Sidney Lumet

It was also voted one of the year's "Ten Best Films" by The New York Times.

Film critic Owen Gleiberman has observed that Lumet was a "hardboiled straight shooter," who, because he was trained during the golden Age of television in the 1950s, became noted for his energetic style of directing. The words "Sidney Lumet" and "energy," he adds, became synonymous: "The energy was there in the quietest moments. It was an inner energy, a hum of existence that Lumet observed in people and brought out in them... he went into the New York streets... he made them electric:

Lumet generally insisted on the collaborative nature of film, sometimes ridiculing the dominance of the "personal" director, writes film historian Frank P. Cunningham. As a result, Lumet became renowned among both actors and cinematographers "for his flexibility in the sharing of creative ideas with the writer, actor, and other artists." According to Cunningham, Lumet "has no equal in the distinguished direction of superior actors," many coming from the theater. He was thereby able to draw "remarkable performances" from acting luminaries such as Ralph Richardson, Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, Katharine Hepburn, James Mason, Sophia Loren, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Blythe Danner, Rod Steiger, Vanessa Redgrave, Paul Newman, Sean Connery, Henry Fonda, Dustin Hoffman, Albert Finney, Simone Signoret, and Anne Bancroft. "Give him a good actor, and he just might find the great actor lurking within", wrote film critic Mick LaSalle. Read Less

Is being streetwise really such a difference between us and Hollywood?" Lumet replied: "In L.A., there's no streets! No sense of a neighborhood! They talk about us not knowing who lives in the same apartment complex as us – bullshit! I know who lives in my building. In L.A., how much can you really find out about anybody else? Really, it's just about human contact. It seems to me that our greatest problems today are coming out of the increasing isolation of people, everywhere."

Like those of other Jewish directors from New York, such as Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, and Paul Mazursky, Lumet's characters often spoke overtly about controversial issues of the times. They felt unconstrained as filmmakers and their art became "filtered through their Jewish consciousness," notes film historian David Desser. Lumet, like the others, sometimes turned to Jewish themes in order to develop ethnic sensibilities that were characteristic of contemporary American culture, by dynamically highlighting its "unique tensions and cultural diversity." This was partly reflected in Lumet's preoccupation with city life. His film A Stranger Among Us, for example, is the story of a woman undercover police officer and her experiences in a Hasidic community within New York City. Read Less