As driven, aggressive and purposeful as any of his film protagonists, Lumet directed 43 feature films from

his 1957 debut, 12 Angry Men, to the 2007 Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. Nominated four times

for the Best Director Oscar, and receiving an honorary Academy Award in 2005, Lumet finally ran out of stories, clout and (the last to go) boundless creative energy. He died April 9, at 86, of lymphoma at his

Manhattan home.