What is "reds"

n. (plural of red English)

Reds is a 1981 American epic drama film co-written, produced and directed by Warren Beatty. The picture centers on the life and career of John Reed, the journalist and writer who chronicled the Russian Revolution in his book Ten Days That Shook the World. Beatty stars in the lead role alongside Diane Keaton as Louise Bryant and Jack Nicholson as Eugene O'Neill.

The supporting cast of the film includes Edward Herrmann, Jerzy Kosinski, Paul Sorvino, Maureen Stapleton, Gene Hackman, Ramon Bieri, Nicolas Coster and M. Emmet Walsh. The film also features, as "witnesses," interviews with the 98-year-old radical educator and peace activist Scott Nearing (1883–1983), author Dorothy Frooks (1896–1997), reporter and author George Seldes (1890–1995), civil liberties advocate Roger Baldwin (1884–1981), and the American writer Henry Miller (1891–1980), among others.

Beatty was awarded the Academy Award for Best Director and the film was nominated for Best Picture, but lost to Chariots of Fire. Beatty, Keaton, Nicholson and Stapleton were nominated for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, respectively, the last time a film was nominated in all four acting categories until Silver Linings Playbook in 2012. Stapleton was the only one of the four to win, with Beatty and Keaton losing to Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn for On Golden Pond and Nicholson to John Gielgud for Arthur. Beatty was also nominated, along with co-writer Trevor Griffiths, for Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, but lost to Chariots of Fire. Beatty became the third person to be nominated for Academy Awards in the categories Best Actor, Director and Original Screenplay for a film nominated for Best Picture. This was done previously by Orson Welles for Citizen Kane and Woody Allen for Annie Hall.

In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its " Ten Top Ten" – the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres – after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Reds was acknowledged as the ninth best film in the epic genre.

Reds may refer to:

• Reds Bassman (1913–2010), American football player
• Red (political adjective), supporters of communism or socialism
• USSR (or to a lesser extent, China) during the Cold War by many US newspapers
• Reds (film), a 1981 motion picture starring Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton
• Slang for Marlboro full flavor cigarettes
• Secobarbital, a barbiturate derivative drug
• Resident Evil: Deadly Silence, the Nintendo DS port of the PlayStation title, Resident Evil.
• The Red Arrows, the RAF's aerobatics display team.

The "Reds" (Polish: Czerwoni) were a faction of the Polish insurrectionists during the January Uprising in 1863. They were radical democratic activists who supported the outbreak of the uprising from the outset, advocated an end to serfdom in Congress and future independent Poland, without compensation to the landlords, land reform and other substantial social reforms. This contrasted them with the " White" faction, which only came to support the Uprising after it was already under way, and which, while also strongly supporting an end to serfdom wanted to compensate the landowners.

In general, the Reds represented liberal intellectuals while the Whites based their support on progressive landlords. The Reds were based in Warsaw and concentrated around the Warsaw Medical Academy, while the Whites' base of support was in Kraków. The Central National Committee (Komitet Centralny Narodowy) formed the leadership basis of the faction.