Watching older Nicholson movies like Five Easy Pieces, Chinatown, The Passenger, Easy Rider, and even One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest you see a totally different actor. Not just his appearance but he was such a better actor.

My question is, when did he develop his "Jack" schtick and play that personality over and over again? Was it The Shining? Was it later?

I'm going to say probably the 80s.

Seems to me like he turned it into high gear for Batman.

That's what I was thinking too.

I think it was before Batman, perhaps The Witches of Eastwick.

I think that's the first movie I started noticing it in. Has Nicholson really done anything of caliber to his older performances since The Shinging?

This.

I think Nicholson has been in some great films since The Shining (Broadcast News, As Good As it Gets, and The Departed come to mind). However, none of those films were good because of Nicholson.

It may have happened before but to me Batman and anything after is when it began to become more noticeable.

I'm going to vote for The Shining, and I blame Kubrick. The bonus features mention how Nicholson would give what he thought was a realistic performance and Kubrick kept telling him to go way over the top to get the stuff he wanted.

^Agree. I don't like the mugging Nicholson does in The Shining. An odd choice by Kubrick.

Yeah, don't get me started on the horrible casting of Nicholson in "The Shining." I always agreed with what Stephen King said about that.

Hoffa and The Pledge. He should have gotten an Oscar noms for both of them.

Ironweed & The Crossing Guard

On a related note, when did Pacino get his? The Devil's Advocate?

I wasn't particuarly impressed with his performance in Hoffa, but I remember The Pledge getting rave reviews when it came out.

All I seem to remember him doing movies as of late are things like The Bucket List. I liked The Departed but it wasn't because of his performance in particular.
That's the one that sticks out to me. Everything he's done since then has been of law-caliber, with the exception of Insomnia.

IMO he was also good in 'The Insider' & 'You Don't Know Jack'.

Either Heat or The Devil's Advocate (not sure which came first).

These films show he still has the chops, but seems like in the last 10 years he'll take whatever he can get.

Pacino was WAY over the top in Scent of a Woman, even though he won the Oscar.

Pacino started his career with quiet self-contained performances and the last 15 or so years HE GOT LOUD!!

Okay back to Nicholson.

Yes he was.

Yeah, those are his last great performances in serious roles.

Jack was terrific in 'About Schmidt' and he wasn't doing any so called 'schtick'. It was also quite a nice film.

Yes, what a horrible, iconic performance.

The story is about Torrance's decent into madness. Nicholson pretty much looks crazy from the get-go and that lessens the impact the house is having on him.

Deniro never really developed a schtick. But he definetly stopped giving a shit at some point.

What did Stephen King say about Jack Nicholson's performance in The Shining? That's gotta be one of the best performances in a film.