from United Artists
Directed by
Sidney Lumet
Starring
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)
William Prince (Edward George Ruddy)
Conchata Ferrell (Barbara Schlesinger)
Arthur Burghardt (Great Ahmed Kahn)
Bill Burrows (TV Director)
John Carpenter (George Bosch)
Jordan Charney (Harry Hunter)
Kathy Cronkite (Mary Ann Gifford)
Ed Crowley (Joe Donnelly)
Jerome Dempsey (Walter C. Amundsen)
Gene Gross (Milton K. Steinman)
Stanley Grover (Jack Snowden)
Cindy Grover (Caroline Schumacher)
Darryl Hickman (Bill Herron)
Mitchell Jason (Arthur Zangwill)
Paul Jenkins (TV Stage Manager)
Ken Kercheval (Merrill Grant)
Kenneth Kimmins (Associate Producer)
Lynn Klugman (TV Production Assistant)
Carolyn Krigbaum (Max's Secretary)
Zane Lasky (Audio Man)
Michael Lipton (Tommy Pellegrino)
Michael Lombard (Willie Stein)
Pirie MacDonald (Herb Thackeray)
Russ Petranto (TV Associate Director)
Bernard Pollock (Lou)
Roy Poole (Sam Haywood)
Sasha von Scherler (Helen Miggs)
Lane Smith (Robert McDonough)
Ted Sorel (Giannini)
Fred Stuthman (Mosaic Figure)
Cameron Thomas (TV Technical Director)
Marlene Warfield (Laureen Hobbs)
Lydia Wilen (Hunter's Secretary)
Lee Richardson (Narrator (voice))
Todd Everett (Reporter)
Lance Henriksen (Lawyer)
Written by
Paddy Chayefsky
Rated: 
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 Media madness reigns supreme in screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky's scathing satire about the uses and abuses of network television. But while Chayefsky's and director Sidney Lumet's take on television may seem quaint in the age of "reality TV" and Jerry Springer's talk-show fisticuffs, it's every bit as potent now as it was when the film was released in 1976. And because Chayefsky was one of the greatest of all dramatists, his Oscar-winning script about the ratings frenzy at the cost of cultural integrity is a showcase for powerhouse acting by Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight (who each won Oscars), and Oscar nominee William Holden in one of his finest roles. Finch plays a veteran network anchorman who's been fired because of low ratings. His character's response is to announce he'll kill himself on live television two weeks hence. What follows, along with skyrocketing ratings, is the anchorman's descent into insanity, during which he fervently rages against the medium that made him a celebrity. Dunaway plays the frigid, ratings-obsessed producer who pursues success with cold-blooded zeal; Holden is the married executive who tries to thaw her out during his own seething midlife crisis. Through it all, Chayefsky (via Finch) urges the viewer to repeat the now-famous mantra "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" to reclaim our humanity from the medium that threatens to steal it away.
1976
Academy Award®
Best Actor - Peter Finch
Best Actress - Faye Dunaway
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