{"id":327347,"date":"2025-12-21T01:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T01:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/327347\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T01:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T01:04:09","slug":"the-one-movie-ron-howard-knew-he-could-never-beat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/327347\/","title":{"rendered":"The one movie Ron Howard knew he could never beat"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ron<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still)<\/p>\n

Sat 20 December 2025 18:45, UK <\/p>\n

Even the most self-assured and confident filmmakers don\u2019t go into their latest movie expecting it to be the greatest ever made, unless their name is Quentin Tarantino. Since Ron Howard<\/a> is one of the industry\u2019s most wholesome and humble folks, it\u2019s surprising there\u2019s only one movie he knew he wouldn\u2019t beat.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a two-time Academy Award winner, one of the highest-grossing directors in cinema history, one of its most prolific and powerful producers, and a veteran\u2019s veteran who\u2019d notched dozens upon dozens of acting credits before he\u2019d left his 20s before amassing dozens of features as a director, so he\u2019s been around.<\/p>\n

Throughout it all, though, he\u2019s always been modest. Of course, not every Ron Howard movie is great, and many of them are passable at best, while a couple of them are borderline irredeemable. Has he made anything that could be called a stone-cold classic? That\u2019s entirely up for debate, but if he has, then Apollo 13 is the closest he\u2019s come<\/a> to entering the pantheons of all-time cinematic greatness.<\/p>\n

Pairs of hands don\u2019t come much safer or reliable than his, even if no director really wants their legacy to be \u2018solid-if-unspectacular\u2019 and nothing more. Even though he\u2019d been dreaming of stepping behind the camera since his days on The Andy Griffith Show, one undisputed masterpiece stopped him in his tracks.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a secret that the Happy Days alum is obsessed with The Graduate, but it wasn\u2019t that. It seems unreasonable for a Roger Corman prot\u00e9g\u00e9 who\u2019d follow it up with light and frivolous comedies like Night Shift and Splash to fret that they\u2019d never be able to reach the pinnacle of motion pictures, but Howard always had high hopes and big plans for himself.<\/p>\n

When Deadline<\/a> asked him if there was one movie he saw that was so good it made him question if he had the talent and capability to rise to the same level, he didn\u2019t hesitate. \u201cOne Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest,\u201d he answered, which feels like an unattainable goal for someone who hadn\u2019t even made their feature-length directorial debut at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just getting going, you know, working for Roger Corman, loving it, and along comes this movie that is hilarious, it\u2019s gut-wrenching,\u201d he explained. \u201cIt\u2019s not just Nicholson; it\u2019s the entire ensemble. It\u2019s just crackling. But I would say I felt a little bit of that\u2026 It was a combination of joy, exhilaration, and a bit of intimidation.\u201d<\/p>\n

No shit, Ron Howard. Milo\u0161 Forman\u2019s literary adaptation is one of the greatest movies ever made<\/a>, anchored by Jack Nicholson giving one of the finest performances that American cinema has ever seen, in a film that became only the second in history to claim the \u2018Big Five\u2019 at the Academy Awards by winning \u2018Best Picture\u2019, \u2018Best Director\u2019, \u2018Best Actor\u2019, \u2018Best Actress\u2019, and \u2018Best Adapted Screenplay\u2019.<\/p>\n

There are very few directors who\u2019ve made anything as good as One Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest, so there\u2019s no shame in admitting he knew he\u2019d never beat it. He\u2019s had plenty of chances to try, but he hasn\u2019t, and based on prior evidence, he won\u2019t.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still) Sat 20 December 2025 18:45, UK Even the most self-assured and confident…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,113296,35692,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-327347","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest","11":"tag-ron-howard","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}