Happy Birthday Jack Nicholson: The Iconic Actor’s Best Lines

As the legendary award-winning actor Jack Nicholson turns 75 this weekend, we've decided to look back at some of his most memorable movie roles and some iconic and often quoted lines.

1. Easy Rider, as George Hanson

THE LINE: “This used to be a helluva good country. I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it.”

THE MOVIE: A 1969 biker drama starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, this misadventure movie was a seminal film in the counterculture movement of the time. Nicholson’s character is a drunken lawyer who leaves square-dom behind…at the same moment the rest of the country does. Nicholson got his first Oscar nomination for the part.

2. Five Easy Pieces, as Robert Dupea

THE LINE: “I move around a lot, not because I’m looking for anything really, but ’cause I’m getting away from things that get bad if I stay.”

THE MOVIE: In this 1970 drama, Nicholson plays a former classical musician—who can easily play the five pieces possibly referenced in the title—who works on an oil field but has to come to terms with his hoity-toity family, the people and life he ran away from. Nicholson was nominated for an Oscar for the role.

3. Chinatown, as Jake Gittes

THE LINE: “What can I tell you, kid? You’re right. When you’re right, you’re right, and you’re right.”

THE MOVIE: The most famous line in Chinatown—“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”—is actually said to Nicholson rather than by him, but the 1974 private-detective movie has plenty of runners-up. Nicholson plays said detective, hired to investigate an affair (or so he thinks), and was nominated for an Oscar for the part.

4. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, as R.P. McMurphy

THE LINE: “I must be crazy to be in a loony bin like this.” THE MOVIE: In this 1975 classic, Nicholson plays a criminal who pleads insanity but gets more than he bargained for when he’s sent to an Oregon mental institution ruled with an iron fist by the terrifying Nurse Ratched. His ringleader character tries to get the patients to rebel, but the situation is even crazier than he had imagined. Nicholson won his first Oscar for the part.

5. The Shining, as Jack Torrance

THE LINE: “Heeere’s Johnny!”

THE MOVIE: This 1980 horror film, based on a Stephen King story and directed by Stanley Kubrick, remains one of Nicholson’s most famous roles—and the movie, in which he plays a writer losing his mind in a remote hotel, is full of contenders for his most famous quote.

6. Terms of Endearment, as Garrett Breedlove

THE LINE: “I don’t know what it is about you, but you do bring out the devil in me.”

THE MOVIE:Nicholson plays the astronaut neighbor (and more) to Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger’s mother-daughter protagonists in this 1983 tearjerker. But, even though he’s not part of the central duo, romantic affairs taking backseat (in a convertible) to familiar ones. Nicholson won an Oscar for his role.

7. Prizzi's Honor, as Charley Partanna

THE LINE: “Do I ice her? Do I marry her?”

THE MOVIE:This 1985 crime comedy stars Nicholson as a hit man in love with another assassin (Kathleen Turner) and who must contemplate the essential dilemma summed up in this line. Nicholson was nominated for an Oscar for the role.

8. The Witches of Eastwick, as Daryl Van Horne

THE LINE: “Well, if that’s how you feel about it, then that’s how you feel about it. Is that how you feel about it?”

THE MOVIE: This 1987 horror/comedy film, based on a John Updike novel, stars Nicholson as a mysterious man who appears in an uptight New England town and begins to seduce three single women who don’t yet know their own witchy powers. Not that Nicholson’s seductive stranger doesn’t have his own powers, too.

9. Batman, as the Joker

THE LINE: “Nice outfit.”

THE MOVIE: In the 1989 installment of the Batman films, Nicholson plays the smiling, psychotic villain opposite Michael Keaton’s Dark Knight. Although the Batman-baddie stable is a crowded one, Nicholson did a memorable turn in the plaid pants of evil—and managed to wear that ensemble while being fully underwhelmed by the batsuit.

10. A Few Good Men, as Col. Nathan R. Jessup

THE LINE: “You can’t handle the truth!”

THE MOVIE: The 1992 military procedural thriller stars Tom Cruise as a naval lawyer in over his head, but the most memorable moment of the movie goes to Nicholson’s unhinged Colonel character, who gets to say one of the actor’s most famous lines ever and for whom he received another Oscar nod.

11. As Good as It Gets, as Melvin Udall

THE LINE: “You make me want to be a better man.”

THE MOVIE:In a 1997 romantic turn, Nicholson plays opposite Helen Hunt as a misanthrope who discovers what it’s like to actually care about another person for once. In his attempt to woo Hunt’s waitress character, he utters the line that can turn any man from “eww” to “aww.” Nicholson won an Oscar for the role.

12. About Schmidt, as Warren Schmidt

THE LINE: “I know we’re all pretty small in the big scheme of things, and I suppose the most you can hope for is to make some kind of difference, but what kind of difference have I made? What in the world is better because of me?”

THE MOVIE:As a retiring insurance man traveling from Nebraska to Colorado in an RV, a bedraggled and lonely Nicholson leads this 2002 film and scored another Oscar nomination for the role. The physical and emotional journey of the title character provides plenty of fodder for insightful dialogue.

13. The Departed, as Frank Costello

THE LINE: “When I was growing up, they would say you could become cops or criminals. But what I’m saying is this. When you’re facing a loaded gun, what’s the difference?”

THE MOVIE: In this Boston-set 2006 mob drama, directed by Martin Scorsese, Nicholson plays a gang leader who lets a police mole into the organization—at the same time that he has placed his own mole with the police. And those moles aren’t even the only ones playing for both sides.

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