1. Network
However, no film in the history of cinema compares to Sidney Lumet's
Network on the subject of televised presentation. Oscar-nominated for 10 statues and winner of four,
Network may have the greatest vocal screenplay in the all of movie lore. Paddy Chayefsky's biting satire of a script is altogether powerful, haunting, and perversely cutting and provides for some of the greatest performances ever collected on screen. From Howard Beale's (Peter Finch) infamous "Mad as Hell" rant to one of the finest, strongest female characters produced in Faye Dunaway (both took home Oscars for their performances),
Network is a smorgasbord of theatrics and drama helmed by the great Lumet at his finest. The director allows all of his actors the breathing room they deserve, often times just planting the camera and letting them fly. And, truly, it makes for some wonderful moments. Need a taste of the power? http://youtu.be/zI5hrcwU7Dk
You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you... will... atone! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. 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. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state? Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.
Well. Wow.