Sidney Lumet started his artistic journey on the stage and slowly worked his way into television. By the time he got to make his first film, the masterpiece 12 Angry Men, he was already a veteran of the craft. Lumet's career work is political, but not overtly. The subject matter was always there: rebels that defy the system, while those very systems slowly progress to crush the will of the individuals who question it. With masterpieces as revered as Network and Dog Day Afternoon, his long career is under-appreciated. While not a part of the class of American filmmakers that came out of the 1970s and just after the 1950s prestige era was ending, albeit with a varied assortment of filmmakers, Lumet’s voice was his own.

Possessing an ability to meld aesthetics across genres while finding the thematic through-line that makes for a career worth discussing, his veracity and consistency as a filmmaker are worth the marvel while also appreciating his worldview as a rebel. Lumet's films gravitate towards questioning the institutions that hold authority and making them better. But he also told generational family tales and how the dynamics crumble when waters become muddy. Yet, Lumet always had an overarching point that made his stories complex. It was his goal as an artist, and he made over 50 films in his career. These are the ten best films from a director whose vision never wavered.

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10 Serpico

Serpico
Paramount Pictures

Though they only made two films together, they are both of seismic proportion. Al Pacino was one of, if not the best actors working in the 1970s. His first collaboration with the great Sidney Lumet was Serpico. A perfect film for the turn of the decade shift into a more nuanced documentary-like style while Lumet still showed the grace of his classical, stage-like approach. With Pacino front and center as the legendary Frank Serpico, the famed New York cop who stood up to the years of corruption in the undercover police unit. Serpico's life was threatened, and the film perfectly encapsulates the fear of having to look over your shoulder, even when what you're doing is right.

9 Prince of The City

Prince of The City
Warner Brothers

Sidney Lumet made a career out of crafting the complex intricacies of institutions crushing the will of individuals who try to make a difference or, at least, the will of a person coming up against a group who wishes to remain in power. Prince of The City is his epic look at the real-life corruption happening in the New York City police department. With an incredible lead performance from Treat Williams. Playing Daniel Ciello, turning on the cops taking money and giving drugs to smugglers, Lumet traces the mental and moral decay of pushing against the system. While Williams goes to the emotional depths to make his distress felt and heard.

8 Before The Devil Knows You're Dead

Before The Devil
ThinkFilm

The last film of Sidney Lumet’s storied career showed he still had so much more to say as a filmmaker. An angry, vicious, quick, and desperate film about lowly people at their endpoints, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead was another masterclass showcasing Lumet’s skill with actors. With an inspired pairing of Ethan Hawke and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as brothers, Lumet still pried empathy from their desperation. As the two brothers attempt to pull off a heist at their parents' jewelry store. Of course, nothing goes as planned. It's an electric film that proves Lumet didn't have a bad film in him.

7 Running On Empty

Running On Empty
Warner Brothers 

So many of Sidney Lumet’s films focus on the act of rebellion as they're happening in the present, but Running On Empty found a way to pull melodrama out of the repercussions of acting against systems of governance. As the teenage son suffers right when he's becoming a man, River Pheonix was breathtaking as he grapples with the fallout of his parent's domestic terrorism (Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti). The two parents bombed a lab to interfere with the country's Vietnam War campaign, setting the family across the United States, and forcing them to change their names and livelihood. Lumet’s acute attention to the family dynamic and its shifting power when the parents fail their kids made for one of his most heartfelt works.

6 The Fugitive Kind

The Fugitive Kind
United Artists

An elegant, slow, and acutely studied character portrait of a drifter named “Snakeskin”, played by the young Marlon Brando, is brilliant and heartbreaking in this tale of begotten love. The Fugitive Kind focuses on Brando and his snakeskin persona floating through a small town where his demeanor and character become misunderstood. Brando strikes up a romance with the older Lady Torrance — a work of incredible gravity by Italian stalwart Anna Magnani — and embarks on a love story that was doomed from the start.

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5 Daniel

Daniel
Paramount Pictures

Generational scars sewed by institutions of power forcibly stopped the will of rebellion in its tracks. Sidney Lumet’s Daniel was a commercial and critical failure upon release. Daniel is a film he considers his most personal and one of his best. Lumet weaved in aspects of his own life in the Yiddish community from when he was a boy. He also sewed it together with the events inspired by the tragic, real-life execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Two activists were tried and sentenced to death for a conspiracy to act against the country. Starring Timothy Hutton as the son “Daniel”, who deals with the aftermath of his family's tragedy, Lumet crafted an ambiguous tale of why activism may be necessary and how the harm of acting out against one's own government destroys a family. While never wavering from the radical politics permeating throughout America in the aftermath of World War II.

4 The Verdict

The Verdict
20th Century Fox

A grizzled and heroic performance from Paul Newman begins the story of Sidney Lumet's The Verdict by popping a whiskey double and then combining a beer with a raw egg for breakfast. Newman goes through the mental transformation as a down-and-out lawyer to not only try to win a case of medical malpractice but possibly win back his soul. With a superb second script from playwright David Mamet — something Sidney Lumet always had an eye for — creating a resounding, monumental work for legend Paul Newman. Having to battle the likes of the classic villainy from James Mason, The Verdict finds redemption in the depths of self-loathing.

3 Network

Network-1976-Review
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Working from a script from the brilliant, three-time Academy Award-winning Paddy Chayefsky, Network explores the heart of darkness that is capitalism and how it started to poison broadcast media. Capitalism infiltrated the news sectors and corporations as Sidney Lumet shows the men in suits like Robert Duvall, acting as men only interested in numbers. Every interaction is a transaction and every person is a number. With an off-the-rails, “I’m mad as hell!” performance from the late Peter Finch. Finch sees into the void when he finds out he's lost his job and becomes the mad prophet. He starts speaking hard truths about the shallow nature of media affecting our modern society, but then, later gets turned into a product as well. It's a sophisticated drama and hilarious satire, showing an industry losing its core values for the sake of the dollar.

2 Dog Day Afternoon

Dog Day Afternoon
Warner Brothers

Sidney Lumet in his second collaboration with Al Pacino had their finger on the pulse of the city that never sleeps in Dog Day Afternoon. Lumet has told countless stories about New York, but this had certain electricity to it that others did not. Told over the course of a day, Pacino has the firecracker energy that led him to superstardom as the live wire bank robber Sonny. Nearly setting the city into a spiral of chaos as the media circus and high police presence makes for his failed heist attempt one crazy day in New York. With the unforgettable “Attica!” scene, Lumet created a dynamite film that is still revered as a classic today.

1 12 Angry Men

12-angry-men
United Artists

Properly considered one of the greatest American films ever made and one of the great, astonishing directorial debuts, 12 Angry Men is a perfect film from Sidney Lumet. With a story that would go on to foreshadow themes and filmmaking choices throughout his career, Lumet perfectly captured the fight to rekindle your soul. Using the framework of the judiciary system as 12 men go to verbal war to decide the fate of another young man who may or may not get sentenced to death. 12 Angry Men has an excellent script to work from and Lumet also gets a career-defining performance from Lee J. Cobb. Cobb is the one stubborn juror who refuses to lose his grapple on the case as he realizes his anger has more to do with his own life. While also, having the legend Henry Fonda be the juror's moral compass.