Network [4K UHD]

Studio: The Criterion Collection

Mar 03, 2026 Web Exclusive By Mollie Hawkins Photography by The Criterion Collection

There’s never been a better time to revisit Network, Sidney Lumet’s 1976 satirical dramedy about what happens when newscasters stop being polite and start getting real (violently, spectacularly real). Howard Beale (Peter Finch), a longtime news anchor informed that he’s being fired for poor ratings, suffers a mental breakdown on live television, unleashing a pedantic yet heartfelt rant against the rotting democracy he sees from behind the desk.

After Beale’s shocking news segment causes ratings to soar, Max Schumacher (William Holden) and the network decides to lean in—convinced by a career-obsessed Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) and Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall)—and keep him on the air to see where this spectacle might take them. And it takes them to the top (of course), as viewers flock to Beale’s populist tirades against Corporate America. He encourages everyone to walk away from their television sets, go to the window, and scream, ”I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

Crowned “the mad prophet of the airwaves,” Beale becomes a voice for the common people, raging against the very machine that has hired him to proselytize. The irony is the point: authenticity itself is monetized, packaged, and sold back to an audience desperate for truth.

Behind the camera, of course, the puppet masters are pulling strings of their own to get to the top of the ratings. Adultery, secret deals and infinite corporate greed are all tools Hackett and workaholic Christensen use to spin a story that takes the truth out of the news altogether. But as Hackett would say, it isn’t about the news; it’s about the ratings.

With a brilliant script by Paddy Chayefsky, Network’s staying power in the film world, and even modern news, is palpable. Beale’s mad-as-hell battle cry has become pop culture gold, and news in its various forms have been warped by money and sensationalism. Networks are sold off to the highest bidder, and as Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) says to Beale in an impassioned speech, “There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.” This speech could still find relevance in boardrooms fifty years later. (And, fun fact: Jensen’s speech was referenced brilliantly in an episode of Better Call Saul.)

The cinematography and dialogue in this film is as sensational as its plot. Darkened boardrooms lined with the emerald glow of banker’s lamps, uncomfortable settings boiling with tension and sonorous monologues that make even red-faced televangelists sound timid in comparison all create precisely the kind of mood that inspires modern viewers to walk away from their televisions, open the nearest window, and shout, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

The Criterion Collection’s 4K restoration of Network is not to be missed, with bonus features including audio commentary with director Sidney Lumet, a feature-length documentary about the screenwriter by Matthew Miele and The Making of “Network”: a six-part documentary by Laurent Bouzereau.

(www.criterion.com/films/34869-network)

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