Dog Day Afternoon poster

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Directed by Sidney Lumet

Based on the true story of would-be Brooklyn bank robbers John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturile. Sonny and Sal attempt a bank heist which quickly turns sour and escalates into a hostage situation and stand-off with the police. As Sonny's motives for the robbery are slowly revealed and things become more complicated, the heist turns into a media circus.

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What critics compared Dog Day Afternoon to

Dead Man's Wire poster
La película dialoga claramente con el legado de Sidney Lumet —especialmente en Network y Dog Day Afternoon— al mostrar cómo los medios no solo informan, sino que construyen espectáculo a partir del caos.
Algo Más Que Cine
algomasquecine.com ↗
His very presence recalls Dog Day Afternoon, the genre’s gold standard, and every time he appears you can’t help wishing you were watching Sidney Lumet’s propulsive classic instead.
Leila Latif • Little White Lies • Mar 19, 2026
lwlies.com ↗
There are clear echoes of Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon (1975), particularly in how a tense personal conflict evolves into public theatre.
Dan Perrin, Barnaby Page, Davide Prevarin, Cian McGrath • Frame Rated • Mar 23, 2026
co.uk ↗
It takes this bonkers real-life story, which was captured live and in color, and gives it the Sidney Lumet “Dog Day Afternoon” treatment.
Keith Garlington • Keith & The Movies • Jan 15, 2026
keithandthemovies.com ↗
There are echoes of DOG DAY AFTERNOON in this film, as well as other “little guy” against the system tales, of someone driven over the edge by circumstances.
Cate Marquis • We Are Movie Geeks • Jan 16, 2026
wearemoviegeeks.com ↗
Al Pacino – an obvious nod to Dog Day Afternoon with which this shares an aesthetic and a theme of events spiralling out of control…
Nikki Baughan, Robert Daniels, Jeremy Kay, Jonathan Romney, Elizabeth Kerr • ScreenDaily • Sep 2, 2025
screendaily.com ↗
Director

Benny Safdie

Critics compare Dog Day Afternoon to 2 of Safdie’s films.

Good Time poster
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.
Guy Lodge • Variety • May 25, 2017
variety.com ↗
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.
David Rooney • The Hollywood Reporter • May 25, 2017
hollywoodreporter.com ↗
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.”
The Salt Lake Tribune • Aug 24, 2017
sltrib.com ↗
Their latest seems to take as its model another Al Pacino vehicle of the seventies, “Dog Day Afternoon.”
One Guys Opinion • One Guy's Opinion • Aug 24, 2017
oneguysopinion.com ↗
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.
Stephen Whitty | For Inside Jersey, Stephen Whitty, For Inside Jersey, www.facebook.com, stephen.whitty.film • NJ.com • Aug 10, 2017
nj.com ↗
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.
Film Journal International
filmjournal.com ↗
Uncut Gems poster
Uncut Gems follows a similar formula, but it’s even slicker and more propulsive, evoking such classics as Dog Day Afternoon and After Hours in its ability to wring maximum ‘what now?’ tension from its milieu.
Nick de Semlyen • Empire • Jan 6, 2020
empireonline.com ↗
But as he gets deeper into trouble with an ever-widening group of enemies, the movie’s tone darkens, ending in a hostage situation at the jewelry store that recalls the gang-who-couldn’t-shoot-straight standoff of Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon .
Dana Stevens • Slate • Dec 10, 2019
slate.com ↗
If Good Time , which you can view on Amazon Prime, had something of the feel of Dog Day Afternoon , Uncut Gems made me think of Bad Lieutenant, the pugnacious 1992 Abel Ferrara film about a not-nice police officer, memorably played by Harvey Keitel, and his attempts to survive his gambling addiction during a New York Mets playoff run.
Kyle Smith, Jim Geraghty, The Editors, Andrew C. McCarthy • National Review • Dec 11, 2019
nationalreview.com ↗
Inside Man poster
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.
Mark Lubischer, Betty Jo Tucker • Reel Talk Reviews
reeltalkreviews.com ↗
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.
Spike Lee • Spirituality & Practice
spiritualityandpractice.com ↗
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).
It also pays tribute to the Sidney Lumet classics Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico.
Sandra Hall • The Sydney Morning Herald • Apr 1, 2006
com.au ↗
As much a mystery as it is a suspense-thriller, this bank-heist film combines elements from both "Dog Day Afternoon" and "The Usual Suspects."
Deseret News • Aug 8, 2026
deseretnews.com ↗
Joker poster
But while Phillips goes out of his way to channel the visual aesthetics of works like Dog Day Afternoon , Network , Taxi Driver , After Hours and The King of Comedy , his ends up being only a surface level dissection of these types of characters and this sort milieu.
Sara Michelle Fetters
moviefreak.com ↗
With his open nod the New Hollywood films of the 1970s, particularly the Scorsese classics Taxi Driver and King of Comedy (but also One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Dog Day Afternoon ) writer/director Todd Phillips has offered a powerful depiction of one man’s mental breakdown in the context of a society tearing itself apart.
Instead, Joker draws on the grubby “New York Shitty” cinematic canon of the late 1960s through mid-70s – with a particular debt owed to Death Wish (1974), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), and Taxi Driver (1976).
Cinema St. Louis
cinemastlouis.org ↗
Gotham City as envisaged here is modelled on the New York of 1970s films like Dog Day Afternoon and Taxi Driver – over-populated, crime-ridden and grimy in a manner that has since become a shorthand for cinematic integrity.
Jake Wilson • The Age • Oct 2, 2019
com.au ↗
Set in the fictional Gotham City in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s, Joker is a slick, heady pastiche of The King of Comedy , Network , Dog Day Afternoon , and 80 years of DC Comics stories distilled into a supremely stylish and affecting package.
Nerdist • Aug 31, 2019
nerdist.com ↗
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Director

Ben Affleck

Critics compare Dog Day Afternoon to 2 of Affleck’s films.

Argo poster
Argo isn’t quite on the level of the Sidney Lumet classics to which Affleck pays stylistic homage—smart and taut as it is, it lacks the broader political vision of a film like Dog Day Afternoon .
Dana Stevens • Slate • Oct 12, 2012
slate.com ↗
And the pacing is exquisite, recalling such classics as Dog Day Afternoon and The Marathon Man .
S. Jhoanna Robledo • Common Sense Media • Oct 11, 2012
commonsensemedia.org ↗
That’s especially true in the terrific final act, when the film goes from “Wag the Dog”-type satire to “Dog Day Afternoon” and “Midnight Express”-style tension.
The Town poster
I mean we cheered Bonnie and Clyde because we saw them rob the big banks but let customers keep their own money; we cheered Al Pacino in “Dog Day Afternoon” because we really came to empathize with him; and we sympathized with the prisoners in “In the Name of the Father” because we saw the role politics and coerced confessions played in their convictions.
Beth Accomando, www.kpbs.org, beth-accomando • KPBS • Sep 18, 2010
kpbs.org ↗
So we get a good heist movie that can be filed alongside genre classics like Heat and Dog Day Afternoon, along with one of the year’s better love stories.
North Bay Bohemian
newsreview.com ↗
(Disabling cell phones wasnâ??t a problem that Al Pacino and John Cazale ever had to confront in Dog Day Afternoon.)
Uncut
co.uk ↗
A Most Violent Year poster
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).
Kelly Vance, Katherine Hamilton, Chuck Lenatti, Chiara Bercu, Steven Tavares • East Bay Express • Jan 14, 2015
eastbayexpress.com ↗
It’s an apt enough comparison, although Chandor’s style tends to be less teeming and comprehensive than the approach the late Lumet took in movies such as Serpico, Prince of the City, Dog Day Afternoon and Q & A.
MovieHabit
moviehabit.com ↗
He’s reflecting on the recent past, but behind the camera, in 2014, his director might be daydreaming about Dog Day Afternoon.
Reverse Shot
reverseshot.org ↗
Captain Phillips poster
Together they’re a little like Al Pacino’s Sonny in Dog Day Afternoon, very human and naive enough to think they’ll get away with it.
The Dallas Morning News
dallasnews.com ↗
It’s like a sea-bound “Dog Day Afternoon,” only with the hostages as the heroes.
The story is simple – Dog Day Afternoon simple.
American Hustle poster
Though American Hustle resembles Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas and Casino in certain particulars of plot and milieu (but not in its visual style, which is more functional than Scorsese-ecstatic), the real touchstones for its outer-borough shenanigans are Saturday Night Fever and the Sidney Lumet films Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon : manic street operas, in which the arias were Italians and Jews shouting at one another.
Richard Corliss • Time
time.com ↗
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Her father is legendary director Sidney Lumet, the man behind “Network,” “Dog Day Afternoon” and “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.”
Geoff Berkshire • Metromix
archive.org ↗
You could guess that this headlong tragicomedy, berserk with confessionalism, came from the household that gave us such psyche-spilling works as Dog Day Afternoon and the film of Long Day’s Journey into Night.
The plan of the thieves is sensationally stupid, guaranteed to call attention to their scheme, easy to thwart, possibly inspired by watching " Dog Day Afternoon " while drunk.