Sidney Lumet
142 connections found
Filmography
Network 1976 
Murder on the Orient Express 1974 
Dog Day Afternoon 1975 
Serpico 1973 
Prince of the City 1981 
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead 2007 
Find Me Guilty 2006 
12 Angry Men 1957 
Equus 1977 
Deathtrap 1982 
The Pawnbroker 1965 
Long Day's Journey Into Night 1962 
The Verdict 1982 
Running on Empty 1988 
Fail Safe 1964 
The Group 1966 
Q & A 1990 
Night Falls on Manhattan 1997 
The Wiz 1978 
The Fugitive Kind 1960 
Guilty as Sin 1993 
The Morning After 1986 
The Hill 1965 
Family Business 1989 View:
Connections, in both directions
…films like Fail Safe or Dr Strangelove have suggested, we’re not much more than human error away from the end of the world…
A House of Dynamite’s ending feels less like a bold echo of Fail Safe and more like a shrug.
…titles like Fail Safe…
Nuclear missile horror stories used to be more frequent in the years after the Cold War first heated up, most famously 1964’s accidental diptych Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove, followed by 1983’s accidental diptych WarGames and The Day After.
A House of Dynamite doesn’t have the sweaty humanity of Fail Safe or the dark absurdism of Dr. Strangelove.
Cold war–era filmmakers asked what happens when the bomb drops, from bureaucratic panic in Fail Safe (1964) to full-on collapse in Threads (1984).
Joker (2019)
Directed by Todd Phillips
influenced by Network (1976), Serpico (1973), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Prince of the City (1981)
Themes Dialogue Visuals
Phillips wears his inspirations more proudly than Quentin Tarantino, but where Tarantino finds reverence in his source material and, more importantly, understands the tone of those inspirations, Phillips perverts and twists the meaning of all his homages, from Taxi Driver to Network .
In a climax channelling Network (1976), Fleck says ‘you decide what is right and wrong like what is funny or not’.
It is saturated with homages to Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976) and King of Comedy (1982), as well as other films of that era like A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Network (1976).
Phillips’ greatest trick is making Joker look like a gritty character study from the 1970s, inspired by the films of Martin Scorsese ( Taxi Driver ), William Friedkin ( The French Connection ) and Sidney Lumet ( Network , Serpico ) but it’s nothing more than a poor imitation.
There are sly nods to key 1970s texts such as Sidney Lumet’s Network , alongside movie theatre marquees advertising such early-80s releases as Blow Out and Zorro, the Gay Blade .
There are also nods to Sidney Lumet’s Network , twisting that film’s anarchic glee to the tyranny of mob violence, shifting allegiances in fascinating ways.
Harking back to the outrage of Sidney Lumet’s “Network” (1976), Budwell is “mad as hell” and wants an explanation.
In its real-time hostage-taking scenario and sendup of infotainment, Money Monster weakly nods to the Sidney Lumet mid-Seventies touchstones Dog Day Afternoon and Network.
Channeling everything from “Network” to “Dog Day Afternoon,” Foster and her writers, Jamie Linden, Jim Kouf, and Alan DiFiore, try to expand this tinny little suspense plot into a Statement with a capital S about corporate corruption and the nefariousness of Wall Street.
What promises to be a ripped-from-the-headlines drama with comic undertones, a throwback to such 70s gems as Dog Day Afternoon and Network, instead turns out to be too farfetched to gain any traction — it's ripped from the headlines, all right, but only the type one might see gracing the front of the National Enquirer.
Money Monster steals looks from Chayefsky’s Network, although the former’s depiction of a buffoonish cable-news show is too plausible to qualify as satire.
For the most part, it feels airlifted in from the last decade, not a Network update for the Occupy age so much as a sibling to Foster-led thrillers like Flightplan and Panic Room with ambitions of relevance but few distinguishing characteristics.
In 1976, Paddy Chayefsky penned “Network” as a satirical spin on the Chubbuck story; in “Christine,” the title character’s suicide is her ironically complicit rejoinder to the trash-media culture that has since flourished across new media forms.
Chubbuck's 1974 suicide on a local news show in Sarasota, Fla., had satirical echoes in the film Network, an earlier teleplay version of which predates her death.
Chubbuck’s demise should not be mistaken for some kind of parable about the wages of media sensationalism – unlike, say, “Network,” which came out in 1976 and glancingly drew on certain aspects of Chubbuck’s story in its depiction of Peter Finch’s “The Mad Prophet of the Airwaves.”
Almost immediately, screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky took inspiration from her act for his 1976 satire Network , but it has taken another four decades for Chubbuck’s story to be directly explored on screen.
Chubbuck’s depression and suicide fed into Paddy Chayefsky’s screenplay for the 1976 movie Network—she may have been feeling the same thing as “mad-as-hell” news anchor Howard Beale, rallying against a coarsening media.
Rebecca Hall’s superb title rendering makes a vital woman out of hazily remembered Florida TV news reporter Christine Chubbuck, whose mysterious 1974 on-air suicide may have influenced Oscar winner Network.
At one point, Sheil explains that the 1976 film Network is based on Chubbuck’s story.
Two years later, Paddy Chayefsky's screenplay for Network pivoted on a news anchor announcing his suicide on air.
Early on, she notes how, despite Chubbuck’s suicide inspiring Paddy Chayefsky’s iconic screenplay for Network, that “Network took this depressed woman and made her a macho, angry man.”
The suicide is wrongly thought by some to have inspired Paddy Chayefsky’s screenplay for Sidney Lumet’s 1976 satire, “Network,” whose protagonist, Howard Beale, a network anchorman, inveighing against the evils of television, creates a national sensation by threatening to kill himself while on the air.
Today, she's all but forgotten by everyone apart from lovers of dark and bizarre history or ardent cinephiles who know that Paddy Chayefsky's Oscar-winning "Network" screenplay was directly inspired by her story.
If Chubbuck's case is remembered at all today, it's chiefly for its parallels to the 1976 Sidney Lumet film Network.
Murder on the Orient Express (2017)
Directed by Kenneth Branagh
influenced by Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Network (1976), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), 12 Angry Men (1957), Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)
Plot
Agatha Christie’s 1934 crime novelfirst hit the silver screen in 1974 under the watchful eye of “12 Angry Men” director Sidney Lumet.
Agatha Christie’s durable mystery novel MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS has been adapted as a feature film in 1974, a telefilm in 2001, an episode of the series AGATHA CHRISTIE’S POIROT, and more.
Having seen Albert Finney's rendition of Agatha Christie's famous detective in 1974's Murder on the Orient Express, it is one of the few times I was thankful for my shocking memory - I couldn't remember "whodunnit".
It also claimed a massive, well-known cast (including Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, John Gielgud and Vanessa Redgrave), only these actors were actually very well regarded; and it also boasted a hallowed director in Sidney Lumet ( Network , Dog Day Afternoon ).
It also claimed a massive, well-known cast (including Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, John Gielgud and Vanessa Redgrave), only these actors were actually very well regarded; and it also boasted a hallowed director in Sidney Lumet ( Network , Dog Day Afternoon ).
Working from a screenplay by Michael Green (“Blade Runner 2049”), Branagh’s challenge was to freshen up a mystery whose solution is hardly a secret — even if you’ve never read the book or seen the 1974 film that starred Albert Finney as Poirot and was directed by Sidney Lumet (“Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead”).
Good Time (2017)
Directed by Benny Safdie
influenced by Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Visuals Characters Themes Plot
Even before the knowingly retro typography of the opening titles kicks in, it’s clear that the sweaty urgency of 1970s New Hollywood — in particular, such hard-headed urban dramas as “Dog Day Afternoon” and “Taxi Driver” — is a key point of reference for the Safdies here.
Led by Robert Pattinson, giving arguably his most commanding performance to date as a desperate bank robber cut from the same cloth as Al Pacino's Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day Afternoon, this is a richly textured genre piece that packs a visceral charge in its restless widescreen visuals and adrenalizing music, which recalls the great mood-shaping movie scores of Tangerine Dream.
You have to go back into the vaults — maybe as far back as “Dog Day Afternoon” — to find a movie about a New York bank robber more intense than Benny and Josh Safdie’s ironically titled drama “Good Time.”
Their latest seems to take as its model another Al Pacino vehicle of the seventies, “Dog Day Afternoon.”
He's the subject of the movie's biggest, if most improbable, joke as well as its darkest, most despairing one, but Connie is the real star of the film, and the movie's point is his desperation - like Sonny in "Dog Day Afternoon," Connie is always thinking, always looking for the next angle.
The mise-en-scène evokes the feverishly lit, mysterious nighttime scenes and dread-ridden days of the defining ’70s cinematic era of urban psychodramas that included the likes of Taxi Driver and Dog Day Afternoon.
Inside Man (2006)
Directed by Spike Lee
influenced by Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Serpico (1973)
Themes Plot
It also pays tribute to the Sidney Lumet classics Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico.
Inside Man drops that film's title ( Serpico 's, too), decking Frazier out in a cheap white suit and raffish hat that segue brilliantly into the closing shot of a black man in a wife-beater, standing in front of a vanity while in the foreground, a luscious lady in recline dangles that hat off some manicured, impatient toes.
This entertaining trick requires the moral sophistication evident in his moody and underrated 25th Hour and is reminiscent of two classic New York crime films from the 1970s -- Dog Day Afternoon, referred to by Frazier, and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.
Spike Lee's riveting bank heist/hostage film breaks all the rules and comes across as a reworking of a very tired genre that started with Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon.
The script, written by first-time screenwriter Russell Gewirtz, is a clever little potboiler that combines the keep-you-guessing psychological element of Alfred Hitchcock with the socio-political tension of Sidney Lumet’s “Dog Day Afternoon” (one of Lee’s favorite films, and mentioned by Washington in this film).
Multiple references are made throughout to Sidney Lumet's "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975).
Knives Out (2019)
Directed by Rian Johnson
influenced by Deathtrap (1982), Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
Plot
In the same flavor as Clue , Murder on the Orient Express , and Deathtrap , you have a murder, a collection of characters, each of whom has a reason to have done it, and a sleuth investigation on the job.
Writer-director Rian Johnson, still being nerd-roasted for his smash-hit Star Wars installment, The Last Jedi, happily acknowledges his influences in constructing Knives Out—primarily Agatha Christie novels and the movies made from them (Death on the Nile, Evil Under the Sun), as well as pictures like Gosford Park and the super-tricky Deathtrap.
Occasionally, a high-concept take on the whodunit will make a splash, as in Joseph L Mankiewicz’s adaptation of the cat-and-mouse two-hander Sleuth (1972), Sidney Lumet’s version of the mind-screwy meta-mystery Deathtrap (1982), or Johnathan Lynn’s manic screwball cult phenomenon Clue (1985).
Structurally, Johnson borrows from Sleuth and Deathtrap, two movies (both based on plays) that spring huge surprises every 30 minutes or so, defying the audience's presumptions.
The point, on the surface, is that Rian Johnson has given us a delicious mystery that riffs on Clue, Deathtrap, Columbo, Murder She Wrote, and even a little And Then There Were None.
Writer-director Rian Johnson ’s smart, wickedly funny whodunit plays like a game of Clue come to life—it's a jumped-up Agatha Christie thriller, a throwback to fiendishly clever puzzlers like Sleuth and Deathtrap, and a scathing satire of the hypocrisy and racism of the Trump era.
American Gangster (2007)
Directed by Ridley Scott
influenced by Serpico (1973), Prince of the City (1981)
Plot Themes
A flashy big-budget studio gangster flick that could be viewed as a combination of the black "Scarface" and the Jewish "Serpico."
American Gangster reminds one of The French Connection, The Godfather, Scarface; some have called it Super Fly vs. Serpico -- the list could go on and on, really.
This aspect of American Gangster , plus its 70s New York and New Jersey urban settings, make it evoke The French Connection and Serpico more than The Godfather or Goodfellas .
It's half Serpico and half Goodfellas, telling parallel stories of Frank Lucas (Washington)'s rise to dominance in the drug trade in the '70s, and Detective Richie Roberts' pursuit of Lucas.
The sense that we've seen all this before is inevitable in a film that ripples with references to "Serpico," "Scarface" and "The Godfather."
Movie goers who long for the days of Serpico will be gladdened by the many reminders here, including skuzzy cops on the take (Josh Brolin, a riot of pomade) and cut portions of French Connection powder.
The Company You Keep (2012)
Directed by Robert Redford
influenced by Running on Empty (1988)
Plot Themes
For instance, I'd love to know more about what it's like to live underground, although "Running on Empty" already did that pretty well.
It’s “The Fugitive” meets “Running on Empty” meets “Absence of Malice.”
So far, so very “Running on Empty,” the 1988 movie about a fugitive family of radicals.
The story, such as it is, mirrors (in a way) Sidney Lumet’s “Running on Empty,” a 1988 film that seemed to muddle its politics in a story of teen romance.
It was Sidney Lumet’s similarly-themed 1988 film that was called “Running on Empty,” but it’s Redford’s that superior picture’s title actually reflects.
A Most Violent Year (2014)
Directed by J.C. Chandor
influenced by Serpico (1973), Prince of the City (1981), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), The Verdict (1982), Q & A (1990)
Visuals Themes
The American director James Gray also has made this kind of sideways homage, channeling the gangster pictures of Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola and the big city thrillers of Sidney Lumet ("Serpico"), with a more meditative pace.
As we go deeper into it, we're reminded of the films of the late Sidney Lumet, the Big Apple's master spinner of cops 'n' robbers tales (Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead).
You would think a film entitled “A Most Violent Year” would bring suspense and action to its intriguing premise, but instead it stubbornly insists on slowing things down to the point that you start thinking about similar films, the Sydney Lumet classic, “Serpico,” for example.
J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year is a most curious movie, one with nearly all the elements of a classic crime-family saga and yet somehow lacking the moral complexity and emotional heft of the films to which it pays fastidious aesthetic homage: the New York–set urban thrillers of Sidney Lumet ( Serpico , Prince of the City ) and Coppola’s Godfather series.
The beautifully lensed ("Selma" DP Bradford Young), atmospheric period movie calls up such Sidney Lumet classics as "Prince of the City" and "Serpico."
Nearly every review of "A Most Violent Year" has mentioned the influence of Sidney Lumet, who captured this era in the Big Apple in films such as "Prince of the City" and "Serpico."
Russian filmmaker Nikita Mikhalov went in the opposite direction by borrowing the blueprints from the 1957 Oscar-nominated classic "12 Angry Men" in this loose remake set in contemporary Moscow.
Russian director Nikita Makhalkov has created a riveting adaptation of 12 Angry Men, the 1957 American film directed by Sidney Lumet with a screenplay by Reginald Rose.
The title is shorter, but that's the only thing remotely diminished about 12, Nikita Mikhalkov's exuberantly Russian reworking of Reginald Rose's 1950s jury-room play, 12 Angry Men.
Take "12," an Eastern European rehashing of the 1957 courtroom thriller "12 Angry Men." Filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov has expanded the fairly simple, but extremely effective, original story.
It's also a remake of a beloved American classic, Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men (1957) -- written by Reginald Rose -- which may not sit well with some cinephiles.
Unlike Sidney Lumet's 1957 movie adaptation of "12 Angry Men," which is shot in tense close-ups in a cramped room, Nikita Mikhalkov's "12" breathes and floats.
Like Al Pacino in "Serpico" and Russell Crowe in "L.A. Confidential," Nick is the departmental rebel who always runs afoul of the system.
As stark and cold as its wintry Detroit backdrop (it’s somewhat disappointing to learn that the film was actually filmed in Toronto), Narc earns comparison to landmark ‘70s police thrillers like The French Connection and Serpico—films that had style and energy to spare but were more interested in pursuing the minds of their characters than creating elaborate action sequences.
It joins Rush (which also starred Patric), The Onion Field, Serpico, Seven, The French Connection, Traffic, and Prince of the City as a grimy, hyper-real exploration of the emotional and psychological prices paid by cops.
Although much in the same vein as Serpico or LA Confidential, this film from writer/director Joe Carnahan (Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane) overplays its dramatic twists.
Narc's presentation of cops and the crooks they arrest is similar to what Sidney Lumet with Prince of the City or Serpico.
Which is not to say that this one comes close to matching the standard of excellence set by such classics as "The French Connection" and "Serpico."
Nightcrawler (2014)
Directed by Dan Gilroy
influenced by Network (1976), Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Characters Themes
While the variously horrific crime scenes make for some almost unbearable tension, Gilroy's script hews closer to satire than a traditional thriller, particularly in its portrait of the TV news station where Lou is employed by bloodthirsty exec Nina (Rene Russo, channeling Network 's Faye Dunaway).
While Nina is a caricature, not unlike Faye Dunaway�s character who exploited Peter Finch�s �Mad as hell� character in 1976�s Network, she�s not quite as over the top as Faye, and is, therefore, a little more believable.
Nightcrawler is cynical, but so was Network, Sweet Smell of Success, or Ace In The Hole (this film’s very clearly spiritual mentor).
The other 1970s' film Nightcrawler has been compared to is Network.
Paddy Chayefsky’s Network remains the patented gold standard for commenting on our out-of-control TV mentality.
This isn’t the first time that subject has been satirized before in cinema (perhaps most notably in Sidney Lumet’s 1977 Oscar-winning film “Network”), but “Nightcrawler” tells its debauched tale of immorality in the newsroom through the eyes of a Rupert Pupkin-esque antihero more frightening than any masked killer.
…one that channels the vicious satire of Network or the grim despair of Children of Men…
…pelea por colocarse a la altura de, por ejemplo, Network, un mundo implacable, que, al final, es de lo que se trata.
…a book that now looks like the missing link between “Network” and “The Hunger Games.”
…gags about the importance of ratings that Network’s Howard Beale would scoff at…
“Man 1” was preceded thematically by “Network” and “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”
…the film alludes also to classic small-screen satires such as Sidney Lumet’s Network…
God Bless America (2012)
Directed by Bobcat Goldthwait
influenced by Network (1976)
Themes Characters Dialogue
Borrowing bits and pieces from Network, Bonnie And Clyde , and Taxi Driver , God Bless America takes off on a honey of a premise: An angry middle-aged man—divorced, recently unemployed, and just informed he has an inoperable brain tumor—decides to murder one of those whiny brats on a My Super Sweet 16-like reality show.
Goldthwait describes God Bless America as a "violent movie about kindness," and he has created a Howard Beale (of Network’s “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more” fame) for our debased times.
He is also smart and articulate in explaining his revulsion with aspects of current American civilization — so articulate, indeed, that sometimes he sounds like a combination of Al Franken , Rachel Maddow and the "I'm mad as hell" speech in " Network ."
Combining the pop-culture parody of Idiocracy with the mad-as-hell-and-not-going-to-take-it-anymore frustration of Network and Falling Down, God Bless America has an intriguing formula, but it’s one that’s never fully utilized.
In press throughout this film’s tour from its premiere at Toronto last year to this re-cut premiere at SXSW, Goldthwait has at times referenced Peter Finch’s speech at the end of Network as an inspiration.
McKay was clearly inspired by classics in the genre from Dr. Strangelove, which turned nuclear war into comedy, to Network and Wag the Dog among other fondly-remembered gems we now recognize weren’t far off from getting at some real truths.
But The Big Short and Vice could also be furious, frothing-at-the-mouth diatribes, laden with self-righteousness that resembled unironic homages to Sidney Lumet’s Network.
As well as the aforementioned Strangelove and Armageddon , Don’t Look Up also has echoes of Deep Impact , Network , Wag the Dog , Bob Roberts and Seeking a Friend For the End of the World, as banging their heads against a brick wall of bureaucracy – and a divided public, some of whom believe it all to be a massive conspiracy theory – takes its toll on the protagonists.
One scene has a panel of science deniers claim: “They want you to look up, so they can look down on you!” Watching DiCaprio have his full Peter Finch in “Network” moment: (“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”) had me rolling out of my seat.
As the leads, DiCaprio and Lawrence both get plenty of time to shine, with DiCaprio, in particular, giving a Network -level monologue that’s quite entertaining.
While wildly aware that Don’t Look Up is absolutely a political satire that applies a dash of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Network (1976), and Wag the Dog (1997) with a nice helping of Armageddon (1998), the way in which an extinction-level event serves as the metaphor for climate crisis doesn’t always land because of the ever-present concern of COVID-19 and its variants.
In truth, I can only think of two movies where this really seems to apply: 1998's The Truman Show , whose excoriation of what was then the new form called "reality television" seemed like fantasy at the time and now feels like something that could happen tomorrow if they figured out a way around the legality, and 1976's Network , in which the gorgeously erudite writer Paddy Chayefsky spun a tale of how the news media at its worst is a whorish sinkhole in which the most wretched and violence impulses of humanity are turned into exploitative nonsense to get you good and bloodlusty before the dish soap and car insurance commercials.
In its themes it recalls such films as "Network" and "Natural Born Killers."
Once its premise is set forth, ready-made for easy pontification, ''The Truman Show'' doesn't go on to echo the prophetic intuitiveness of ''Network'' or even send up the lurid voyeurism of popular culture today.
This is not "Network" but a highly enjoyable romp featuring the very talented Jim Carrey, who fulfills Weir's promise as the best actor around for Truman's role.
Perhaps no other film since 1976's "Network" has had the potential to inspire such a debate about the effects of the media on our very societal structure.
While echoing "Network," "Capricorn One" and "1984," as well as the cult television series "The Prisoner," "The Truman Show" defines its own niche.
A clumsy "Network"-style opening, featuring Kelsey Grammer as a sensationalistic telejournalist, is thankfully short-lived as the film shifts focus and morphs into a surprisingly gritty crime drama with Robert De Niro and Edward Burns as, respectively, a famous homicide detective and a low-profile fire marshal who join forces to solve a combination arson/homicide.
The script, by the helmer, takes a fresh approach to the subject of media hype that has been plumbed many times in the past, most notably in Sidney Lumet's "Network."
The film's concept has promise -- imagine Network reborn as an episode of NYPD Blue.