In regard to the Academy Awards, things often seem to be either feast or famine. Sometimes we get a 1996, which included not a single true classic title among the five Best Picture nominees. Other times we find a 1991, which provided a raft of solid flicks.

Among the years in the latter category, 1975 stood out as one of the best., as virtually any of the five nominees could have taken home the big prize. With movies such as Jaws, Barry Lyndon and Dog Day Afternoon, 1975 remains a very significant year at the cinema.

Appropriately, the Best Picture winner that year achieved something historically significant. Three times over Oscar’s many decades, the same film earned all five of the big prizes: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Screenplay.

It Happened One Night did it first in the Thirties, and The Silence of the Lambs repeated the feat in the early Nineties. In between, 1975’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest equaled that mark.

Did Nest merit such high praise and so many honors? Probably not, as the movie doesn’t seem like one of the all-time great Oscar classics. However, the film does much more right than wrong, and it remains solid more than a quarter of a century after its initial release.

Nest clearly takes the anti-authoritarian route and makes a stand for individual freedom. This kind of film felt pretty common back in the Seventies, as movies and other artistic outlets espoused the need to do what you wanna do.

Harold and Maude remains one well-known example of this genre. Nest offers a substantially better film than Maude, but nonetheless they share the rebellious spirit typical of the times.

Maude suffers largely due to its thesis. It touted selfishness, not freedom, as the main lesson we take from it is that we all should be able to do whatever we want whenever we want to no matter how our actions affect others.

For a rebuttal of this viewpoint, check out the "Bart's Inner Child" episode of The Simpsons. The show's concluding "Do What You Feel" festival neatly encapsulates some of the downfalls of the self-centered spirit.

Happily, Nest avoids such traps, which becomes part of the reason it works much better as a movie than does Maude. Clearly, authority gets a bad rap in Nest, but the film doesn't condemn leading organizations as a whole.

Instead, it concentrates on opposition to rules for rules' sake, the kind of unthinking allegiance to nonsensical conformity that puts down anything different. It's not a tremendously original notion, but it's well-handled in Nest, and the experience creates a more thoughtful exploration than usual of what's "crazy" and what's not.

Nest is definitely a "triumph of the human spirit" kind of movie, and it has some of that genre's weaknesses. We see a fair number of scenes of the mental patients "bonding" and get more of those "you're all beautiful flowers" moments than I'd like.

However, since the number of those sorts of scenes I'd like equals zero, I suppose my mild dissatisfaction is to be expected. At the very least, the film handles these sequences with a minimum of sentimentality, for while director Milos Forman doesn't exactly film Nest as though it were a documentary, he maintains a pretty objective and even-handed approach throughout the flick.

The acting in Nest seems uniformly excellent. Jack Nicholson creates yet another variation on himself as protagonist McMurphy, but he reins himself more than usual.

In fact, I believe Nest offers one of the last times we saw more acting from Jack than just sheer personality, as he's magnetic enough to get by on the latter, but this means we eventually see few real performances from him and too much isolated charisma. In any case, he fully inhabits the role of McMurphy and brings him to life nicely.

Also excellent is Louise Fletcher's Nurse Ratched. That character has become shorthand for a form of semi-fascistic authority figure, but Fletcher makes her all too believable.

Despite her coldness and heavy-handed tactics, Ratched never seems inhuman, and we can see how she thinks she's doing the right thing, though we know she isn't. Nicholson has the showier role, but Fletcher provides the better job of acting.

Nest features a strong supporting cast of then-unknown actors, many of whom didn't stay anonymous for too long. We find people like Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, Brad Dourif and Vincent Schiavelli among the recognizable faces, plus some more obscure actors like Will Sampson as the Chief, Sydney Lassick as Cheswick, and William Redfield as Harding. If there's a weak performance in the bunch, I can't find it.

One problem I encountered while reviewing Nest stems from the fact it's been imitated so many times over the years. It's literally impossible to watch anything remotely concerned with mental facilities without thinking of this movie.

Even if they don't rip off this picture, the comparisons inevitably occur. Because of that factor, I didn't feel Nest seemed terribly fresh, but I could imagine what an impact it packed half a century ago.

Fresh or not, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest remains a well-made and effective movie. For some like Fletcher, it was the sole highlight of their career, while others such as Nicholson and Forman would continue to create strong work for years to come.

In any case, it represented a very solid and compelling movie. Honestly, I'd still pick Jaws over it as the Best Picture of 1975, but Nest seems quite good nonetheless.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this 4K UHD Disc. While not a visual showcase, the disc replicated the source well.

Sharpness largely worked fine. Thanks to the photographic styles, some soft elements arrived, but the movie usually boasted positive delineation.

I noticed no issues with jaggies or shimmering, and edge haloes remained absent.. Grain seemed natural and the image lacked print flaws.

Nest didn’t exactly deliver a Technicolor extravaganza, but the tones seemed more than acceptable within the faded yellow vibe of the palette. The disc brought the appropriate dreariness and HDR offered a little added impact, especially during the slightly brighter scenes during the movie’s brief excursions away from the hospital.

Black levels appeared dark and rich, while shadow detail seemed dense but not overly thick. HDR added a little punch to whites and contrast. While nothing here will show off your fancy TV, it came across as a good reproduction of the original photography.

Much of the DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack remained essentially monaural. Some light ambience emanated from the side speakers through a lot of the movie, and music often showed nice stereo spread and separation.

Nonetheless, much of the mix stayed pretty anchored to the front center channel. The surrounds provided general reinforcement, mainly related to the music.

During a few sequences, the spectrum broadened well, particularly when the gang went on their fishing trip. Heck, the introduction of the helicopter even provided some split-surround material.

For the most part, though, the soundfield seemed fairly limited. Given the age of the movie and the nature of this chatty movie, I found the scope of the piece to appear more than acceptable.

Audio quality also held up fine over the years. Dialogue showed a little edge at times, but not much, and the speech appeared very good for the age of the material.

Since so much of Nest deals with spoken language the other elements seemed less important, but they also worked pretty well. On the infrequent occasions we heard the score, it sounded pretty good, with clear, accurate tones.

Effects were acceptably crisp and realistic, though the entire track lacked significant low end, so they packed little punch. Overall, this was a pretty good soundtrack for the story at hand.

How did the 4K UHD compare to the prior Blu-ray? Because the BD only provided lossy audio, the lossless DTS-HD MA track meant a step up in fidelity, though both came with similar soundscapes.

Visuals also got a boost, as the 4K UHD looked better defined, cleaner and more natural than the BD. The old BD didn’t excel so the 4K UHD delivered a nice upgrade.

The UHD mixes old and new extras. In the latter category, Conversations on Cuckoo splits into two segments: “Group Therapy” (13:07) and “Moviemaking Memories” (10:34)

These present an online chat shot specifically for the 4K UHD. It involves producer Michael Douglas and actors Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd and Brad Dourif.

We hear how the actors got their roles as well as aspects of their experiences and different production memories. I love that the guys interact together and really enjoy these reels.

Created for a 1997 laserdisc, Completely Cuckoo goes for one hour, 26 minutes, 17 seconds glory. We hear from Douglas, DeVito, Lloyd, director Milos Forman, producer Saul Zaentz, author Ken Kesey, original rights owner Kirk Douglas, screenwriter Bo Goldman, first assistant director Irby Smith, actors Louise Fletcher and Vincent Schiavelli, actors/consultants Dr. Prasanna Pati and Dr. Dean Brooks, consultant Dr. Don Crane, former Oregon governor and first lady Bob and Pat Straub, former patient Gene Bailey, and actor/impromptu casting agent Mel Lambert.

“Cuckoo” offers an entertaining and compelling documentary in its own right. It covers all the appropriate bases, from the genesis of the film through casting thought sets/locations through many anecdotes about the shoot. The comments from the participants seem candid and informative, and they go over a nice array of topics. There’s an awful lot to like about the fulfilling program.

Five Additional Scenes fill a total of nine minutes, 25 seconds. We find some interesting footage here, though I don’t know how much - if any - of it belonged in the final flick.

Much of the material seems a bit heavy-handed, and some of the shots develop the antagonism between McMurphy and the hospital staff too quickly. Nonetheless, I feel happy to get a look at this unused footage.

Oddly, the 4K UHD loses three deleted scenes from the Blu-ray. It also drops a commentary, a trailer and a featurette about mental health care in the US.

Why did the 4K UHD drop these components? I don’t know but their absence surprises and becomes a letdown.

While I remain unconvinced that One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest deserved the Best Picture award for 1975, it remains a fine piece of filmmaking. Occasionally it falls into some traps, but it usually stays compelling and provocative, and it also offers consistently excellent acting.

The 4K UHD provides good picture and audio as well as some useful bonus materials. This becomes easily the best presentation of the film itself but the fact it loses some supplements from prior releases disappoints.