My 150 Favorite Movies - #112

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)


In arguably one of the finest performances on film to not win an Oscar (unfortunately he was up against Jack Nicholson that year in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), Al Pacino plays a would-be bank robber looking to get money for his lover's sex-change operation. The situation devolves quickly into a hostage crisis. Sidney Lumet directed this quintessentially New York film.