Genre: Drama Director(s): Sidney Lumet Release Date: 01 January 1976 Movie rating: 8.1

“Network” is a 1971 satire directed by Sidney Lumet, ridiculing the then-state of television and its tendency to put ratings above everything else. Howard Beale is a veteran news anchor on the fictional UBS network. After the news division president Max Schumacher (William Holden) informs him that he will be taken off the air in two weeks due to bad ratings, Beale announces on the air that he will commit suicide on live TV the following Tuesday. He is promptly fired, but Schumacher, his old friend, convinces the bosses to let him come back so he could have a dignified farewell. Back on the air, Beale refuses to fall in line and throws another tantrum. Surprisingly, his ratings spike and the bosses choose to leave him on air. Beale becomes popular as a sort of a deranged angry preacher and gets his own show with live studio audience. At the same time, Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), the UBS’ head of programming, strikes a deal with a fictional terrorist organization in order to create a new hit show called the “Mao Tse Tung Hour”. With Beale proving himself to be more and more unruly, the heads of the network plot to have him removed by any means necessary.

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