Network
When ratings plummet and newsreader Howard Beale is fired, he declares on air that he will shoot himself on camera in a week's time. As he appears to be serious, the figures skyrocket. The TV producers are now faced with a dilemma, as they have to assume that their "ratings star" of all people will be dead in a few days ... Sidney Lumet's excellent media satire has lost none of its explosiveness to this day and is rightly one of the best 100 US films of all time. NETWORK was another big Oscar winner for United Artists and Eric Pleskow in the same year as . Four statuettes were awarded, one of which went posthumously to lead actor Peter Finch, who died two weeks before the ceremony.