By A.O. Scott

THE half-dozen great or almost-great New York movies Sidney Lumet directed from the late 1950s to the early ’80s — for the sake of argument, let’s specify “12 Angry Men” (1957), “The Pawnbroker” (1964), “Serpico” (1973), “Dog Day Afternoon” (1975), “Network” (1976) and “Prince of the City” (1981) — are hardly period pieces. But nowadays it is almost impossible not to look at them that way. These movies are such vivid time capsules of urban life and cinematic style that it can seem as if they must have been intended as such.