Still from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, directed by Miloš Forman, 1975
Courtesy The Saul Zaentz Company, © 1975, 2008
At the end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the character Chief Bromden broke through the locked windows of the mental hospital and ran towards freedom.
This movie, adapted from Ken Kesey’s 1963 novel of the same name, prompted more people to think of mental hospitals as restrictive of people’s freedom. This concept became central as the courts established new civil rights for people in mental hospitals, making it more difficult to confine people against their will.
