"Network...is, as its ads proclaim, outrageous. It's also brilliantly, cruelly funny, a topical American comedy that confirms Paddy Chayefsky's position as a major new American satirist." - Vincent Canby, The New York Times

"Network will shake you up. Paddy Chayefsky's absurdly plausible and outrageously provocative original script concerns media running amok... a potent commercial blend of artful tirade, visual excitement and sociological horror." - Variety

"The venality of television is the central concern of the film, but Chayefsky was never one to concentrate on one target if he can leave his barbs in half a dozen others besides. Thus religion, politics, the corporate society, the whole quality of twentieth century life (or lack of it) are railed against by Chayefsky's lacerating prose." - David Castell, Films Illustrated

"Chayefsky [writes] directly to the audience - he soap-boxes. He hardly bothers with the characters; the movie is a ventriloquial harangue." - Pauline Kael, The New Yorker

"...a fantasy burlesque that might be considered an interesting, amusing divertissement, but nothing more." - Walter Cronkite

"The movie caused a sensation in 1976... Seen a quarter-century later, it is like prophecy. When Chayefsky created Howard Beale, could he have imagined Jerry Springer, Howard Stern and the World Wrestling Federation? ... In Network, which is rarely thought of as a "director's picture," it is [Sidney Lumet's] unobtrusive skill that allows all those different notes and energy levels to exist within the same film. In other hands, the film might have whirled to pieces. In his, it became a touchstone." - Roger Ebert (2000)

"Two decades later, this iconic American New Wave renegade text is even more startling than it once was--was Hollywood ever this cerebral, this caustic, this ethically apocalyptic? That 90 percent of [its] satire has become fulfilled prophecy by now doesn't take the shine off of its broadsword. It feels in the watching like a hilarious organic nightmare, but Network is very much a carefully crafted object, its structure brilliantly hidden, its sardonic flourishes made with a wide variety of weapons, its absurdities riding coach with hardcore realism." -- Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice (2006)

Awards and Honors - NETWORK

Academy Awards: Peter Finch (Best Actor), Faye Dunaway (Best Actress), Beatrice Straight (Best Supporting Actress), Paddy Chayefsky (Best Original Screenplay)
Other Academy Award nominations: Best Picture, Sidney Lumet (Best Director), William Holden (Best Actor), Ned Beatty (Best Supporting Actor), Owen Roizman (Best Cinematography), Alan Heim (Best Film Editing)

Golden Globes: Peter Finch (Best Actor), Faye Dunaway (Best Actress), Sidney Lumet (Best Director), Paddy Chayefsky (Best Screenplay)
Other Golden Globe nomination: Best Motion Picture - Drama

British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award: Peter Finch (Best Actor)
Other BAFTA nominations: Best Film, Sidney Lumet (Best Director), William Holden (Best Actor), Faye Dunaway (Best Actress), Robert Duvall (Best Supporting Actor), Paddy Chayefsky (Best Screenplay), Alan Heim (Best Editing), Best Sound

Compiled by Roger Fristoe