Network (1976)
Average Rating: 8.2/10
Reviews Counted: 50
Fresh: 45 | Rotten: 5
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 7/10
Critic Reviews: 9
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 3
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 4.2/5
User Ratings: 33,551
My Rating
Movie Info
A trenchant satire of "trash TV," Network seems to grow only more relevant with each passing year. Howard Beale (Peter Finch), the dean of newscasters at the United Broadcasting System, is put out to pasture because he "skews old." Network executive Max Schumacher (William Holden), Howard's best friend, is forced to 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
Nov 27, 1976 Wide
May 16, 2000
MGM/United Artists
Watch It Now
Cast
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Faye Dunaway
Diana Christensen -
William Holden
Max Schumacher -
Peter Finch
Howard Beale -
Robert Duvall
Frank Hackett -
Wesley Addy
Nelson Chaney -
Ned Beatty
Arthur Jensen -
Beatrice Straight
Louise Schumacher -
Arthur Burghardt
Great Ahmed Kahn -
Bill Burrows
TV Director -
Kathy Cronkite
Mary Ann Gifford -
Darryl Hickman
Bill Herron -
Roy Poole
Sam Haywood -
William Prince
Edward George Ruddy -
Marlene Warfield
Laureen Hobbs -
Lee Richardson
Narrator -
Jordan Charney
Harry Hunter -
Ed Crowley
Joe Donnelly -
Jerome Dempsey
Walter C. Amundsen -
Todd Everett
Reporter (uncredited) -
Conchata Ferrell
Barbara Schlesinger -
Gene Gross
Milton K. Steinman -
Stanley Grover
Jack Snowden -
Lance Henriksen
Lawyer (uncredited) -
Mitchell Jason
Arthur Zangwill -
Paul Jenkins
TV Stage Manager -
Ken Kercheval
Merrill Grant -
Ken Kimmins
Associate Producer -
Michael Lombard
Willie Stein -
Lane Smith
Robert McDonough -
Fred Stuthman
Mosaic Figure -
Michael Lipton
Tommy Pellegrino -
Russ Petranto
TV Associate Director -
Bernie Pollack
Lou -
Lynn Klugman
TV Production Assistant -
Pirie MacDonald
Herb Thackeray -
Sasha von Scherler
Helen Miggs -
Theodore Sorel
Giannini -
John Carpenter
George Bosch -
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Network Trailer & Photos
All Critics (50) | Top Critics (9) | Fresh (49) | Rotten (5) | DVD (24)
The plot that Paddy Chayefsky has concocted to prove this point is so crazily preposterous that even in post-Watergate America -- where we know that bats can get loose in the corridors of power -- it is just impossible to accept.
The film's never been more timely.
Chayefsky was apparently serious about much of this shrill, self-important 1976 satire about television, interlaced with bile about radicals and pushy career women, and so were some critics at the time.
Slick, 'adult', self-congratulatory, and almost entirely hollow.
Top CriticNetwork can be faulted both for going too far and not far enough, but it's also something that very few commercial films are these days. It's alive.
This is a bawdy, stops-out, no-holds-barred story of a TV network that will, quite literally, do anything to get an audience.
A brilliantly played, stone-cold '70s classic, whose message -- the blur between entertainment and degradation -- has more than a tang of topicality in these days of reality TV-dominated scheduling.
There is plenty wrong with television, plenty to satirize. But Network prudently misses the point, dishing up an outrageous razzle-dazzle stew that will ruffle no network feathers and delight a popular audience.
Biting '76 satire with a media literacy lesson.
Fearless, funny and frank television satire that doesn't take any prisoners. Writing, performances and direction are all bang on and Finch cooks on gas throughout.
the secret to the film's immense popularity, though, is this angry, sudden blast of "truth" -- without being specific -- as if it had never been spoken aloud before.
Writer Paddy Chayevsky's prescient 1976 satire of lies, injustice and the American way...has lost none of its sting. [Blu-ray]
Biting '76 satire with a media literacy lesson.
Finch's spouting is impressive, but we prefer Holden's sardonic edge, even if his big speeches seem the most predictably written.
A timeless satire on television as a wasteland.
For some reason, Paddy Chayefsky's Oscar-winning satire was perceived as a drama when the movie came out in 1976. Much ahead of its time, the film was a cautionary tale of the news media as infotainment (emphasis on the secon part of the concept).
So truthful, so prescient, it's painful. Paddy Chayevsky delivers one of the best screenplays ever written.
Much of Chayefsky's script seems to have been written with megaphone in hand, which is close to how director Sidney Lumet airs it out. Yet in retrospect, maybe the ravings of Finch as a deranged anchorman aren't so far from surreal madness of Jerry Spring
One would assume that a 1976 film about network television would feel dated today, but director Sidney Lumet and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky had such a fine concept that Network seems downright contemporary.
Audience Reviews for Network
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Howard Beale: I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!
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- Howard Beale: I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!
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- Max Schumacher: You're madness Diana. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you.
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- Howard Beale: I'm human being, GOD DAMNIT! My life has value!
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- Howard Beale: I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!
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- Max Schumacher: You are television incarnate, Diana.
Discussion Forum
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Foreign Titles
- Network, main basse sur la télévision (FR)


Even so it was sensation when it came out in 1976,but for the most part it is really outdated-most noticeably Howard Beal's first news set to other parts including the network strategy meetings,remain timeless. Not to mention the set that Beal graduates to featuring soothsayers and gossip columnists on revolving pedestals nicely captures the feeling of some of the news/entertainment shows of that time. Most people remember Howard Beal got fed up with the bullshit around him couldn't take it anymore,and had a meltdown while on the air. But it was not quite like that. Beal is portrayed as an alcoholic doing such a bad job that he's fired by his boss(Holden). They get drunk together and joke about him committing suicide on the air(during one the episodes of The Howard Beal Show). The next day, in a farewell broadcast,Beal announces that he will indeed kill himself because of falling ratings. He's yanked from the air but begs a chance to say farewell. Lumet and Chayefsky pull out all the stops here. After Beal orders his viewers to "repeat after me",as they cut to exterior shots of people leaning out of their windows and screaming to the top of their lungs that they're mad as hell too. This is electrifying drama when it came out in 1976. Beal's ratings skyrocket(he is fourth after The Six Million Dollar Man, All In The Family,and Phyllis)and a new set is constructed on which he rants and raves after his announcer literally introduces him as a "mad prophet". Counter to this is the extravagant satire is the affair between Max and Diana. Faye Dunaway's seductive performance is what gives this movie it's glow as the obsessed programming executive;her eyes sparkle and she moistens her lips when she thinks of higher ratings,and in one sequence she kisses Max while telling him how cheaply she can buy James Bond re-runs. Later in bed,discussing ratings during sex,she climaxes while gasping not only about the Mao Tse-tung Hour,but bringing an idea for a lesbian daytime soap opera called "The Dykes" where she discusses the series about a female mistress who has an affair with her husband's wife. Then the idea for a prime-time show based on the exploits of a group obviously inspired by the Symbionese Liberation Army. The one hilarious scene says it all which has a Patty Hearst type character and uses an Angela Davis type as her go-between. Much more interesting is William Holden's performance that keeps the movie riveting from start to finish. Beatrice Straight's role as Max's wife was so powerful and small it won her the Best Supporting Actress Oscar as a convincing portrayal of a woman who has put up with an impossible man for so long that she feels angry and betrayed after Max cheats on her. The film is full of vivid supporting roles. Ned Beatty has a sharp-edged cameo as a television executive while Robert Duvall(who was Oscar Nominated for Best Supporting Actor) plays an executive who is involved in the goings on in front and behind the scenes while Wesley Addy is the handsome gray-haired executive in the network's display window during behind the scenes and during one of the stockholder meetings. One of the insights to "Network" and as well as Chayefsky's key insights is that the bosses don't much care what you really say on television as long as you don't threaten their profits..