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September 5 is the date in 1972, when terrorists invaded the Olympic village in Munich, during the Summer event, soon after Mark Spitz has taken the Gold medal in swimming, over his German competitor.
At 4am on the day, the head of the Control Room, Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro – Past Lives), is coming on shift, alongside ABC Sports head of operations Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin – The Dig), and translator Marianne Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch – Around The World In 80 Days (2021)), with no-one expecting much to be hapening at that time. Meanwhile, ABC Sports present Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard – Presumed Innocent (2024)) has just finished his shift and doesn’t want to be interrupted at home for any reason whatsoever.
Before too long, gunshots are heard after the terrorists, suspected to be Black September, enter the Israeli quarters with Mason & co. drafting Arledge back into the office and all attempting to sort out the crew to cover this, as well as the fact they’re normally just covering sports, while this is a strong news story.
Certainly a good idea for ratings, as this was the first time a terrorist attack was broadcast live on TV, and brought them a staggering 900 million viewers. Hence, the decisions to send Marianne to the airport when events appear to be taking a positive turn and, meanwhile, over at the Olympics village, only athletes are allowed in, so they sneak in reporter Peter Jennings (Benjamin Walker) – a well-built black guy, to cover from there, knowing how dangerous it will be in both scenarios.
However, if events were to turn South, it could all backfire for them, gun-related phrasing not intended; with the demand being that 200 Palestinian prisoners be released, or one hostage will be killed every hour.
Other aspects to take into account are the more technical aspects, such as with the technology of the day restricting how much coverage ABC is able to get on the day before satellite feeds switch over to a rival.
Plus, since ABC are broadcasting this live, Mason speculates that as they’re filming terrorists having stormed the village, can they see themselves on TV?? Ooh, who saw that coming? (unless you saw the trailer, of course)
Given that I wasn’t long since born when this situation took place, I wasn’t fully au fait with it all, and if you don’t know either, I recommend staying that way before watching this, so you don’t know which way events will pan out; and know that every one of the cast is on their mettle and putting in a superb performance, particularly Magaro and Sarsgaard. I’d also added in Chaplin, but his character does tend to get sidelined for a fair while, along the way.
Additionally, while watching this, the style is such that I felt a lot of the TV footage looks like it would’ve been the original, it’s that well done… and it turned out that ABC anchor Jim McKay IS the original footage, from ABC’s Wide World of Sports. Kudos to the filmmakers for matching this up so well. I’ll definitely have to see this again in order to compare how that fits in. If I get another chance on the big screen for this, before it leaves, I will do.
However, it wasn’t very well-attended, even for a Sunday afternoon, so while it’s showing at my Odeon in week 2, whether it gets a further week is anyone’s guess. Still, kudos to the audience on the day for all being respectful of the content and not talking or using their phones.
September 5 only has an Oscar nod for Best Original Screenplay, and nothing from BAFTA. Meanwhile, I’ve not heard of anyone who’s seen the widely-tipped Emilia Pérez, The Brutalist is good, but may as well be a mini-series, and A Complete Unknown seems to have trouble finding its audience.
There was also an interesting goof spotted on IMDB:
NOTE: There are no mid- or post-credit scenes.
September 5 is in cinemas now, and is available to pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release date TBA.
September 5 – Official Trailer – Paramount Pictures
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 95 minutes
Release date: February 7th 2025
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 Redcode RAW (8K) (6K), Super 16; 1.33:1 (some scenes)
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 9/10
Director: Tim Fehlbaum
Producers: Tim Fehlbaum, Mark Nolting, John Ira Palmer, Sean Penn, Philipp Trauer, John Wildermuth, Thomas Wöbke
Screenplay: Moritz Binder, Tim Fehlbaum, Alex David
Music: Lorenz Dangel
Cast:
Roone Arledge: Peter Sarsgaard
Geoffrey Mason: John Magaro
Marvin Bader: Ben Chaplin
Marianne Gebhardt: Leonie Benesch
Jacques Lesgards: Zinedine Soualem
Gladys Deist: Georgina Rich
Peter Jennings: Benjamin Walker
Hank Hanson: Corey Johnson
Carter Jeffrey: Marcus Rutherford
Gary Slaughter: Daniel Adeosun
Hermann Jäger: Ferdinand Dörfler
Roone’s Assistant: Solomon Mousley
David Berger: Rony Herman
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.