As Good as It Gets As Good as It Gets As Good as It Gets is a 1997 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by James L. Brooks. It stars Jack Nicholson as a misanthropic and obsessive-compulsive novelist, Helen Hunt as a single mother with a chronically ill son, and Greg Kinnear as a gay artist. The screenplay was written by Mark Andrus and Brooks. The paintings were created for the film by New York artist Billy Sullivan. Nicholson and Hunt won the Academy Award for Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively, making "As Good As It Gets" the most recent film to win both of
Jack Nicholson as a writer/director. His first real taste of writing success was the screenplay for the 1967 counterculture film "The Trip" (directed by Corman), which starred Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper. After first reading the script, Fonda told Nicholson he was totally impressed by the writing and felt it could become a great film. However, he was disappointed with how the film turned out, and blamed the editing which turned it into a "predictable" film, and said so publicly. "I was livid", he recalls. Nicholson also co-wrote, with Bob Rafelson, the movie "Head", which starred The Monkees. He also arranged the