Sidney Lumet dead at 86 New York  ? AFP Sidney Lumet, who directed classic American Oscar-winning films "Dog Day Afternoon" and "Network" in a career spanning half a century, died Saturday at age 86, The New York Times reported.
Stepdaughter Leslie Gimbel said Lumet died of the cancer lymphoma, the Times reported.
Lumet was seen as one of the most significant directors in American cinema, making dozens of movies with some of Hollywood's biggest icons, and while nominated five times for an Academy Award, he never personally won when nominated.
He burst onto the scene in 1957 with "12 Angry Men," the courtroom drama starring Henry Fonda as a juror who slowly convinces his peers that the person on trial for murder is innocent.
It was his first feature, and earned him an Oscar nod for directing at the age of 33.
Lumet appreciated the courtroom as fertile ground for moviemaking, notably returning to it in 1982's acclaimed "The Verdict," starring Paul Newman, for which Lumet received his final Oscar nomination.
He turned his lens on the gritty streets of his beloved New York for many of his movies, notably in "Serpico" and "Dog Day Afternoon," two 1970s gems starring Al Pacino which became classics of the crime drama genre.
The city seemed close to a living, breathing character in itself in several of his films, including "The Pawnbroker" (1964), in which an emotionally blunted Holocaust survivor roams the streets, "Prince of the City" (1981) and "Night Falls on Manhattan (1997).
"Locations are characters in my movies," he wrote, according to the Times. "The city is capable of portraying the mood a scene requires."
Lumet was fortunate to work with some of the silver screen's brightest stars, including Marlon Brando in "The Fugitive Kind" (1960) and Katherine Hepburn in "Long Day's Journey Into Night" (1962).
But he may be best remembered for "Network" (1976), the poignant drama about American media depicting a frustrated television anchor, played by Peter Finch, who struggles to resuscitate a flagging career and eventually goes mad on the air after being sacked.
It spawned what the American Film Institute listed as the 19th greatest movie line of all time: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
The film was nominated for 10 Oscars, and won four, including best actor (Peter Finch), best actress (Faye Dunaway) and best screenplay (Paddy Chayefsky), but not for best director.
Ultimately, Lumet was presented with an honorary Academy Award, in 2005.
"If you prayed to inhabit a character, Sidney was the priest who listened to your prayers and helped them come true," Pacino said when he handed the statuette to Lumet.
It was presented in recognition of what the Academy dubbed Lumet's "brilliant services to screenwriters, performers and the art of the motion picture."
"I've got the best job in the best profession in the world," Lumet said upon accepting the award, thanking those "who've paid more dues than I have."
Frank Pierson, at the time the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which organises the Oscars, described Lumet as "one of the most important film directors in the history of American cinema."
"His work has left an indelible mark on both audiences and the history of film itself," Pierson said.
Lumet was born in Philadelphia in 1924 to an actor father and a dancer mother and made his stage acting debut at New York's Yiddish Art Theater at the age of four, before turning to television directing in the 1950s.
Lumet's more than 40 films also include "Running on Empty" (1988), the "Wizard of Oz" remake "The Wiz" (1978), with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, "Murder on the Orient Express" (1974).