In the 76-year history of the New York Film Critics, only two moviemakers have been honored with life

achievement awards: Jean-Luc Godard and Sidney Lumet. The French director is of course the prickly

master of movie modernism, but Lumet was something Gotham critics could appreciate: the primary

apostle of streetwise cinema, the torch-bearer of ground-glass realism and, for a half-century, the

ultimate chronicler of New York City in all its agita and chutzpah.