The Reel Review
The ABC Sports crew covering the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics finds itself front and center to the world’s first live televised hostage crisis, when Palestinian terrorists take Israeli athletes and coaches hostage inside the Olympic Village. Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro and Leonie Benesch star in this historical thriller based on the actual hostage crisis.

September 5 accurately captures the period detail and the suspense of the groundbreaking moment, deftly blending the story reenactment in the cigarette smoke and rotary phone-filled control room with the actual footage of network sports anchor Jim McKay and the terrorists. In an era where terrorist attacks are commonplace, this approach by co-writer/director Tim Fehlbaum effectively captures the newness of covering a quickly unfolding hostage crisis in a compelling and tension-packed story.

The acting throughout is on point, aided by a taut screenplay, that at an hour and a half, doesn’t overstay its welcome. The only weak spot is the ethics debates over whether to cover the crisis live and whether it should be handled by the news desk thousands of miles away or the on-site sports divisions. While seeming almost quaint by today’s standards, for most, so much focus on these debates are an inside baseball distraction that will be appreciated only by viewers who are journalists, at the expense of more fascinating details about how the event was covered.
REEL FACTS
• Three of the eight Palestinian terrorists survived and were captured during the botched rescue attempt, released into Libya later that month after Palestinian terrorists hijacked Lufthansa Flight 615, demanding their release. Israel’s Mossad is believed to have successfully hunted down and killed two of the terrorists during its years-long vengeance campaign, Operation Wrath of God.

• Roone Arledge was promoted to President of ABC News from 1977 to 1998, dying in 2002 at the age of 71. He created many programs still airing on ABC: Monday Night Football, ABC World News Tonight, Nightline and 20/20.

• Geoffrey Mason, the director portrayed in the film by John Magaro, served as a technical consultant, providing the screenwriters with detail for their screenplay and securing the rights to the real-life ABC footage of Jim McKay. September 5 has been nominated for a 2025 Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.