Sidney Lumet directs Faye Dunaway, William Holden and Peter Finch in this drama about a news anchor who announces his suicide on air and the corporate executives who try to exploit the ratings bump from his outbursts.

Easily the most literary and outwardly intelligent film in my personal Top 100 favourite movies, Network isn’t something you just pop on for a fun watch. It is scabrous, angry and complexly verbose. The dialogue is heavy. Jargon fuelled, high minded, purposely dense. By the second act pretty much every other scene is show-stopping monologue. Why shouldn’t cinema interrogate modern angst without concessions to base entertainment? Paddy Chayefsky’s script is an all timer. There isn’t a genuine moment of levity in it. The actors chew it up. Every performance is note perfect rage or domination. God, I love it. Sure, Network looks alien next to my 99 other genre picks and classy confections but fuck me that power is undiminished after nearly fifty years. Especially in the virtuoso first half which is just an hour of flawless cinematic mastery.

10

Perfect Double Bill: The China Syndrome (1979)