Rating: 
Summary: Greatest film of all time!
Review: I have seen the film only twice but each time Finch does his speech I still get shivers.The Movie network was on AFI's top 100 list but it should have been number one.The acting,directing,writing and story telling is amazing.If you could only see one film for the rest of your life this would be the film,take my word for it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent movie, I have changed my way of viewing the media
Review: I needed to see this movie for a college English class as a writting assignment from my professor. I did't know that it would move me the way it did. I would like to know if it is a true story. Great great movie.
Rating:
Summary: Masterful sattire & black comedy has something to say
Review: Paddy Chayefsky's outstanding screenplay and scathing comedy about television gone horribly wrong says something about the power of the media and about what people really want to watch. Fiction in 1976 is reality today! Oh yeah, the DVD is above average with very good transfer, a theatrical trailer, and a quiz covering quotes said in the film. A must-see.
Rating:
Summary: A KNOCKOUT HIT!
Review: PERSONALLY, I CANNOT SEE HOW ANYONE CAN NOT ENJOY THIS FILM! IT IS SO UNIVERSAL AND REMINDS US OF THE OCCASIONAL BLACKNESS AND WILD DESIRE FOR SOMETHING IN OUR HEARTS. THIS IS AN OUTSTANDING TAKE ON WHAT GOES ON BEHIND THE SCENES IN MEDIA. THIS MOVIE SEEMED TO BE WINNING ALMOST ALL THE OSCARS AT THE 1976 ACADEMY AWARDS, AND UNEXPECTEDLY LOST TO "ROCKY" FOR BEST PICTURE! OH WELL, AT LEAST THEY DIDN'T GIVE THE BEST ACTOR OSCAR TO THAT SHOW-OFF STALLONE, BUT INSTEAD TO PETER FINCHS' MUCH DESERVED PERFORMANCE AS ANCHORMAN HOWARD BEALE!
Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Movie
Review: Has anyone ever asked you what your favorite movie is? Probably someone has at a party or someplace. Watch Network and you'll have an easy answer to that question. The script is brilliant and so is the acting. This movie should change the way you look at television because it will change what you think about television. After watching "Network" read Gerry Mander's "Four Arguements for the Elimination of Television" and you will be armed with the knowledge to watch the box critically. Have at it!
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written and superbly acted drama of TV insanity
Review: Lets see a tale of media run amok all in the name of ratings and money. Sound like a "60 Minutes" piece? Well its not. It is incredibly articulate and scathing movie from 1976 which portends the coming age of media craziness in search of ratings. Paddy Chayevsky's screen play literally foretold the future of television and should be viewed in the same light as Kubricks prediction of the societal changes in his 60's movie "A Clockwork Orange". The acting by everyone in this movie is memorable. So much so that Beatrice Straight and Ned Beatty both garnered Oscar nominations although they appeared in but one scene. And lets not forget the other nominees from the movie - Faye Dunaway and William Holden. Top this off with the Oscar winning performance of Peter Finch as the insane (or is that messiah-like?) anchor man. Finch spouts one of the signature lines of the 70's when he whips up his audience with the cry of "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" The bottom line is that the powerful acting was fueled by an emotionally charged script that produced one of the best movies of the 70's. I highly recommend this movie not only for its entertainment value but because this movie was ahead of its time and has more relevance and meaning today then it did at the time of its release.
Rating:
Summary: SPECIAL EDITION! Give us a SPECIAL EDITION!
Review: On the 25th anniversary year of NETWORK a couple years ago, there were several news article looking back at the film and how its impact on movies/media seemed almost "prophetic": the degrading mess of news turning into entertainment, the fourth network, etc.NETWORK is still a powerful film and its many messages are still relevant today--perhaps more so.
I've always been a big Paddy Chayefsky fan and I consider NETWORK to be his masterpiece. He's still the only screenwriter to win three Oscars (the other two were MARTY and THE HOSPITAL). You feel that the folks behind this movie really knew what they were talking about.
The cast is brilliant: Peter Finch deserved his posthumous Oscar and Faye Dunaway was a cross between Mary Richards from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and Satan. William Holden, who originally wanted Finch's demented newsman role, brings all his world-weary cynicism that started in SUNSET BOULEVARD with him. And Robert Duvall has a few hilarious moments as, at first, the cool button-down "hatchet man" and then turning into a raving ratings monster when the Nielsens come in. Outstanding. I would hope that someday we'll get the Special Edition DVD release that NETWORK deserves. Interviews, commentaries, whatever they've got.
We're waiting!
Rating:
Summary: The reason why I'm in the Broadcasting business!
Review: You want to see some great acting! I'm mean do you really want to see some great acting? This all star cast is a testament to the movie's greatness. William Holden, Faye Dunnaway, Robert Duvall, Ned Beatty are all outstanding. But it's Peter Finch who died just before the Academy Awards and recieved a postumous Oscar for the mad prophet himself, Howard Beale. A man who single handedly brings a Broadcasting Network from worst to first. The actions of the executives in this movie are no different then what they do today. On my top 5 list of the greatest movies ever!
Rating:
Summary: We're mad as hell!
Review: 'Network' should be seen together with 'EdTv' and 'The Truman Show'. They all show the effect of television on people and also what goes on behind the scenes, the eternal fight for higher ratings, no matter what it is about. Faye Dunaway wants to try everything to get higher ratings, she is so obsessed that even life has become a scenario to her, she almost has no ties to 'normal' life anymore, everything has become a spectacle. When a newsbroadcaster tells his audience he is going to kill himself on tv in two weeks hell breaks loose. No one cares about human life, it's all about ratings. They would go as far as they can possibly go...
Rating:
Summary: Clairvoyant commentary
Review: Perhaps this is more of an editorial comment than a review. I wonder if those viewers under 30 who watch Network will grasp the delicious irony of this film. A generation that has grown up on "Survivor", "Fear factor" and "American Idol" may not see anything unusual about "Sybil the Sooth-Sayer" as "news". (In fact, those of us who have watched the unfortunate evolution of "news programming" over the past 15 years might not see anything unusual about it either).
And that is why this movie is so depressing. If television, and news programming in particular, ever had any integrity, and had that integrity not slipped away, we could watch Network today and say "what a fabulous movie - what a dark comedy". But alas, we can now only say the former, because this movie has proven to be more than prophetic.
For an actual plot synopsis, read any of the other (many excellent) reviews here. The acting is superb as is the direction. Yes, we have some "wordy speeches" in the dialogue, but for some reason people seem more "touchy" about that with Network than other movies, and I'm not sure why.
William Holden is a fabulous actor, and this may be, from a "realism" perspective, his best. His haggard and worn out features only magnify his unique(in this case) "human-ness" - his is the only character that television does not somehow destroy (besides his wife). Ned Beatty, Robert Duvall and Fay Dunaway, Peter Finch and Beatrice Straight all give stellar performances as well.
Maybe the saddest thing of all is that the most infamous line from the movie, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore", did not turn out to be prophetic. And because of that, television has sunk to a low that perhaps even Chayefsky and Lumet could not have imagined.
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