Directed by Sidney Lumet • 1975 • United States
Starring Al Pacino, John Cazale, Charles Durning
On a sweltering August day, novice criminals Sonny (Al Pacino) and Sal (John Cazale) attempt to rob a Brooklyn bank in order to pay for Sonny’s lover’s gender confirmation surgery—a situation that quickly spirals into a tense police standoff and a three-ring media circus. Sidney Lumet’s New York City classic contains what may be the definitive Pacino performance—totally wired, thrillingly unpredictable—and flavorful footage of summer-in-the-city ’70s Brooklyn: you can practically feel the heat rising from the rubble.
Up Next in Fun City: NYC Woos Hollywood, Flirts with Disaster
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You’re a Big Boy Now
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola • 1966 • United States
Starring Elizabeth Hartman, Geraldine Page, Peter KastnerFrancis Ford Coppola’s oft-overlooked second feature is a zanily offbeat entry in the 1960s sex-comedy canon. Bernard Chanticleer (Peter Kastner), a naive nineteen-year-old virgin li...
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Across 110th Street
Directed by Barry Shear • 1972 • United States
Starring Anthony Quinn, Yaphet Kotto, Anthony FranciosaEvocatively shot on location in 1970s Harlem, this gut-punching crime drama combines film noir and blaxploitation tropes into an explosive portrait of simmering social and racial tensions. Yaph...
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Little Murders
Directed by Alan Arkin • 1971 • United States
Starring Elliott Gould, Marcia Rodd, Vincent GardeniaThe black-comic stage play by writer and Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist Jules Feiffer provides the basis for Alan Arkin’s directorial debut, a surreal satire of urban alienation and the sensele...
