One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Movie Analysis The movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is based on the experience of a criminal that elected to move to a mental institution to avoid serving his time at a prison work camp. The criminal, Randall P. McMurphy, or McMurphy, as the other inmates call him, was under the impression that his sentence would be converted to the amount of time he would need to spend in the institution. What he did not realize was that once he was admitted to the institution, he would not be released until the medical staff felt he was safe for society. McMurphy goes about living in the institution, and creates a society among several of