During the 1972 Summer Olympics, the ABC Sports crew presides over the coverage of the spirited and relatively uneventful Games. When Mark Spitz wins gold in the swimming event over a German competitor, president Roone Arledge dramatizes the win by cutting to his competitor's reaction and planning to introduce the subject of the Holocaust and Nazi Germany during a live interview with Spitz. When Marvin Bader, the head of operations, questions the decision, Arledge reminds him of the importance of emphasizing emotions over politics to make an effective broadcast.
During the night, gunshots are heard in the distance. The crew listens to police broadcasts, aided by Marianne, the crew's local translator, and gradually learn that it is a terrorist attack: Black September has broken into the apartment housing the Israeli team and taken the athletes hostage, demanding the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Seeing an opportunity for a compelling story, Geoffrey Mason, the head of the control room, quickly organizes the crew to pivot to cover the hostage crisis instead. Along with Arledge, he takes pragmatic steps to turn the story into a gripping sensation, negotiating more advantageous time slots and even forging identification so that a crewmember can access the now-restricted Olympic village. Though most of the crew is enthusiastic and confident that the conflict will be resolved quickly and successfully, a dismayed Bader reminds Mason and Arledge that the lives of real people are at stake and warns them of the impact they might have on the terrorists' narrative.
The crisis worsens due to failed negotiations and mistakes from an unprepared local police force. Countless news stations jockey for the latest news and glimpses of the standoff, inciting Mason to become more competitive with covering the story. At one point, the crew realizes that the terrorists are watching their program, which foils an attempted rescue. Law enforcement storms the control room and threatens the crew at gunpoint to turn off the broadcast, but Mason ultimately refuses. The terrorists are eventually transported with their hostages to the military airport of Fürstenfeldbruck, and Mason sends Marianne there for coverage, cynically including sound equipment in case a shootout takes place.
Marianne, at the airport with other news crews, reports to Mason that the hostages are rumored to be free, which is apparently confirmed by ZDF. Bader implores Mason to hold off on reporting until the information is confirmed, as the other stations will follow suit, but Mason is unwilling to lose the scoop and has the news announced, albeit with the caveat that reports are still ongoing. Bader is furious but is pacified when Mason soon receives an official facsimile claiming a confirmation from the German chancellor. As the crew celebrates and Mason pivots to planning interviews with the survivors, Bader leaves to celebrate with Arledge. As he watches a live, televised ABC interview with Conrad Ahlers, acting as a spokesperson for the German government, Ahlers speaks of the resolution to the crisis in an optimistic future tense. Realizing that the reports the studio received were all incorrect, a horrified Bader contacts an inside source and learns that the rescue attempt failed and all the hostages were murdered.
Sobered, Mason has Jim McKay correct the live broadcast. Arledge nevertheless commends him for an excellent job, while Marianne mourns that more innocent life was lost on German soil, and she and countless other reporters had been at the airport, focused only on getting a scoop while lives were being lost. The crew heads home, and after closing up, Mason lingers to view the studio's bulletin featuring photos of the victims.
A textual epilogue reveals that the event was the first time a terror attack had been broadcast on live television and was viewed by an audience of 900 million people, making it one of the most viewed broadcasts in history.
September 5 makes extensive use of archival footage from ABC's coverage of the 1972 Summer Olympics and the hostage crisis.[7] Fehlbaum and his team spent months researching the events, and worked with a production design team to create an authentic replica of the broadcasting facility used by ABC Sports on that day.[8]
Release
The film premiered on 29 August 2024, as the opening film at the 81st Venice International Film Festival in the OrizzontiExtra section.[9] A few days before being announced as part of the Venice slate, Paramount Pictures' Republic Pictures acquired worldwide sales rights outside Germany, Austria and Switzerland to the film. Following an overwhelmingly positive response at Venice and Telluride, Paramount decided it was best to keep the film with them, with the main studio opting to officially acquire distribution rights. Scott Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter speculated that the Toronto International Film Festival rejected the film "ostensibly because it might generate controversy related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict", despite screening the documentary Russians at War, whose portrayal of the Russian invasion of Ukraine "did result in protests of such a scale that the fest ended up pulling the film."[10]
Originally scheduling it for a wide release on November 27, 2024, Paramount later pivoted to a limited theatrical release on November 29, expanding wide two weeks later on December 13.[12][13] It was shifted again to a limited release on December 13, 2024, before expanding on January 17, 2025,[6] with plans to expand further for early February.[14]
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 91% of 99 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.1/10.The website's consensus reads: "Capturing the compromises, dedication, and human fallibility of the newsroom, September 5 is a worthy chronicle of a tragic flashpoint in broadcast media history."[15]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 77 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[16]
Director and editor William Goldenberg listed September 5 as one of his favorite movies of 2024.[17]
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