Network

1976.
#66 / #64
Winner of 4 Academy Awards.

After the UBS network informs its nightly news anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch) that he will be fired in a couple weeks, he goes crazy on live television, which earns him his own network show. When Beale begins to decry UBS's parent company CCA, the chairman of CCA convinces Beale that capitalism is key. Finally, Beale is assassinated by a terrorist group in order to provoke interest in their network variety show, "The Mao Tse-Tung Hour."

Eddie: How have we not already reviewed this movie? NETWORK is the most prophetic of all of the films on the AFI list. I wonder if director Sydney Lumet watches television today and thinks to himself, "If we had put this shit in our movie back then, no one would have believed it." In an era where Anderson Cooper has to interview The Bachelorette and Fred Thompson has to quit his TV show to run for president, it's startling to believe that there was ever an America that didn't so closely infuse news and pop culture. NETWORK, produced just as television was jumping the shark in search of higher ratings, accurately predicted the depths to which television has sunk.

Sarah: As Eddie said, this movie is eerily modern. I think it only becomes more relevant as time goes by. This was one of the biggest surprises on the list for me. I had seen the famous "I'm mad as hell" scene, so I thought I knew what I was in for. But I did not.

Not only is the movie prophetic, but it is also unconventional. It does not follow contrived story arcs. It continually goes for the unexpected, and never gets hollywood on you - which is admirable since it's key theme is selling out. With all the commercialism in films, I don't think we'll get another film like NETWORK, so you must see it. Plus you can't miss Faye Dunaway as the manipulative unfeeling skeleton, Dianne Christensen. Or the scene where Max Schumacher (William Holden) tells his wife (Cindy Grover) he is leaving her. Amazing performances.

Why You Should See It: The Board Room Scene where UBS Chairman Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) tells Beale:

There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

True then and truer today.