in the Special Investigation Unit. Each man becomes deeply consumed by his double life, gathering information about the plans and counter-plans of the operations he has penetrated. But when it becomes clear to both the gangsters and the police that there’s a mole in their midst, Billy and Colin are suddenly in danger of being caught and exposed to the enemy – and each must race to uncover the identity of the other man in time to save himself.
2. As Good as It Gets (1997)Box Office Gross: $148,478,011 Adjusted: $0
Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) is the most dysfunctional of men, an acid-tongued romance novelist who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. As part of Melvin’s unwavering daily routine, he consumes an artery-hardening breakfast of bacon, sausages and eggs at a local cafe. The only waitress willing to stand up to his sarcastic tirades is Carol Connelly (Helen Hunt), a single mother struggling to raise her chronically asthmatic son. Simon Nye (Greg Kinnear) has the distinct misfortune of living across the hall from Melvin. A talented artist, Simon is the darling of New York’s art world, reason enough to draw Melvin’s verbal fire. These three, none of whom has a chance in hell of finding real happiness, discover their fates intertwined because of a fourth character: an ugly little dog named Verdall.
1. Chinatown (1974)Box Office Gross: $29,200,000 Adjusted: $0
“You may think you know what you’re dealing with, but believe me, you don’t,” warns water baron Noah Cross (John Huston), when smooth cop-turned-private eye J.J. “Jake” Gittes (Jack Nicholson) starts nosing around Cross’s water diversion scheme. That proves to be the ominous lesson of Chinatown, Roman Polanski’s critically lauded 1974 revision of 1940s film noir detective movies. In 1930s Los Angeles, “matrimonial work” specialist Gittes is hired by Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) to tail her husband, Water Department engineer Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling).