The most memorable movie nurses

The foremost film nurse to this day. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a “Big Five” Oscar winner, which is to say it took home Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress. Louise Fletcher, who played Nurse Ratched, took home the last of those awards. Ratched is a complex character, villainous without being hammy or over the top. It’s a menacing and memorable turn. Maybe not the first nurse a real nurse wants you to think of, though.

One of the rare occasions of a nurse being name-dropped in the title of a film. This dark comedy didn’t hit at the box office, and it’s darker than the trailer indicates. Renee Zellweger plays a diner waitress who has a psychological break and takes on the identity of a nurse character from a soap opera she loves.

Meet the Parents is not a nuanced comedy, and the sequels are even broader. Ben Stiller’s Greg Focker is a male nurse, which is kind of an outdated joke, or at least a reason for Robert De Niro to be skeptical of Greg marrying his daughter. Also, he cannot, in fact, milk Robert De Niro.

Robert Altman’s MASH was a classic of the era, though these days, a lot of potential viewers would likely be turned off by its nihilism. Nurse Houlihan faces the brunt of that nihilism more than most, by dint of being a rule-enforcing woman at a surgical hospital during the Korean War teeming with broken men. The show is a little kinder to her, at least.

Nurse Ogawa only appears in 16 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. That being said, she appears in two of the films featuring the show's characters. Ogawa is in both Generations and First Contact, and you know Star Trek fans remember every notable character from that show’s run.

Hey, even wizards need medical help. In the world of Harry Potter, that person is Madam Poppy Pomfrey, the magical nurse at Hogwarts. She appears in three films, played by Gemma Jones.

Doctor Loomis is the medical professional most associated with the Halloween franchise and Michael Myers. However, shout out to Marion Chambers, his lead nurse. Marion survives being attacked by The Shape in Halloween, but Nancy Stephens’ character has had the misfortune of being killed by Myers in both Halloween H20 and Halloween Kills.

You crash your car. You could be left for dead. Then, a nurse finds you and brings you home. All is well…right? Nope! In Misery, being found by his “biggest fan” is the worst thing to happen to James Caan’s Paul Sheldon. Kathy Bates won an Oscar for playing Annie Wilkes, who is terrifying, which is fitting for a Stephen King adaptation.

She doesn’t have a given name, but the Nurse plays a crucial role in Romeo and Juliet. She has the third-most lines in the Shakespeare play that has inspired several film adaptations. If you know the play, or the films, you know the Nurse. You just don’t know her name.

Passion Fish did not succeed at the box office but was a critical darling. Writer and director John Sayles got an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, and Mary McDonnell was nominated for Best Actress. However, she is not the nurse; she's the one taken care of by the nurse. That nurse, Chantelle, is played by the stellar actress Alfre Woodard.

Jessica Chastain is fresh off of winning an Oscar. What now? She’s starring in a Netflix thriller. Hey, if we know anything about Netflix, it’s that they will assure us that millions upon millions of people have watched Chastain in The Good Nurse. Now, Netflix movies don’t have the best critical history, but they are often popular, and Chastain’s Amy Loughren will likely be sticking in the minds of many.

Corman is a legendary figure in film. He gave a lot of huge names their start. He was also a schlock peddler who figured his audiences wanted sex and violence as cheaply as possible. Thus, the “nurses film cycle.” Corman pitched them as worthwhile films with liberal politics and some humor. Mostly, though, they are films where a bunch of nurses is naked over and over. From The Student Nurses to Candy Stripe Nurses, the idea of the sexy nurse first started with Corman.

War movies made in the early 1940s obviously had slightly different heft to them. Cry ‘Havoc’ is a 1943 film about 13 women in the war effort, including two Army nurses. The foremost of those nurses is Lieutenant Mary “Smitty” Smith, played by Margaret Sullavan. Set during the Battle of Bataan, which was topical at the time, making this a particularly searing war film and nurse film.

Audrey Hepburn had a thing for playing nuns. In The Nun’s Story, she plays Gabrielle Van Der Mal, who becomes Sister Luke when she joins the convent. She goes to the Congo, where she works as a nun and a nurse. The film was a hit and earned eight Oscar nominations, though it didn’t win any of them.

Years before George Romero made Night of the Living Dead, a zombie movie hit theaters. That was 1943’s I Walked With a Zombie. The film's main character is Connell, a Canadian nurse who goes down to the Caribbean for work and is exposed to the world of voodoo and zombies. Of course, this is a movie from the 1940s about the Caribbean, so bear that in mind if you watch it.

Thelma Ritter is one of those actresses you always recognize and appreciate when she’s on screen. She was nominated for six Oscars in her career, though didn’t win any of them. Ritter didn’t get a nomination for Rear Window, but she makes a splash as Jimmy Stewart’s nurse Stella in Alfred Hitchcock’s stellar thriller.

An American Werewolf in London is a classic horror comedy. It has incredible special effects and a nice splash of dark humor. One of the film's main characters, and our protagonist's love interest, is Nurse Alex Price, played by Jenny Agutter. Alex is the nurse who first takes care of David before they fall for each other and, well, werewolf stuff starts happening.

Elaine may have hated it, but The English Patient won Best Picture in 1996. The film just so happens to focus on a nurse at the center of the story. Juliette Binoche plays Hana, the nurse who takes care of the mysterious man played by Ralph Fiennes in the Oscar-winning movie.