After professional hitman Jef Costello is seen by witnesses his efforts to provide himself an alibi drive him further into a corner.
Heroin addict Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) stumbles through bad ideas and sobriety attempts with his unreliable friends -- Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), Begbie (Robert Carlyle), Spud (Ewen Bremner) and Tommy (Kevin McKidd). He also has an underage girlfriend, Diane (Kelly Macdonald), along for the ride. After cleaning up and moving from Edinburgh to London, Mark finds he can't escape the life he left behind when Begbie shows up at his front door on the lam, and a scheming Sick Boy follows.
Adapted from Ken Kesey’s novel, the film centres on Randle McMurphy (Nicholson), a convict who simulates mental illness in the hope that a transfer to psychiatric hospital might ensure his early release. But he hasn’t bargained for the rigid regimen of Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher, also superb), who dislikes his disruptive — though he’d say liberating — effect on the ward.
Inspired casting (Danny DeVito, Brad Dourif and Christopher Lloyd are among the patients) and Forman’s naturalistic direction lend authenticity to the proceedings, so that the film succeeds both as anti-authoritarian parable and as an affecting reminder of the psychiatric practices of the past.
A winner of awards across the world including Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, 5 BAFTA Awards including Best Actor, Original Screenplay and Score, the Grand Prize of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival and many more.
Giuseppe Tornatore's loving homage to the cinema tells the story of Salvatore, a successful film director, returning home for the funeral of Alfredo, his old friend who was the projectionist at the local cinema throughout his childhood. Soon memories of his first love affair with the beautiful Elena and all the highs and lows that shaped his life come flooding back, as Salvatore reconnects with the community he left 30 years earlier.