Sidney Lumet
1) The verdict
Description
Packed with compelling special features including on-camera interviews with Oscar winner Paul Newman and director Sidney Lumet and is the perfect way to experience a courtroom film. Frank Galvin (Newman) is a boozy washed-up attorney with a long losing streak. So when he's handed a lucrative out-of-court settlement, everyone expects him to take the money and run. But Frank is tired of running.
2) Network
Description
"When Howard Beale, the dean of newscasters at the United Broadcasting System, is forced to retire, network executive Max Schumacher, Howard's best friend, must deliver the bad news. Beale can't stomach the idea of losing his 25-year post as anchorman simply because of age, so in his next broadcast he announces to the viewers that he's going to commit suicide on his final program." --distributor's website
3) Serpico
Series
Description
Adaptation of a true story where a young New York police officer refuses to extort money from criminals as the other officers do. His fellow police officers turn against him when he seeks to expose the situation during a grand jury investigation.
5) Fail-safe
Description
A computer malfunction causes nuclear-equipped American bombers to destroy Moscow, and the president of the United States has to take terrible measures to appease the Soviets and prevent all-out nuclear war.
6) 12 angry men
Series
Formats
Description
Life is in their hands…death is on their minds. Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley and Jack Klugman lead the distinctive cast in this powerful, classic film. Eleven jurors are convinced that the defendant is guilty of murder. The twelfth has no doubt of his innocence. How can this one man steer the others toward the same conclusion? It's a case of seemingly overwhelming evidence against a teenager accused of killing his father in "one of the best...
7) Q & A
Description
Assistant D.A. Reilly (Hutton) is assigned to investigate an incident in which veteran street cop Lt. Brennan (Nolte) killed a Puerto Rican drug dealer.
Description
"On a hot Brooklyn afternoon, two optimistic nobidies set out to rob a bank. Sonny (Al Pacino) is the mastermind, Sal (John Cazale) is the follower and disaster is the result. Because the cops, crowds, TV cameras and even the pizza man have arrived."--Container..
The story of a botched bank robbery that occurred August 22, 1972 in Brooklyn, New York and turned into a bizarre hostage situation lasting all day. The lead robber wishes to obtain funding...
9) The Wiz
Description
A discontented kindergarten teacher living in Harlem is lost in a blizzard and comes upon the wonderland of Oz. There she meets new friends, tries to find her way home, and finds that her life is not so bad after all.
Series
Description
Crooked house: In Agatha Christie's most twisted tale, a spy-turned-private-detective is lured by his former lover to catch her grandfather's murderer before Scotland Yard exposes dark family secrets.
Murder on the Orient Express: In 1935, when his train is stopped by deep snow, detective Hercule Poirot is called on to solve a murder that occurred in his car the night before.
Death on the Nile: Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot's Egyptian vacation aboard...
11) The pawnbroker
Description
Sol Nazerman is a WWII Nazi deathcamp survivor. Now, he runs a pawnshop and takes refuge in misery and a bitter condemnation of humanity.
Series
Description
Goodfellas: Details the rise and fall of Henry Hill, a Brooklyn kid who grows up idolizing the "wise guys" from his neighborhood. He begins hanging around the mobsters and doing odd jobs until he gains the notice of local chieftain Paulie Cicero. In his teens, Hill distinguishes himself as a "stand-up guy" by choosing jail time over ratting on his accomplices. From that moment on, he is a part of the family. Along with his partner Tommy, he rises...
Description
A stock broker, who is having financial troubles and in need of extra cash, and his younger brother conspire to pull off the perfect, victimless crime. No guns, no violence, no problem. The only problem is that the owners of the jewelry store are their own parents. But when an accomplice ignores the rules and crosses the line, his actions trigger a series of events in which no one is left unscathed.
14) 12 angry men
Series
Criterion collection volume 591
Description
A jury of white men is ready to pass judgment on a Puerto Rican teenager charged with murdering his father. However, one juror forces the others to consider whether the evidence--or the jurors' own prejudices--influences their deliberations. The story plays out in real time over ninety minutes in one sweltering room.
Description
New York cop Daniel Ciello (inspired by real-life undercover narcotics cop Robert Leuci) is involved in some questionable police practices. He is approached by Internal Affairs and in exchange for him potentially being let off the hook, he is instructed to begin to expose the inner workings of police corruption.
16) Power
Description
This film depicts the political candidates' tactics as they try to get elected and the media consultants hired to sell them to the public.
Series
Criterion collection volume 515
Description
A smoldering, snakeskin-jacketed Val Xavier is a guitar-strumming drifter trying to go straight. He finds work and solace in a Southern small-town variety store run by Lady Torrance, who's lonely, sexually frustrated, and abused by her vile, deathly ill husband, and who proves as much a temptation for Val as local wild child Carol, who tries to seduce him.
Series
Description
Hercule Poirot is a dapper detective, aboard the Orient Express, for whom murder-solving is a precise, intellectual exercise. When murder occurs, Poirot agrees to interview all aboard the famous trains Calais coach, hoping to find the killer of an American millionarie before the local police arrive.