Sidney Lumet dead!

Sidney Lumet has died at the age of 86.

The award-winning director of such acclaimed films as Network, Serpico,Dog Day Afternoon, and 12 Angry Men passed early Saturday morning at his Manhattan home, it was confirmed. He had suffered from lymphoma.

Lumet a Philadelphia native moved to New York City as a child, and it became the location of choice for more than 30 of his films. Although he freely admitted to a lifelong love affair with the city, he often showed its grittier side.

“It’s not an anti-LA thing,” Lumet said of his New York favoritism in a 1997 interview. “I just don’t like to live in a company town.”

Lumet immediately established himself as an A-list director with his first theatrical film, 1957’s 12 Angry Men, which took an early and powerful look at racial prejudice as it depicted 12 jurors trying to reach a verdict in a trial involving a young Hispanic man wrongly accused of murder.

It garnered him his first Academy Award nomination.

Other Oscar nominations were for Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Network (1976), andThe Verdict (1982).