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I have done a search on this topic and found one dated in 2002 with only 2 comments since then, so I thought I would start a new thread.
Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, John Ford, John Huston. Mention any of these names and people that like movies will know who you are taking about and can probably name at least one movie they have made. Sidney Lumet. Mention him and you might get a blank stare. And yet Mr. Lumet has made more than 40 movies over a span of 50 years and IMHO at least 14 of them are masterpieces. The following is a list of his best.
2. The Fugitive Kind (1959)
Based on a play, Orpheus Descending, by Tennessee Williams. Not well treated by the critics or the public at the time, it is nevertheless a power film with an underappreciated and subtle performance by Marlon Brando. Cinematography by Boris Kaufman, a favorite of Lumet.
3. Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1962)
Also based on a play, this time by Eugene O’Neill. It has been called the greatest adaptation of a stage play to film. A truly stellar cast featuring Katherine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards and Dean Stockwell, all of whom won best acting awards at the Cannes Film Festival.
4. The Pawnbroker (1964)
A haunting and bitter film of a man who has survived the Holocaust and the Concentration Camps but is now incapable of feeling any kind of love or human emotion. Even hate is denied him and he is left with only indifference. Rod Steiger’s finest performance. An emotionally draining film and it is on my list of 100 greatest.
5. Fail Safe (1964)
Came out the same year as Dr. Strangelove. Or How I Learned Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb. About the same subject matter, the accidental start of a nuclear war, this time played straight as a taut political Cold War thriller. It does not suffer in comparison. Powerful performances all around with a special nod to Fritz Weaver as a SAC military officer who cracks under the pressure and Frank Overton in masterfully understated performance as a general who doesn’t.
6. The Hill (1965)
This one also makes it onto my greatest 100 films list and is one of the great unknown films of all time. It stars Sean Connery (who would work with Lumet in 4 more films) as a British Master Sergeant sent to a British Army prison camp in the North African desert during WWII for striking a superior officer. The Hill is a mound of sand 50 foot high that the inmates must climb up and down as punishment. Outstanding performances by all, including Harry Andrews as the camp commandant, who believes in breaking men down to build them back up, Ian Bannen as an overly sympathetic guard, Ossie Davis, who in addition to being an inmate, must suffer the indignities of racism, and Ian Hendry who steals every scene he’s in as a sadistic camp guard who is ruthless in his ambition but a coward at heart. Find a copy of this movie and watch it.
7. Serpico (1973)
This movie stars Al Pacino as his career is just taking off and is the first film by Lumet with a theme (and a location he knows intimately, New York City) that he will continually revisit. Whereas Scorsese focuses on crime and the mob, Lumet focuses on crime and corrupt cops. Based on true events.
8. Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
Lumet’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s best selling murder mystery. Beautifully photographed by Geoffrey Unsworth. This is what they mean when they say an all-star cast: Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Martin Balsam, Ingrid Bergman, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Sean Connery. John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Widmark, Michael York, Colin Blakely, and George Coulouris. The classic British murder mystery doesn’t get any better than this.
9. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
One of the top 10 films of the 1970’s and one of Pacino’s signature performances, about a New York City bank robbery that goes bad. An outstanding performance by John Cazale (Fredo of The Godfather) in one of only 5 films he made before his untimely death. Based on true events. Nominated for Best Picture and Best Director.
10. Network (1976)
Also one of the 10 best films of the 1970’s that has one of the movies most oft quoted lines: “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Very prescient about how news would look, but in the days before cable news networks and before television news organizations were turned over to the entertainment divisions of giant corporations. Nominated for 10 Academy Awards including all acting slots and Best Director and Best Picture.
11. Equus (1977)
This is a very disturbing film that admittedly does not always quite work. Again it is based on a stage play, this time by Peter Schaffer. It is about a young 17 year old boy that loves horses yet has been found to have committed a horribly gruesome crime, the blinding of six horses with a metal spike in a stable in which he worked. It stars Richard Burton (in a fine muted performance) as a psychiatrist who tries to help the boy understand what he did. I liked it much more than the critics and it shows Lumet’s unflinching ability to tackle difficult projects. The stage play was revived last year in London with Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliff) in the role of the young boy.
12. Prince of the City (1981)
Lumet returns to his most common theme, that of police corruption. Also based on true events in New York City, it stars Treat Williams in the performance of his career. A very difficult role to play it spans a time frame of over ten years and Williams in virtually every scene of this 21/2 hour movie. He plays an honest cop who is appalled by the rampant corruption all around him. He is reluctantly persuaded to go under cover to root out bad cops, provided he does not have to ‘rat’ on his partners, but finds out that is not so easy. It is important to understand that Lumet’s films about police corruption are not just about portraying cops as bad guys. Too many films about this subject are just cheap thrillers. Lumet goes much deeper. His cops are very human beings, immersed in a dangerous, rotten business in which nobody gives a damn about them except themselves and the bond they form with each other as partners. This is his best on this theme.
13. The Verdict (1982)
This probably my favorite role by Paul Newman who plays Frank Gavin, a broken, alcoholic lawyer with one last chance at redemption when he takes a medical malpractice case. This is not just a courtroom thriller (which it does very well) but fundamentally a deep study of the character played by Newman. At the beginning he figures the case will bring him a nice chunk of change which he can settle out of court. But then he goes to visit the young victim at the hospital as she lies in bed in a irreversible coma. He under goes a profound change and vows to himself to fight and win this case for her, his client, and show to the world the malpractice of the doctors who have destroyed her life and maybe recover his own self-respect. The climatic scene with Lindsay Crouse (wife at the time of the screenwriter David Mamet and the star of Mamet’s House of Games) testifying as a former nurse is one of my favorite scenes in all of the movies. Nominated for Best Picture and Best Director.
[14. Running on Empty (1988)
This is a gem of a film that deals with another favorite theme of Lumet, the love that holds a family together, the high price that must be paid to achieve that, and what do the children owe to the parents that gave them life. River Phoenix plays the son whose parents in 1971 were anti-Vietnam War radicals and who planted a bomb to destroy a laboratory that made napalm. A nighttime caretaker was severely injured and blinded. They have been on the run from the FBI ever since, moving at a moments notice to stay ahead of the law. The son who was 2 years old at the time is now a young man in his late teens. His family is about to relocate and change identities again. But he has fallen in love with a young girl and wants to leave and pursue his own life and learn to become a concert pianist though he knows that to do so means he will never see his family again. Nominated for Best Picture and Best Director.
He has been nominated for Best Director at the Oscars 4 times and never won. He has directed 17 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Katharine Hepburn, Rod Steiger, Al Pacino, Ingrid Bergman, Albert Finney, Chris Sarandon, Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch, Beatrice Straight, William Holden, Ned Beatty, Peter Firth, Richard Burton, Paul Newman, James Mason, Jane Fonda and River Phoenix. Bergman, Dunaway, Finch and Straight won oscars for their performances in one of Lumet's movies.
Needless to say he is one of my all-time favorite directors and I wanted to take the opportunity to give him recognition and hopefully inspire and a new look at some of the best movies ever made.
Sidney Lumet
Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, John Ford, John Huston. Mention any of these names and people that like movies will know who you are taking about and can probably name at least one movie they have made. Sidney Lumet. Mention him and you might get a blank stare. And yet Mr. Lumet has made more than 40 movies over a span of 50 years and IMHO at least 14 of them are masterpieces. The following is a list of his best.
1. 12 Angry Men (1957)
His debut film. Few directors have had such an auspicious beginning. The entire film takes place in a single room as 12 jurors argue and debate the fate of a young man charged with murder. An unbelievably great cast with some of America’s finest character actors. On my list of the 100 greatest films ever made. Nominated for Best Picture and Best Director.2. The Fugitive Kind (1959)
Based on a play, Orpheus Descending, by Tennessee Williams. Not well treated by the critics or the public at the time, it is nevertheless a power film with an underappreciated and subtle performance by Marlon Brando. Cinematography by Boris Kaufman, a favorite of Lumet.
3. Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1962)
Also based on a play, this time by Eugene O’Neill. It has been called the greatest adaptation of a stage play to film. A truly stellar cast featuring Katherine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards and Dean Stockwell, all of whom won best acting awards at the Cannes Film Festival.
4. The Pawnbroker (1964)
A haunting and bitter film of a man who has survived the Holocaust and the Concentration Camps but is now incapable of feeling any kind of love or human emotion. Even hate is denied him and he is left with only indifference. Rod Steiger’s finest performance. An emotionally draining film and it is on my list of 100 greatest.
5. Fail Safe (1964)
Came out the same year as Dr. Strangelove. Or How I Learned Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb. About the same subject matter, the accidental start of a nuclear war, this time played straight as a taut political Cold War thriller. It does not suffer in comparison. Powerful performances all around with a special nod to Fritz Weaver as a SAC military officer who cracks under the pressure and Frank Overton in masterfully understated performance as a general who doesn’t.
6. The Hill (1965)
This one also makes it onto my greatest 100 films list and is one of the great unknown films of all time. It stars Sean Connery (who would work with Lumet in 4 more films) as a British Master Sergeant sent to a British Army prison camp in the North African desert during WWII for striking a superior officer. The Hill is a mound of sand 50 foot high that the inmates must climb up and down as punishment. Outstanding performances by all, including Harry Andrews as the camp commandant, who believes in breaking men down to build them back up, Ian Bannen as an overly sympathetic guard, Ossie Davis, who in addition to being an inmate, must suffer the indignities of racism, and Ian Hendry who steals every scene he’s in as a sadistic camp guard who is ruthless in his ambition but a coward at heart. Find a copy of this movie and watch it.
7. Serpico (1973)
This movie stars Al Pacino as his career is just taking off and is the first film by Lumet with a theme (and a location he knows intimately, New York City) that he will continually revisit. Whereas Scorsese focuses on crime and the mob, Lumet focuses on crime and corrupt cops. Based on true events.
8. Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
Lumet’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s best selling murder mystery. Beautifully photographed by Geoffrey Unsworth. This is what they mean when they say an all-star cast: Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Martin Balsam, Ingrid Bergman, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Sean Connery. John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Widmark, Michael York, Colin Blakely, and George Coulouris. The classic British murder mystery doesn’t get any better than this.
9. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
One of the top 10 films of the 1970’s and one of Pacino’s signature performances, about a New York City bank robbery that goes bad. An outstanding performance by John Cazale (Fredo of The Godfather) in one of only 5 films he made before his untimely death. Based on true events. Nominated for Best Picture and Best Director.
10. Network (1976)
Also one of the 10 best films of the 1970’s that has one of the movies most oft quoted lines: “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Very prescient about how news would look, but in the days before cable news networks and before television news organizations were turned over to the entertainment divisions of giant corporations. Nominated for 10 Academy Awards including all acting slots and Best Director and Best Picture.
11. Equus (1977)
This is a very disturbing film that admittedly does not always quite work. Again it is based on a stage play, this time by Peter Schaffer. It is about a young 17 year old boy that loves horses yet has been found to have committed a horribly gruesome crime, the blinding of six horses with a metal spike in a stable in which he worked. It stars Richard Burton (in a fine muted performance) as a psychiatrist who tries to help the boy understand what he did. I liked it much more than the critics and it shows Lumet’s unflinching ability to tackle difficult projects. The stage play was revived last year in London with Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliff) in the role of the young boy.
12. Prince of the City (1981)
Lumet returns to his most common theme, that of police corruption. Also based on true events in New York City, it stars Treat Williams in the performance of his career. A very difficult role to play it spans a time frame of over ten years and Williams in virtually every scene of this 21/2 hour movie. He plays an honest cop who is appalled by the rampant corruption all around him. He is reluctantly persuaded to go under cover to root out bad cops, provided he does not have to ‘rat’ on his partners, but finds out that is not so easy. It is important to understand that Lumet’s films about police corruption are not just about portraying cops as bad guys. Too many films about this subject are just cheap thrillers. Lumet goes much deeper. His cops are very human beings, immersed in a dangerous, rotten business in which nobody gives a damn about them except themselves and the bond they form with each other as partners. This is his best on this theme.
13. The Verdict (1982)
This probably my favorite role by Paul Newman who plays Frank Gavin, a broken, alcoholic lawyer with one last chance at redemption when he takes a medical malpractice case. This is not just a courtroom thriller (which it does very well) but fundamentally a deep study of the character played by Newman. At the beginning he figures the case will bring him a nice chunk of change which he can settle out of court. But then he goes to visit the young victim at the hospital as she lies in bed in a irreversible coma. He under goes a profound change and vows to himself to fight and win this case for her, his client, and show to the world the malpractice of the doctors who have destroyed her life and maybe recover his own self-respect. The climatic scene with Lindsay Crouse (wife at the time of the screenwriter David Mamet and the star of Mamet’s House of Games) testifying as a former nurse is one of my favorite scenes in all of the movies. Nominated for Best Picture and Best Director.
[14. Running on Empty (1988)
This is a gem of a film that deals with another favorite theme of Lumet, the love that holds a family together, the high price that must be paid to achieve that, and what do the children owe to the parents that gave them life. River Phoenix plays the son whose parents in 1971 were anti-Vietnam War radicals and who planted a bomb to destroy a laboratory that made napalm. A nighttime caretaker was severely injured and blinded. They have been on the run from the FBI ever since, moving at a moments notice to stay ahead of the law. The son who was 2 years old at the time is now a young man in his late teens. His family is about to relocate and change identities again. But he has fallen in love with a young girl and wants to leave and pursue his own life and learn to become a concert pianist though he knows that to do so means he will never see his family again. Nominated for Best Picture and Best Director.
He has been nominated for Best Director at the Oscars 4 times and never won. He has directed 17 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Katharine Hepburn, Rod Steiger, Al Pacino, Ingrid Bergman, Albert Finney, Chris Sarandon, Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch, Beatrice Straight, William Holden, Ned Beatty, Peter Firth, Richard Burton, Paul Newman, James Mason, Jane Fonda and River Phoenix. Bergman, Dunaway, Finch and Straight won oscars for their performances in one of Lumet's movies.
Needless to say he is one of my all-time favorite directors and I wanted to take the opportunity to give him recognition and hopefully inspire and a new look at some of the best movies ever made.
Last edited by Erasmus Folly; 05-04-08 at 05:58 AM.
