Hollywood Director Sidney Lumet Dies at 86 [VIDEO]

12 Angry Men (YouTube)

Film director Sidney Lumet, the man behind such classic movies as ’12 Angry Men,’ ‘Serpico’ and ‘Network,’ died Saturday morning of lymphoma at his home in Manhattan at the age of 86 according to the New York Times.

He never won an Oscar for directing but did receive an honorary Academy Award in 2005. Lumet's first movie, ’12 Angry Men,’ in 1957 is one of my favorites. The film garnered three Oscar nominations, including one for Lumet. The movie starred Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb and a very young Jack Klugman among others as a group of jurors who must determine whether or not a teenage boy killed his father. All but three minutes of the entire film was shot inside the bare and confining, sixteen by twenty-four foot "jury room."

 Lumet continued to direct movies throughout the 1960s, but it wasn’t until the following decade when his career kicked into full gear.

Among his many accomplishments in the ’70s: ‘Serpico’ (1973), based on the true story of New York City police officer Frank Serpico (Al Pacino), who went undercover to expose his corrupt police force; ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ (1975), in which he re-teamed with Pacino to tell the story of a bank robbery gone horribly wrong; ‘Network’ (1976), about a network programming head (Faye Dunaway) who exploits a former TV anchor (Peter Finch) to earn ratings and profits; and ‘The Wiz’ (1978), an adaptation of ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson.

In 1982, Lumet earned his fourth Oscar nomination for ‘The Verdict,’ a legal drama starring Paul Newman as a struggling lawyer who takes a medical malpractice case to trial to save his career.

Lumet’s final movie was the ensemble drama ‘Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,’ in 2007. Maybe a taste of one of his cinematic masterpieces will entice you to enjoy some of his movies.

http://youtu.be/WINDtlPXmmE