"So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it and stick your head out and yell, 'I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!'"
- Howard Beale (Peter Finch)
"You're messing with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale!"
- Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) to Howard Beale
Major Awards:
Academy Awards 1976 -
Best Actor: Peter Finch
Academy Awards 1976 -
Best Actress: Faye Dunaway
Academy Awards 1976 -
Best Original Screenplay: Paddy Chayefsky
Academy Awards 1976 -
Best Supporting Actress: Beatrice Straight
Entertainment Reviews:
Total Film - 09/01/2000
"...A vicious, exaggerated satire which aims for barbed black humour over belly laughs....[With a] sharp screenplay..."
Premiere - 04/01/2004
"Finch won a posthumous Oscar for his all-over-the-map portrayal of Beale."
Rolling Stone - 03/09/2006 4 stars out of 4 -- "If movies can tell the future, then this 1976 harbinger about a major network's calculated and deranged ratings grab is right on time."
Empire - 10/01/2008
"NETWORK is the perfect meeting of director and screenplay....Lumet and Chayefsky's real achievement is the subtle escalation of the drama..."
Entertainment Weekly - 02/25/2011
"Craven TV execs like Faye Dunaway's may have seemed harmlessly cartoonish then, but now they feel like a dangerous prophecy come true." -- Grade: A
Product Description:
With stunning prescience, Sidney Lumet's searing satire of television and the contemporary moment chronicles media corruption and the way that the public buys into the myths the media creates. The moral and spiritual turpitude delivered by the debilitating forces of television are rendered in sharp relief against a backdrop of crumbling humanity in what is regarded as one of the great satires in Hollywood history. With a visceral script from Paddy Chayefsky, NETWORK follows the doomed path of aging newsman Howard Beale (Peter Finch), who, upon learning that he is to be fired after decades as a news anchor, announces to millions of viewers that he will publicly commit suicide during his last broadcast. When the ratings consequently shoot up, hungry executive-in-training Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) seizes the moment to exploit Beale's Messianic nervous breakdown, turning his rage into the vehicle for the network's first Number One show and a nationwide craze. Who could have predicted that this 1976 film might someday influence an even more contagious trend in television broadcasting: the reality show'
Plot Synopsis:
Sidney Lumet's NETWORK takes a close look at the lengths to which television stations will go to improve their ratings--pulling publicity stunts, playing up news team dramas, and constantly scheming behind the scenes.
Plot Keywords:
Big Business |
Black Comedy |
Classic |
Essential Cinema |
Infidelity |
Psychos |
Recommended |
Satire |
Social Issues |
Theatrical Release
Production Notes:
Theatrical release: November 27, 1976.
Filmed on location in New York City.
The film is Peter Finch's last big-screen project; his last performance was in the TV movie RAID ON ENTEBBE.
NETWORK is number 66 on the American Film Institute's list of America's 100 Greatest Movies.
NETWORK was added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 2000.
Beatrice Straight won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress despite logging mere minutes onscreen, causing a minor uproar.
Film Collectors & Archivists: Alpha Video is actively looking for rare and
unusual pre-1943 motion pictures, in good condition, from Monogram, PRC,
Tiffany, Chesterfield, and other independent studios for release on DVD. We
are also interested in TV shows from the early 1950s. Share your passion
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