September 5 Review: A powerful journalistic thriller and one of the best films of the year

On January 2, 2025By Littum

Tim Fehlbaum’s September 5 is an emotionally suffocating cinematic experience. In one moment, your pulse is pounding and you are excited to see a team of journalists take on the task of covering a serious international incident in the middle of a major event. The next, your heart is in your throat as mistakes are made, shots are miscalled, and tragedy unfolds. It offers powerful tension alongside serious commentary on journalistic practice – and it manages to do so without expanding the scope of the story much beyond a single location.

September 5

Release date: 13 December 2024 (Limited), 17 January 2025 (Broad)
Directed by: Tim Fehlbaum
Written by: Moritz Binder, Tim Fehlbaum and Alex David
Cast: Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, Ben Chaplin, Benjamin Walker and Leonie Benesch
Rating: R for language
Running time: 95 minutes

But that’s not all. A tremendous commitment to detail in the film’s period setting not only embeds you with the characters in a particular time (namely the early 1970s), but successfully adds to the stakes. And together with a star cast full of demonstrative drive, which gives the film an extra charismatic kick, September 5 coalesces as one of the most versatile impressive works to hit theaters in 2024.

The only really bad thing about the film is its inappropriately boring title, which refers to the date in 1972 when a group of terrorists executed a hostage plot at the Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany. The only American media team on the ground covering the event via satellite is the crew from ABC Sports, but given their primary professional focus, they are inexperienced in covering a news event of such magnitude.

Calling the shots in the control room, Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro) quickly considers how best to shift coverage from the Olympics to the crisis involving members of a Palestinian militant organization threatening the lives of Israeli Olympic team members. With coordinating help from operations manager Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin), network communications handled by producer Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard), radio translations provided by local Marianne Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch), on-the-scene reporting from Peter Jennings (Benjamin Walker) ), and more, Mason experiences unprecedented successes in the world of television news, but he also discovers the extreme consequences that come with live updates from such a chaotic event.

It is a thrill to see the September 5th ensemble jump into action.

Mason and his colleagues are blindsided by the terrorist plot, but there is a special thrill that comes when a film shows protagonists facing a crisis and responding to it with competence rather than panic, and September 5 runs on that energy for most of its driving time. The members of the broadcast team go to work on the fateful day expecting to do normal coverage of various sporting events, and moviegoers are inspired to see them perform an extreme stunt to keep their audience updated with all the latest developments.

The film elicits wry smiles as one crew member is disguised as an Olympian so he can surreptitiously transport equipment past barricades, and massive cameras are rolled outside to get angles on the action. The specific setting adds its own special flavor, as while broadcasting footage around the world in the 21st century.^St century is no problem, the film sees characters negotiating satellite use; the work of Marianne Gebhardt, who listens in on local police broadcasts and gives Americans the inside scoop on what’s going on, has a similar effect. Every step of the way you have invested the ingenuity and rooted the team to provide the best coverage possible.

With shocking developments in the third act, September 5 becomes something different and unforgettable in the third act.

As much fun as it is to see the folks at ABC Sports pick up the slack and find clever ways to report on a crisis, what isn’t lost in September 5 is on life and death in the crisis being reported on – and at its core, this is what makes the film stand out as a great story about journalism. When the line between providing reporting and providing entertainment is blurred, things can get unusually scary (and that makes Tim Fehlbaum’s feature a powerful commentary on modernity, even if it’s set over half a century ago). There’s a distinct chill in scenes where characters understand that transgressions have occurred, including the broadcast that tips off the terrorists about a police maneuver or the film’s final act, where rumors end up deciding the day.

September 5 uses an intimate scale to powerful effect.

The world is literally watching as the events unfold on September 5, 1972, but the storytelling chooses to keep things unusually intimate, and that’s a huge choice by the filmmakers. While the film in many cases breaks the rule of telling rather than showing, the greater significance is that we are fully locked into the character’s perspectives, and each update delivered allows for an empathic response – be it tension, relief, or horror.

Having no knowledge of the true events that inspired the film that walked into my screen, I found myself completely shocked walking out of the theater, but given the remarkable presentation of the story, the amazing performances and its commentary for journalistic practice, I don’t. I don’t imagine it will have any less emotional impact on someone who already knows how things are going (or someone watching the movie for the second time, for that matter). Around, September 5 is an exceptionally well-crafted thriller and one of the best films of 2024.