Sidney Lumet
Author
Description
Why does a director choose a particular script? What must he or she do to keep actors fresh and truthful through take after take of a single scene? How do you stage a shoot-out -- involving more than one hundred extras and three colliding taxis -- in the heart of New York's diamond district? What does it take to keep the studio honchoes happy? For this book, director Sidney Lumet, provides a memoir and guide to the art, craft, and business of the...
3) Network
Description
A satirical look at the politics and power struggles of television executives as a network news anchorman turns the tables on the "ratings."
6) Deathtrap
Description
A famed mystery playwright with a recent string of flops may be planning to murder a talented former student in order to steal his work.
7) 12 angry men
Appears on list
Description
Tempers rise as a jury of middle-aged men find themselves unable to sway a single member of their group to the majority opinion. Confronted with a seemingly clear-cut case, bolstered by opinions and assumptions, but with no verdict in sight the group threatens to become deadlocked. Will the 12th juror, stubbornly convinced of a young defendent's innocence, be able to sway the entire group to his viewpoint, or will the group ultimately force the holdout...
8) The Hill
Description
Set in the Libyan Desert during World War II, British soldiers on the brink of collapse push beyond endurance to struggle up "The Hill," a manmade instrument of torture--a tower of sand seared by a white-hot sun. They are in this military prison because they once defied, rebelled and talked back to their superiors
9) Serpico
Description
A gritty drama about a cop (Al Pacino) whose revelations about the extent of bribery in the New York Police Department lead him down a dangerous path. Nominated for Best Actor (Al Pacino) and Best Adapted Screenplay at the **Academy Awards.** Winner of Best Actor at the **Golden Globes**. Nominated for Best Actor and Best Director at the **BAFTA Awards.** *"A virtuoso performance by Al Pacino and some expert location work by Sidney Lumet add up to...
11) The Wiz
Description
A discontented kindergarten teacher living in Harlem is lost in a blizzard and comes upon the wonderland of Oz. There she meets new friends, tries to find her way home, and finds that her life is not so bad after all.
12) The verdict
Description
An alcoholic, failed attorney is reduced to ambulance chasing. A friend gives him a supposedly easy malpractice case which becomes a last chance to redeem himself and his career.
Description
A stock broker, who is having financial troubles and in need of extra cash, and his younger brother conspire to pull off the perfect, victimless crime. No guns, no violence, no problem. The only problem is that the owners of the jewelry store are their own parents. But when an accomplice ignores the rules and crosses the line, his actions trigger a series of events in which no one is left unscathed.
15) Seven samurai
Description
Tells the story of a sixteenth-century village whose desperate inhabitants hire seven out-of-work warriors to protect them from invading bandits.
16) Fail safe
Description
The unnerving procedural thriller painstakingly details an all-too-plausible nightmare scenario in which a mechanical failure jams the United States military's chain of command and sends the country hurtling toward nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
17) Family business
Description
Three generations of a family plan the perfect crime to steal and split one million dollars and all of their seemingly simple plans go wrong.