In the third—and arguably greatest—of Lumet’s five collaborations with Sean Connery, the actor gives a revelatory performance as a burned-out British detective on a task force searching for an accused child molester. When a suspect (Ian Bannen) is brought in for questioning, the detective suddenly snaps and beats the man to a bloody pulp, igniting an inquiry supervised by an equally weary, worn-down investigator (Trevor Howard). A pet project of Connery, who insisted United Artists make the film as a condition of his return to the James Bond franchise, The Offence remains one of Lumet’s most penetrating (and least known) studies in the politics and psychology of law enforcement.