In this fascinating police thriller, Al Pacino gives an outstanding, Oscar-nominated performance as real-life cop Frank Serpico, who helped expose corruption in the New York Police Department in the early 1970s. Director Sidney Lumet shows in absorbing detail how hush-money and bribes were a way of life for Serpico's colleagues and how the idealistic young officer refused to toe the line. After years of watching partners take backhanders from criminals, Serpico eventually agreed to testify against a fellow officer and became a marked man. Even though Lumet revisited similar territory - memorably in the fine drama Prince of the City - he never found a better purveyor of idealism than Pacino.

New York cop Frank Serpico blows the whistle on the rampant corruption in the force only to have his comrades turn against him.