Al Pacino, Dog Day Afternoon
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Board of Governors has chosen director-screenwriter Sidney Lumet, 80, as the next recipient of the Honorary Oscar. The award, in honor of Lumet's "brilliant services to screenwriters, performers and the art of the motion picture," will be presented at the 2005 Academy Awards ceremony on February 27.
Lumet, who made his feature-film début in 1957, has been nominated four times for the Best Director Academy Award: 12 Angry Men (1957), with Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb; Dog Day Afternoon (1975), starring Al Pacino; Network (1976), starring William Holden, Peter Finch, and Faye Dunaway; and The Verdict (1982), with Paul Newman, Charlotte Rampling, and James Mason. All four films also received Best Picture nominations.
Additionally, Lumet and co-screenwriter Jay Presson Allen (Cabaret) were nominated in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for Prince of the City (1981), a cop drama starring Treat Williams.
Among Lumet's other movies are Long Day's Journey into Night (1962), which earned Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Dean Stockwell, and Jason Robards acting awards at the Cannes Film Festival; the excellent doomsday thriller Fail-Safe (1964), with Henry Fonda; the independently made psychological drama The Pawnbroker (1965), with Rod Steiger; and The Group (1966), an adaptation of Mary McCarthy's novel, featuring Candice Bergen, Joan Hackett, Shirley Knight, Jessica Walter, and Elizabeth Hartman, among others.
Also, the unsuccessful The Appointment (1969), with Omar Sharif and Anouk Aimée; the well-received docudrama Serpico (1973), about police corruption, starring Al Pacino; the blockbuster Murder on the Orient Express (1974), with Albert Finney and an all-star cast that included Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Jacqueline Bisset, Michael York, and Richard Widmark; and the film version of the stage hit Equus (1977), with Richard Burton and Peter Firth.
Plus the musical The Wiz (1978), a box-office bomb starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson (above, with Nipsey Russell and Ted Ross); the comedy-thriller Deathtrap (1982) with Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve; the comedy Garbo Talks (1984) with Anne Bancroft; the thriller The Morning After (1986) with Jane Fonda and Jeff Bridges; the political drama Running on Empty (1988) with Christine Lahti and River Phoenix; and the crime drama Guilty as Sin (1993) with Rebecca De Mornay and Don Johnson.
Lumet's Find Me Guilty, with Vin Diesel, is currently in post-production.
Thus far, 18 performances in Lumet's films have gone on to receive Academy Award nominations, including four Oscar wins: the nominees were the aforementioned Katharine Hepburn, Rod Steiger, Al Pacino (for both Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon), Albert Finney, Richard Burton, Peter Firth, William Holden, Paul Newman, James Mason, Jane Fonda, and River Phoenix, plus Ned Beatty (Network) and Chris Sarandon (Dog Day Afternoon).
Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, and Beatrice Straight (as Best Supporting Actress) won Oscars for Network. Ingrid Bergman was the 1974 Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner for Murder on the Orient Express.