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Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9780790744803
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 0790744805
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: May 16, 2000
Running Time: 121 minutes
Sales Rank: 19987
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1976
Editorial Review:
Amazon.com essential video:
Media madness reigns supreme in screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky's scathing satire about the uses and abuses of network television. But while Chayefsky's and director Sidney Lumet's take on television may seem quaint in the age of 'reality TV' and Jerry Springer's talk-show fisticuffs, it's every bit as potent now as it was when the film was released in 1976. And because Chayefsky was one of the greatest of all dramatists, his Oscar-winning script about the ratings frenzy at the cost of cultural integrity is a showcase for powerhouse acting by Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight (who each won Oscars), and Oscar nominee William Holden in one of his finest roles. Finch plays a veteran network anchorman who's been fired because of low ratings. His character's response is to announce he'll kill himself on live television two weeks hence. What follows, along with skyrocketing ratings, is the anchorman's descent into insanity, during which he fervently rages against the medium that made him a celebrity. Dunaway plays the frigid, ratings-obsessed producer who pursues success with cold-blooded zeal; Holden is the married executive who tries to thaw her out during his own seething midlife crisis. Through it all, Chayefsky (via Finch) urges the viewer to repeat the now-famous mantra 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!' to reclaim our humanity from the medium that threatens to steal it away. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Great movie
I got this DVD for my son and he loved it so much that he suggested that I watch it also. I did and it was really good and so true for today's struggling economy and papparazzi even though it was supposed to have taken place in the 70s. I agree with other reviewers and think that it should be re-released at the theaters.
Rating: - Still Pertains to this Day!
Awesome picture which rings true to this very day! The message this movie sends is a relevant reflection of our Ameriacn society even unto the present.
Rating:  - Great satire
Film director Sidney Lumet is, with the possible exception of Robert Wise, the most underrated director in Hollywood history. When one looks at the list of great films in Lumet's career: 12 Angry Men, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Fail-Safe, Serpico, Murder On The Orient Express, Dog Day Afternoon, and a handful of others, one marvels, not only at what he accomplished, but that he's spent a quarter-century having churned out nothing but mediocrity since 1982's The Verdict. Yet, of all the films ... Read More
Rating: - Why this film is still relevant today
It must have been at least 20 years since this film was made and it is amazing that it is still relevant today. Director Sidney Lumet has lined up fantastic cast and found even better screenwriter that has made this movie to be one of the everlasting classics of the American cinema. Throughout the film we observe characters from the network television pushing their way around network for their personal gain. The rule of the game is "ratings" and those better be good or heads will roll. And if ... Read More
Rating: - Virtual reality and corporate cosmology
I saw "Network" when it was released in 1977. I'd just graduated from college and was still pretty wet behind the ears. Now, with thirty years' worth of experience in the world, I've watched the film again, and am stunned by how prescient it is. Screenplay author Paddy Chayefsky nailed it on both counts when he suggested that the world of television addicts us to artifice, and that money, not nationhood, is the new basic international unit. Incredible that he could've predicted all this a full ... Read More
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