Sidney LumetFilmography

I Knew It Was You

Actors: John Cazale, Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Francis Ford Coppola, Sidney Lumet, Gene Hackman

Synopsis: John Cazale's resume as a film actor isn't long, but it's distinguished. Cazale appeared in five feature films, and each one received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, while three of them -- The Godfather, The Godfather Part II and The Deer Hunter -- won the category. Al Pacino, who Read More

Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust

Actors: Gene Hackman, Sidney Lumet, Steven Spielberg, Branko Lustig

Synopsis: The American film industry took it upon itself to act as a cheerleader for United States and Allied military interests during World War II, but Hollywood was initially reluctant to directly condemn Nazi anti-Semitism, and it wasn't until years after the war ended that American filmmakers began Read More

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Crew: Director

Actors: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei, Albert Finney, Michael Shannon

Synopsis: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, and Marisa Tomei star in director Sidney Lumet's thriller concerning two brothers who hatch a plan to rob their parent's jewelry store. When the job goes awry, the entire family is set on a collision course with tragedy. Andy (Hoffman) is an Read More

Find Me Guilty

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Vin Diesel, Peter Dinklage, Linus Roache, Ron Silver, Alex Rocco

Synopsis: A wise guy turns his own trial upside down by serving as his own lawyer in this comedy drama based on a true story. In 1987, an extensive investigation into the activities of the Lucchese crime family led to charges being filed against most of the key members of the gang, leading to the Read More

A Decade Under the Influence

Actors: Steven Soderbergh, Paul Thomas Anderson, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman, Peter Bogdanovich, Ellen Burstyn

Synopsis: In the late '60s, American culture experienced a period of change as the youth movement challenged conventional attitudes about politics, sex, drugs, and gender issues, while the advancement of the Vietnam War found many citizens questioning the actions and wisdom of their government for the first Read More

The Tramp and the Dictator

Actors: Walter Bernstein, Ray Bradbury, Sydney Chaplin, Al Hirschfeld, Stanley Kauffmann

Synopsis: One of the most compelling strokes of fate in the past millenium is the fact that the 20th century's most hated dictator and most beloved film comedian were born within four days of each other in 1889. Although Adolf Hitler probably never gave Charlie Chaplin a second thought during his rise to Read More

100 Centre Street [TV Series]

Crew: Director, Executive Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Alan Arkin, La Tanya Richardson, Paula Devicq, Joseph Lyle Taylor, Manny Perez

Synopsis: Oscar-winning director Sidney Lumet, who began his career during the "golden age" of live television, returned to his TV roots as creator, writer, and director of the gritty, one-hour drama series 100 Centre Street. The title refers to the address of New York's Criminal Court, presided over by Read More

Gloria

Crew: Director

Actors: Sharon Stone, Jean-Luke Figueroa, Jeremy Northam, Cathy Moriarty, George C. Scott, Bonnie Bedelia

Synopsis: Director Sidney Lumet has remade the 1980 movie by his contemporary, John Cassavetes, casting Sharon Stone in the role of Gloria (portrayed in the original by Cassavetes' wife, Gena Rowlands), a street-toughened woman sliding into middle age. When the neighbors are murdered by a group of Read More

Critical Care

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: James Spader, Kyra Sedgwick, Helen Mirren, Margo Martindale, Jeffrey Wright

Synopsis: Sidney Lumet filmed this hospital satire at a Canadian studio. Alcoholic Dr. Butz (Albert Brooks in old-age makeup) advises younger Dr. Werner Ernst (James Spader) to only treat patients with much insurance. "When the lawyers start crawling all over you," says Butz, "that's when you know you're a Read More

Night Falls on Manhattan

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Andy Garcia, Lena Olin, Richard Dreyfuss, Ian Holm, Ron Leibman

Synopsis: A lawyer discovers just how fine the line between good and evil can be in this drama based on the novel Tainted Evidence by Robert Daley. When a carefully-planned bust of drug dealer Jordan Washington (Shiek Mahmud-Bey) goes sour, a shootout between Washington and officers from three precincts Read More

Guilty As Sin

Crew: Director

Actors: Rebecca De Mornay, Don Johnson, Stephen Lang, Jack Warden, Dana Ivey

Synopsis: Sidney Lumet directed this Larry Cohen-scripted courtroom procedural that owes more than it should to Jagged Edge. Jennifer Haines (Rebecca De Mornay), one of the top female lawyers in the country and flush from the success of defending a gangster, has a new client to defend. A suave ladies man in Read More

A Stranger Among Us

Crew: Director

Actors: Melanie Griffith, Eric Thal, John Pankow, Tracy Pollan, Lee Richardson

Synopsis: When a Jewish jeweler is found dead and his store is missing more than one million dollars in diamonds, a New York police detective (Melanie Griffith) goes undercover in a community of Hasidic Jews to find the criminal. Once she is immersed in the community, she falls in love with one of the most Read More

Hollywood Remembers: Fonda on Fonda

Actors: Jane Fonda

Synopsis: Fonda on Fonda offers an intimate look at one of America's most highly regarded megastars, the Academy and Tony award-winning film and stage actor, Henry Fonda. Daughter Jane Fonda hosts this account of the elder Fonda's life and career. Fonda's work spanned the golden years of Hollywood in which Read More

The Hollywood Collection: William Holden - The Golden Boy

Synopsis: Hollywood Collection: William Holden - The Golden Boy takes a comprehensive look at an unconventional actor, who frequently chose untraditional projects. William Holden appeared in more than 70 films, generally as the leading man, including Love in the Afternoon, Sunset Boulevard, Sabrina, Golden Boy Read More

Listen Up!: The Lives of Quincy Jones

Actors: Quincy Jones, Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis

Synopsis: The extraordinary life of Quincy Jones -- one of the 20th century's most influential and talented composers, musicians and music producers -- provides the basis of this offbeat, free-form documentary tribute. With little regard for formal timelines and traditional documentary biography methods Read More

Q & A

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Nick Nolte, Timothy Hutton, Armand Assante, Patrick O'Neal, Lee Richardson

Synopsis: Following Serpico (1973) and Prince of the City (1981), veteran urban crime film director Sidney Lumet completed a thematic trilogy about New York City police corruption with this noir drama. When New York City cop Mike Brennan (Nick Nolte) shoots an unarmed Hispanic drug dealer in cold blood, he Read More

Family Business

Crew: Director

Actors: Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman, Matthew Broderick, Rosanna de Soto, Janet Carroll, Victoria Jackson

Synopsis: You've probably already guessed that the Family Business in this all-star melodrama is the business of crime. Adapted from a novel by Vincent Patrick, the film stars Sean Connery as Jessie McMullen, the patriarch of a family of career criminals, including his son Vito (Dustin Hoffman) and grandson Read More

Running on Empty

Crew: Director

Actors: Christine Lahti, River Phoenix, Judd Hirsch, Martha Plimpton, Jonas Abry

Synopsis: In this family drama from director Sidney Lumet, Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti play Arthur and Annie Pope, a pair of '60s radicals who have eluded the FBI for 16 years after bombing a napalm laboratory as a Vietnam War protest. This lifestyle involves continually moving their base of operations Read More

The Morning After

Crew: Director

Actors: Jane Fonda, Jeff Bridges, Raul Julia, Diane Salinger, Richard Foronjy

Synopsis: In this excellent thriller, crisply directed by Sidney Lumet, Alex Sternbergen (Jane Fonda), a washed-up, alcoholic actress who never quite made it, wakes up one morning in an unfamiliar, luxurious loft apartment, only to find the corpse of a stranger next to her in bed. Alex can remember nothing Read More

Power

Crew: Director

Actors: Richard Gere, Julie Christie, Gene Hackman, Kate Capshaw, Denzel Washington

Synopsis: A star-studded cast portrays political movers and shakers in this drama about politics and the media. Richard Gere is Pete St. John, a gilt-edged "image" advisor to the likes of powerful and often crooked politicians -- including a South American candidate for the top office in his country and Read More

50 Years of Action!

Actors: Stanley Ackerman, Woody Allen, John A. Alonzo, Warren Beatty

Synopsis: One of the few documentaries to shine a spotlight on directors in Hollywood, this informative film sketches out the 50-year history of the Directors Guild of America. Formed at a time when people were still fighting for unions in the United States, the guild also had its problems when the studios Read More

Garbo Talks

Crew: Director

Actors: Anne Bancroft, Ron Silver, Carrie Fisher, Catherine Hicks, Steven Hill, Howard Da Silva

Synopsis: This bittersweet comedy is, among many other things, a tour de force for the marvelous Anne Bancroft. The star is cast as Estelle Rolfe, an unconventional divorcee who resides in New York, in close proximity to her grown son Gilbert (Ron Silver) and his wife Lisa (Carrie Fisher). Though his wife Read More

Daniel

Crew: Director, Executive Producer, Producer

Actors: Timothy Hutton, Mandy Patinkin, Lindsay Crouse, Ed Asner, Ellen Barkin

Synopsis: Sidney Lumet directed this film version of E.L. Doctorow's novel The Book of Daniel (scripted by Doctorow) that deals in a thinly veiled (although dispassionate way) with the Rosenberg spy case of the 1950s, as seen through the eyes of their children. The Rosenbergs are the Isaacsons here, and the Read More

The Verdict

Crew: Director

Actors: Paul Newman, Charlotte Rampling, Jack Warden, James Mason, Milo O'Shea

Synopsis: In Sidney Lumet's powerful courtroom drama The Verdict, Paul Newman stars as Frank Galvin, an alcoholic Boston lawyer who tries to redeem his personal and professional reputation by winning a difficult medical malpractice case. Frank, down on his luck, is presented with the case of his life when Read More

Deathtrap

Crew: Director

Actors: Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, Dyan Cannon, Irene Worth, Henry Jones

Synopsis: Sidney Lumet provides another of his film adaptations of Broadway successes -- in this case Ira Levin's 1978 clever Broadway murder mystery that starred John Wood in a triumphant turn as down-on-his-luck playwright Sidney Bruhl. Wood's brittle airiness is replaced in the film version by Michael Caine Read More

Prince of the City

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Treat Williams, Jerry Orbach, Richard Foronjy, Don Billett, Kenny Marino, James Tolkan

Synopsis: Inspired by a true story, Prince of the City stars Treat Williams as a Manhattan detective who agrees to help the US Department of Justice weed out corruption in the NYPD. Williams agrees on the assurance that he'll never have to turn in a close friend. Wired for sound, Williams almost immediately Read More

Just Tell Me What You Want

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Alan King, Ali MacGraw, Dina Merrill, Myrna Loy, Keenan Wynn

Synopsis: In this Sidney Lumet romantic comedy, Max Herschel (Alan King) is a powerful businessman who keeps a bevy of beauties for pleasure to escape his alcoholic wife, Connie (Dina Merrill). His main minx is Bones Burton (Ali MacGraw), a successful television producer who is tiring of Max's lack of Read More

The Wiz

Crew: Director

Actors: Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell, Lena Horne, Richard Pryor

Synopsis: Sidney Lumet's The Wiz is the film version of the popular Broadway musical that retells the events of L. Frank Baum's classic novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz through the eyes of a young African-American kindergarten teacher who's "never been below 125th Street." Leaving a large family dinner to Read More

Equus

Crew: Director

Actors: Richard Burton, Peter Firth, Colin Blakely, Joan Plowright, Harry Andrews

Synopsis: Richard Burton plays a psychiatrist who attempts to discover why young Peter Firth has taken to mutilating live horses. In probing Firth's psyche, Burton discovers that the source of the boy's obsession is his mother, Joan Plowright, who has raised Firth with a convoluted set of values. Even as he Read More

Network

Crew: Director

Actors: Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Wesley Addy

Synopsis: A trenchant satire of "trash TV," Network seems to grow only more relevant with each passing year. Howard Beale (Peter Finch), the dean of newscasters at the United Broadcasting System, is put out to pasture because he "skews old." Network executive Max Schumacher (William Holden), Howard's best Read More

Dog Day Afternoon

Crew: Director

Actors: Al Pacino, John Cazale, Charles Durning, Sully Boyar, Chris Sarandon

Synopsis: Based on a true 1972 story, Sidney Lumet's 1975 drama chronicles a unique bank robbery on a hot summer afternoon in New York City. Shortly before closing time, scheming loser Sonny (Al Pacino) and his slow-witted buddy, Sal (John Cazale), burst into a Brooklyn bank for what should be a Read More

Serpico

Crew: Director

Actors: Al Pacino, Tony Roberts, Jack Kehoe, Cornelia Sharpe, Barbara Eda-Young

Synopsis: Adapted by Waldo Salt and Norman Wexler from Peter Maas's book, Sidney Lumet's drama portrays the real-life struggle of an honest New York City cop against a corrupt system. Neophyte officer Frank Serpico (Al Pacino) is determined not to let his job get in the way of his individuality. Despite his Read More

Lovin' Molly

Crew: Director

Actors: Claude Traverse, Anthony Perkins, Beau Bridges, Blythe Danner, Edward Binns, Susan Sarandon

Synopsis: Lovin' Molly is basically Jules and Jim, Texas style. In 1925, two close friends (Anthony Perkins and Beau Bridges) both fall in love with prescient woman's-libber Molly (Blythe Danner). Molly in turn loves both men equally and can't choose between them, so the three set up a freewheeling menage a Read More

Murder on the Orient Express

Crew: Director

Actors: Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, Vanessa Redgrave, Martin Balsam

Synopsis: Like many of Agatha Christie's mysteries, Murder on the Orient Express is predicated on an actual event, in this case the Lindbergh kidnapping. In the movie, everyone on board the Orient Express seems to have concluded that hateful financier Ratchett (Richard Widmark) was behind the abduction and Read More

The Offence

Crew: Director

Actors: Sean Connery, Trevor Howard, Vivien Merchant, Ian Bannen, Derek Newark

Synopsis: In The Offence, Sean Connery plays Johnson, a normally unflappable British police inspector who is emotionally shaken by a case of child molestation. For reasons he cannot explain, he is driven to kill the suspect while interrogating him and is suspended from the force. The incident leads to a Read More

Child's Play

Crew: Director

Actors: Paul Alessi, Anthony Barletta, Kevin Coupe, Christopher Hoag, Stephen McLaughlin, Robert D. Randall, Robbie Reed, James Mason, Robert Preston, Beau Bridges, Ron Weyand, Charles White

Synopsis: Leon Prochnik adapted the evocative Robert Moresco play Child's Play for the screen, with Sidney Lumet assuming directorial duties. Beau Bridges stars as a young teacher at an exclusive Catholic boy's boarding school named Paul Reis. An outbreak of violence and brutality among the students has Read More

The Anderson Tapes

Crew: Director

Actors: Frank Macetta, Sean Connery, Dyan Cannon, Martin Balsam, Alan King, Ralph Meeker

Synopsis: This breathlessly paced high-tech thriller stars Sean Connery as Anderson, a career criminal who's just been released from his latest prison term. Seeking a quick financial turnover, Anderson uses mob funding to finance an ambitious robbery. With a gang of expert thieves, Anderson sets about to Read More

King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Having tackled every known film subject in his long career, from musicals to murder mysteries, Sidney Lumet tries his hand at documentary in King: A Filmed Record...Montgomery to Memphis. Lumet co-directed and co-produced the film with another Hollywood luminary, Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Beyond Read More

The Last of the Mobile Hotshots

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: James Coburn, Lynn Redgrave, Robert Hooks, Perry Hayes, Reggie King

Synopsis: In this depressing slice of Southern decadence, Myrtle (Lynn Redgrave) is a woman of questionable virtue who marries an ailing man on a television game show. Jeb (James Coburn) hopes to sire an heir so his greedy half-brother (Robert Hooks) won't inherit the family fortune. Myrtle jumps into the Read More

The Appointment

Crew: Director

Actors: Omar Sharif, Anouk Aimée, Lotte Lenya, Fausto Tozzi, Ennio Balbo

Synopsis: Sidney Lumet directed this romantic melodrama involving deceit and marital secrets. The film takes place in Rome where lawyer Federico Fendi (Omar Sharif) falls in love with his colleague Renzo's (Fausto Tozzi) fiancee Carla (Anouk Aimee). Renzo warns Federico that Carla is actually a high-priced Read More

Bye Bye Braverman

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: George Segal, Jack Warden, Joseph Wiseman, Sorrell Booke

Synopsis: Bye Bye Braverman is a bittersweet adaptation of Wallace Markfield's coldly cynical novel To an Early Grave. Braverman, an idealistic minor author, dies; his four best friends, writers who in one way or another have all sold out, decide to attend his funeral. The foursome includes a disenchanted Read More

The Sea Gull

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: James Mason, Vanessa Redgrave, Simone Signoret, David Warner, Harry Andrews

Synopsis: This is one of several film versions of the classic play by Anton Chekhov. The depressing tale of unrequited love begins when an aging actress Arkadina (Simone Signoret) and her arrogant writer companion Trigorin (James Mason) travel to a small Russian town to visit her brother, an ailing public Read More

The Deadly Affair

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: James Mason, Simone Signoret, Maximilian Schell, Harriet Andersson, Lynn Redgrave, Harry Andrews

Synopsis: John LeCarre's Call for the Dead was the basis for this gloomy, complex spy story. James Mason plays a British secret agent puzzled by the sudden suicide of Foreign Office higher-up Robert Flemyng. Mason had worked on Flemyng's security clearance himself, and can't fathom what personality quirk he Read More

The Group

Crew: Director

Actors: Candice Bergen, Joan Hackett, Elizabeth Hartman, Shirley Knight, Joanna Pettet, Hal Holbrook

Synopsis: Based on the novel by Mary McCarthy, The Group was one of the slickest, and most highly publicized, cinematic soap operas of the 1960s. Filmed largely in New York, the story charts the exploits of eight young women, all of whom graduate from an exclusive Vassar-ish college in the middle of the Read More

The Hill

Crew: Director

Actors: Sean Connery, Harry Andrews, Ian Bannen, Alfred Lynch, Ossie Davis

Synopsis: The Hill was unfairly subjected to ridicule by the more obtuse "critics" of 1965 who harped on the fact that it starred Sean Connery and, unlike Connery's Bond pictures, had no women in it. Bypassing these cretinous comments, it must be noted that The Hill is an above-the-norm entry in the Read More

The Pawnbroker

Crew: Director

Actors: Rod Steiger, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Brock Peters, Thelma Oliver, Jaime Sanchez

Synopsis: Critically acclaimed Rod Steiger plays Sol Nazerman, a Jewish pawnbroker who survived imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp, even though his wife and family did not. The devastating experience and unrelenting memories inhibit Sol from emotional involvement with life. He has no faith in Read More

Fail-Safe

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau, Frank Overton, Dan O'Herlihy, Edward Binns, Fritz Weaver, Larry Hagman

Synopsis: Based on the novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, Fail-Safe is set for the most part at Strategic Air Command headquarters, where a misguided transmission sends a squadron of bombers hurtling towards Russia, fully prepared to drop their atomic weaponry on Moscow. Air Force commander Frank Overton Read More

A View from the Bridge

Crew: Director

Actors: Raf Vallone, Jean Sorel, Maureen Stapleton, Raymond Pellegrin, Carol Lawrence

Synopsis: A View from the Bridge is set in New York, but the alleged political undesirability of playwright Arthur Miller dictated that this film be lensed in France. Director Sidney Lumet shot the film in both English and French, with the English version sounding more recited than acted at times. Raf Vallone Read More

Long Day's Journey into Night

Crew: Director

Actors: Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards, Jr., Dean Stockwell, Jeanne Barr

Synopsis: Playwright Eugene O'Neill sold Random House the text of his intensely autobiographical 1941 play on the proviso that the play not be produced during O'Neill's lifetime. Two years after the playwright's death in 1953, the play was given its first Broadway staging and won a Pulitzer Prize. Set in Read More

The Iceman Cometh

Crew: Director

Actors: Jason Robards, Jr.

Synopsis: Sidney Lumet's made-for-television adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh tells the tale of Hickey (Jason Robards), a fun-loving drunk who has had a drastic change in his life. Now sober -- and cynical -- Hickey arrives at a familiar pub and attempts to convince the other patrons in the Read More

The Fugitive Kind

Crew: Director

Actors: Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, Joanne Woodward, Maureen Stapleton, Victor Jory

Synopsis: Fugitive Kind began life as Battle of Angels, a never-produced 1939 play by a young Tennessee Williams. Nearly 20 years later, Williams refined this rough-hewn theatrical effort into Orpheus Descending, which enjoyed a respectable Broadway run. The renamed film version stars Marlon Brando as Read More

That Kind of Woman

Crew: Director

Actors: Sophia Loren, Tab Hunter, Jack Warden, Barbara Nichols, Keenan Wynn, George Sanders

Synopsis: That Kind of Woman stars Sophia Loren as an Italian girl, Kay, who enjoys a brief wartime romance with American paratrooper Red (Tab Hunter). But Kay is already the property of a suave millionaire (George Sanders) known only as "The Man." When next we see her, Kay is living Hollywood's concept of Read More

Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates

Crew: Director

Actors: Tab Hunter, Peggy King, Basil Rathbone, Jarmila Novotna, Carmen Mathews

Synopsis: Adapted by Sally Benson (Meet Me in St. Louis) from the novel by Mary Mapes Dodge, this dazzling musical version of Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates) stars 1950s Hollywood heartthrob Tab Hunter in the title role (as Hans, not the Skates). Living in a small Dutch village, Hans yearns to compete Read More

Stage Struck

Crew: Director

Actors: Henry Fonda, Susan Strasberg, Joan Greenwood, Herbert Marshall, Christopher Plummer

Synopsis: This remake of Zoe Akins' Morning Glory stars Susan Strasberg as Eva Lovelace, the role that won Katharine Hepburn her first Oscar back in 1933. Fresh from the midwest, the starry-eyed Eva arrives in New York, convinced that she has what it takes to be Broadway's greatest actress. Armed with more Read More

12 Angry Men

Crew: Director

Actors: John Fiedler, Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley, Sr., E.G. Marshall, Jack Klugman, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Edward Binns, Joseph Sweeney, George Voskovec, Robert Webber

Synopsis: A Puerto Rican youth is on trial for murder, accused of knifing his father to death. The twelve jurors retire to the jury room, having been admonished that the defendant is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Eleven of the jurors vote for conviction, each for reasons of his Read More

Danger

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This Trilogy, Danger originally created for television by Sidney Lumet consists of three individual episodes, all in the film noir thriller style The Lady on the Rock, Death Among the Relics, and The System. The cast includes Kim Stanley and Eli Wallach. Director Lumet began his filmmaking career Read More

One Third of a Nation

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Myron McCormick, Sidney Lumet

Synopsis: Adapted from a play which was originally produced by the Federal Theatre Project (part of the WPA), this is a film from the Depression era which shows the disparity between life in the slums and the life of the upper class. When a young man inherits a city block in the ghetto, he begins to meet Read More

The 400 Million

Actors: Morris Carnovsky, Alfred Ryder, Robert Lewis, Sidney Lumet