Lumet on set with Al Pacino, filming Dog Day Afternoon

Sydney Lumet’s favorite films (as revealed in “Halliwell’s Top 1000”) are mostly good old classics:

1. The Best Years of Our Lives (Wyler, 1946) 2. Fanny and Alexander (Bergman, 1982) 3. The Godfather (Coppola, 1972) 4. The Grapes of Wrath (Ford, 1940) 5. Intolerance (Griffith, 1916) 6. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928) 7. Ran (Kurosawa, 1985) 8. Roma (Fellini, 1972) 9. Singin’ in the Rain (Kelly, Donen, 1952) 10. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)

The list was published in 2005, but even then half of the films were more than 50 years old while the newest one - The Godfather - is not actually new, being made in 1972. Did Lumet feel that new films are not so much interesting? Probably not, as in an interesting interview with Logan Hill in 2007, he says:

I think it’s a great time right now for New York film, actually.

Asked to mention some names, Lumet’s answer was sly:

Oh, I can’t say names. Somebody would get bent out of shape.