During the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, eleven Israeli athletes are taken hostage and murdered by a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September.
In retaliation, the Israeli government recruits a group of Mossad agents to track down and execute those responsible for the attack.
Cast: Daniel Craig, Eric Bana, Marie-Josée Croze
Crew: Steven Spielberg (Director), Janusz Kaminski (Director of Photography), John Williams (Music Director)
Rating: A (India)
Genres: Drama, History, Thriller
Release Dates: 23 Dec 2005 (India)
Tagline: The world was watching in 1972 as 11 Israeli athletes were murdered at the Munich Olympics. This is the story of what happened next.
Did you know? The film leaves out some details from the real mission. One of them was when the group found one of the terrorists in Norway. The target was exiting a bus with a pregnant woman, and they killed him. The authorities tracked down the Agents' license plate number and arrested them, but it was later revealed that they had shot the wrong man. He wasn't even Palestinian, but a Moroccan waiter, and the pregnant woman was his wife. One detail that was included was another hit executed with two of the Agents dressed in drag, one of whom was Ehud Barak, who went on to become Prime Minister of Israel in 1999. Read More
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as Steve
as Avner
as Jeanette the Dutch Assassin
as General Zamir
as Daphna
as Kamal Nasser
as Carl
as Ephraim
as Avner's Mother
as Hans
as Marie Claude Hamshari
as Mahmoud Hamshari
as Ehud Barak
as Newlywed Bride
as Golda Meir
as Wael Zwaiter
as Louis
as Robert
as Yvonne
as Papa
as Andreas
as Mike Harari
as Sylvie
as Tony - Andreas' Friend
Direction
Director
First Assistant Director
Second Unit Director
Production
Production Company
Associate Production Company
Assistant Producer
Production Supervisor
Distribution
Distributor
Camera and Electrical
Director of Photography
Casting
Casting Director
Costume and Wardrobe
Costume Designer
Editorial
Editor
Makeup and Hair
Makeup Artist
Special Effects
Special Effects Technician
Film Type:
Feature
Language:
English
Spoken Languages:
Arabic, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Russian
Colour Info:
Color
Sound Mix:
Dolby Digital EX, DTS, Sony Dynamic Digital Sound
Camera:
ARRICAM Lite (LT), ARRICAM Studio (ST), ARRIFLEX 235, ARRIFLEX 435
Frame Rate:
24 fps
Aspect Ratio:
2.35:1
Stereoscopy:
No
Taglines:
The world was watching in 1972 as 11 Israeli athletes were murdered at the Munich Olympics. This is the story of what happened next.
Filming Locations:
New York City, New York
Paris
Budapest
Valletta
Tököl Airport, Szigetszentmiklós
Nyugati pályaudvar, Budapest
Rue Mouffetard, Paris 5, Paris
Puskás Ferenc Stadium, Budapest
Rabat
Republic Square, Valletta
Sliema
Marriott Budapest Hotel, Budapest,
Marsaxlokk
Malta International Airport, Luqa
Bir-Hakeim Bridge, Paris
Bugibba
Cospicua
Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York City, New York
Long Island City, Queens, New York City, New York
Paris
Budapest
Valletta
Tököl Airport, Szigetszentmiklós
Nyugati pályaudvar, Budapest
Rue Mouffetard, Paris 5, Paris
Puskás Ferenc Stadium, Budapest
Rabat
Republic Square, Valletta
Sliema
Marriott Budapest Hotel, Budapest,
Marsaxlokk
Malta International Airport, Luqa
Bir-Hakeim Bridge, Paris
Bugibba
Cospicua
Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York City, New York
Long Island City, Queens, New York City, New York
Goofs:
Miscellaneous
The team meets in an underground room to debrief the team leader. Along the far wall, behind the reel-to-reel tape recorder, is a water cooler with a polycarbonate bottle. At the time, water coolers had glass bottles.
Miscellaneous
When Avner is leaving his apartment in New York, a yellow "rubber bumper" MGB is present in the line of cars on the side of the street. The federally mandated rubber energy absorption bumpers were not installed on MGBs until late summer of 1974 as a 1974/5 model. The age of Avner's daughter would seem to suggest this scene takes place sometime before then.
Miscellaneous
When Avner and Ephraim are walking along the beach in the middle of the film, a jet-ski appears in the water. Jet-skis were invented in 1976
Miscellaneous
. Outside the hotel in London, a taxi goes over a speed bump, which wouldn't have been there in the 1970s.
Miscellaneous
When Avner and his crew are in Rome, you can see a 2000-style trash can.
Miscellaneous
Though they took the time to digitally add the World Trade Center to the final shot, they didn't edit out the Citigroup Center, Trump World Tower, and the Bloomberg building, which were built after the time of the movie.
Miscellaneous
The shop the victim in Rome enters has modern San Pellegrino cans.
Miscellaneous
When Avner and one of his team members find their mate stabbed to death on the bench near the river, a modern-day truck, with a spoiler and cooling unit on the roof, passes by on the bridge above.
Miscellaneous
When walking on the waterfront in Tel Aviv, a rusty beat-up 1972-79 VW Bus appears on the street. The scene takes place in late 1972. A brand-new first year model would not be that beat up and rusty after just a few months.
Miscellaneous
The reel-to-reel tape recorder used in the debriefing is a Revox B77, which came on the market in 1978.
Miscellaneous
When Avner checks his TV, he is holding a MagLite in his mouth. The first MagLite was introduced in 1979, and the model he's holding was introduced in 1984.
Miscellaneous
When the first Palestinian victim (the translator of 1001 Nights) turns at the corner at his house, right before his assassination (around the 37th minute of the movie) a modern parking meter is visible with a sign of a cellular phone.
Miscellaneous
The black Mercedes W114 230.6 used by the KGB agents during the Greece assassination scene is patched together to make it more "historic." The front doors were made to look like a Series 1 model, with divided side windows, made prior August 1973. The side mirror was removed completely. The rest of the car is clearly a Series 2 (post August 1973), including the model designation 230.6 itself (it should read just "230", the two different models 230.4 and 230.6 co-existed after August 1973).
Miscellaneous
In Brooklyn, Avner walks past a wheelchair-accessible curb cut, which didn't exist in 1972.
Miscellaneous
When Avner and Ephraim are walking along the sea front in Israel, modern Maltese phone boxes and buses are visible in the background.
Miscellaneous
The term "honey trap," which is used in the film, was first coined by John LeCarre in 1974 (publication of Tinker Tailor), so it's very unlikely (we don't have the exact time line of that incident in the movie, or indications of reading habits) that it would have been used.
Audio/Video Mismatch
When Avner is waiting for the Palestinian's daughter and wife to come out of their building, before letting off the telephone bomb, the little girl says the same line twice. Off-screen, she says hello to her driver before she actually meets him. She comes out, repeats the same line, and says hello to the driver when she meets him.
Miscellaneous
In one scene a chess game is briefly visible in the foreground. It is turned the wrong way, with a black square, rather than a white square, in the lower right corner.
Character Error
Golda Meir wishes "mazel tov" to Avner's unborn daughter. (So do team members at their first meal together.) Sayng "mazel tov" on an unborn baby is bad luck.
Character Error
In Greece, just before the large explosion, Avner, who is supposed to be fluent in German, asks "Kann ich ein Licht haben?" as he asks for a light for his cigarette. The person responds "sind Sie Deutscher?" ("Are you German?"). The correct question is, "Kann ich Feuer haben?"
Continuity
When dialing the phone number of the bomb-trapped phone for the second time, Carl begins with a different digit than he did the first time he called.
Continuity
Steve and an Italian girl observe the first victim in Rome from an Alfa Romeo Giulia (model 1974 or later, with a straight trunk). When the victim walks through the street, putting on his coat, Steve and the girl drive away in a Lancia Flavia. When the victim is in the store, they arrive in the Alfa Romeo Giulia.
Continuity
When Avner and Ephraim are walking along the beach, they pass Joe Quattromani twice. The first time, nothing is on the ground near him. The second time, he is next to a briefcase.
Continuity
When Avner walks into Papa's home, he walks towards the kitchen past a table. There is a man standing next to the table talking to someone sitting down but in the next shot, the man standing up is gone.
Continuity
When the crew eats for the first time together, Steve holds up his plate for Avner to put some meat on it. In the next shot, Steve's plate is on the table as Avner serves him the meat.
Continuity
At the end of the film, when Avner's wife Daphna touches his face, her nails are polished. After they have sex, her nails are not polished.
Continuity
After being shot, the first victim falls face-first onto his grocery bag. In the next scene, he is lying face up.
Continuity
When Avner and his wife are making love in New York, he is drenched in sweat and his hair is soaking wet. His wife wipes his face and his wet hair is visible. In the next shot, his hair is dry.
Continuity
When the team is eating dinner after the assassination where Avner is nearly blown up in the adjoining room, the scene begins with a white rug under the table and then the rug is mystically gone in the later scene and bare wood floors are seen.
Continuity
At the shootout at the airport at the end of the movie one of the terrorists machine guns the first group of hostages in the first helicopter, throws a grenade into it, and takes off running. In the wide shot of the helicopters when it shows the one on the left exploding, you can see the terrorist who threw the grenade running to the other helicopter and his body is hit with several bullets. In the next scene, that same terrorist is running toward the camera and again he gets hit by the bullets.
Continuity
Just before the terrorist with the cowboy hat (Tony), shoots one of the athletes through the cheek, we see a terrorist in a denim jacket and beige ski mask looking on in the background. As the shot goes to a different angle we see a different terrorist in a yellow shirt threatening an athlete (out of shot).
Continuity
Avner's wedding ring is a different style late in the movie compared to earlier.
Continuity
When Avner and Louis are leaving Papa's house after their meeting, they are both seen entering the back seats of the car and sitting down. But in the next shot only Avner can be seen in the back of the car.
Continuity
Toward the end of the movie, Daphna's hand touching Avner's face. It's in a different position in three different shots.
Crew/Equipment Visible
When leaving Papa's farm, the camera and two operators are reflected on the side of the car.
Errors in Geography
When Avner meets Andreas and his friend Tony in a Rome café, there is a huge statue of Queen Victoria, in her extremely distinctive pose, in the middle of the square, with the British coat of arms on the pedestal, betraying the location as Malta.
Errors in Geography
When Avner and Ephraim are walking along the beach in Tel Aviv, the sea is to the left and the sun is casting shadows towards the camera, revealing that they are walking north. The scene must have been shot on the east coast of Malta, not in Tel Aviv, on Israel's west coast.
Errors in Geography
When Avner is on the airplane to Geneva, the flight number starts with SA, for South African Airways, which has never flown to Geneva.
Factual Mistake
Israeli weightlifter Yossef Romano is portrayed as a fit man who attempts a rescue, which eventually results in his death. At the time of the kidnapping, Romano was injured, and walking with crutches.
Factual Mistake
In the film, the German snipers at the airport were using rifles with telescopic sights. In reality, the Germans were criticized for their lack of preparation, including the fact that none of the snipers had telescopic or infrared sights.
Factual Mistake
When Carl goes into the apartment building lobby to "sweep" the scene of the first assassination, he picks up a spent shell casing that is clearly a .22 Caliber shell. The assassins were both armed with Beretta M1951 model pistols, which fire 9mm. (Interestingly, the actual assassins in real life likely used Beretta Model 70s, which do fire .22 Caliber.)
Miscellaneous
Late in the film Avner makes a telephone call from a booth on a street apparently in Brooklyn. He gives the phone's area code as 212. This was correct at the time the movie was set - Brooklyn changed to the 718 area code in 1984.
Miscellaneous
At the beginning of the movie, the Munich Olympic kidnappings are on TV. Actors are watching the footage on screen as if it was happening live, but the date of the events is displayed on the ABC news coverage. The news footage is clearly archive footage.
Miscellaneous
Just before the credits roll, Avner asks probing questions of Ephraim. They are in a small park on the north end of Gantry Plaza State Park, near 48th. Ave. & Center Blvd., just north of Avalon Riverview, Queens West, Long Island City. SSE across the East River are the high-rises of Peter Cooper Village behind Avner and to his left (our right), and the low-rises of Stuyvesant Town directly behind him. The World Trade Center towers have not been digitally added to these shots - "Break bread with me, Ephraim" - but have been added to the pullback about a minute later.
Miscellaneous
When Avner finds Carl dead and naked in the bed and moves his head, you can see Carl's eyes moving about four times.
Miscellaneous
When Jeanette the Dutch Assassin is dead and nearly naked in her chair, the reflection on her chest reveals that she is breathing.
The team meets in an underground room to debrief the team leader. Along the far wall, behind the reel-to-reel tape recorder, is a water cooler with a polycarbonate bottle. At the time, water coolers had glass bottles.
Miscellaneous
When Avner is leaving his apartment in New York, a yellow "rubber bumper" MGB is present in the line of cars on the side of the street. The federally mandated rubber energy absorption bumpers were not installed on MGBs until late summer of 1974 as a 1974/5 model. The age of Avner's daughter would seem to suggest this scene takes place sometime before then.
Miscellaneous
When Avner and Ephraim are walking along the beach in the middle of the film, a jet-ski appears in the water. Jet-skis were invented in 1976
Miscellaneous
. Outside the hotel in London, a taxi goes over a speed bump, which wouldn't have been there in the 1970s.
Miscellaneous
When Avner and his crew are in Rome, you can see a 2000-style trash can.
Miscellaneous
Though they took the time to digitally add the World Trade Center to the final shot, they didn't edit out the Citigroup Center, Trump World Tower, and the Bloomberg building, which were built after the time of the movie.
Miscellaneous
The shop the victim in Rome enters has modern San Pellegrino cans.
Miscellaneous
When Avner and one of his team members find their mate stabbed to death on the bench near the river, a modern-day truck, with a spoiler and cooling unit on the roof, passes by on the bridge above.
Miscellaneous
When walking on the waterfront in Tel Aviv, a rusty beat-up 1972-79 VW Bus appears on the street. The scene takes place in late 1972. A brand-new first year model would not be that beat up and rusty after just a few months.
Miscellaneous
The reel-to-reel tape recorder used in the debriefing is a Revox B77, which came on the market in 1978.
Miscellaneous
When Avner checks his TV, he is holding a MagLite in his mouth. The first MagLite was introduced in 1979, and the model he's holding was introduced in 1984.
Miscellaneous
When the first Palestinian victim (the translator of 1001 Nights) turns at the corner at his house, right before his assassination (around the 37th minute of the movie) a modern parking meter is visible with a sign of a cellular phone.
Miscellaneous
The black Mercedes W114 230.6 used by the KGB agents during the Greece assassination scene is patched together to make it more "historic." The front doors were made to look like a Series 1 model, with divided side windows, made prior August 1973. The side mirror was removed completely. The rest of the car is clearly a Series 2 (post August 1973), including the model designation 230.6 itself (it should read just "230", the two different models 230.4 and 230.6 co-existed after August 1973).
Miscellaneous
In Brooklyn, Avner walks past a wheelchair-accessible curb cut, which didn't exist in 1972.
Miscellaneous
When Avner and Ephraim are walking along the sea front in Israel, modern Maltese phone boxes and buses are visible in the background.
Miscellaneous
The term "honey trap," which is used in the film, was first coined by John LeCarre in 1974 (publication of Tinker Tailor), so it's very unlikely (we don't have the exact time line of that incident in the movie, or indications of reading habits) that it would have been used.
Audio/Video Mismatch
When Avner is waiting for the Palestinian's daughter and wife to come out of their building, before letting off the telephone bomb, the little girl says the same line twice. Off-screen, she says hello to her driver before she actually meets him. She comes out, repeats the same line, and says hello to the driver when she meets him.
Miscellaneous
In one scene a chess game is briefly visible in the foreground. It is turned the wrong way, with a black square, rather than a white square, in the lower right corner.
Character Error
Golda Meir wishes "mazel tov" to Avner's unborn daughter. (So do team members at their first meal together.) Sayng "mazel tov" on an unborn baby is bad luck.
Character Error
In Greece, just before the large explosion, Avner, who is supposed to be fluent in German, asks "Kann ich ein Licht haben?" as he asks for a light for his cigarette. The person responds "sind Sie Deutscher?" ("Are you German?"). The correct question is, "Kann ich Feuer haben?"
Continuity
When dialing the phone number of the bomb-trapped phone for the second time, Carl begins with a different digit than he did the first time he called.
Continuity
Steve and an Italian girl observe the first victim in Rome from an Alfa Romeo Giulia (model 1974 or later, with a straight trunk). When the victim walks through the street, putting on his coat, Steve and the girl drive away in a Lancia Flavia. When the victim is in the store, they arrive in the Alfa Romeo Giulia.
Continuity
When Avner and Ephraim are walking along the beach, they pass Joe Quattromani twice. The first time, nothing is on the ground near him. The second time, he is next to a briefcase.
Continuity
When Avner walks into Papa's home, he walks towards the kitchen past a table. There is a man standing next to the table talking to someone sitting down but in the next shot, the man standing up is gone.
Continuity
When the crew eats for the first time together, Steve holds up his plate for Avner to put some meat on it. In the next shot, Steve's plate is on the table as Avner serves him the meat.
Continuity
At the end of the film, when Avner's wife Daphna touches his face, her nails are polished. After they have sex, her nails are not polished.
Continuity
After being shot, the first victim falls face-first onto his grocery bag. In the next scene, he is lying face up.
Continuity
When Avner and his wife are making love in New York, he is drenched in sweat and his hair is soaking wet. His wife wipes his face and his wet hair is visible. In the next shot, his hair is dry.
Continuity
When the team is eating dinner after the assassination where Avner is nearly blown up in the adjoining room, the scene begins with a white rug under the table and then the rug is mystically gone in the later scene and bare wood floors are seen.
Continuity
At the shootout at the airport at the end of the movie one of the terrorists machine guns the first group of hostages in the first helicopter, throws a grenade into it, and takes off running. In the wide shot of the helicopters when it shows the one on the left exploding, you can see the terrorist who threw the grenade running to the other helicopter and his body is hit with several bullets. In the next scene, that same terrorist is running toward the camera and again he gets hit by the bullets.
Continuity
Just before the terrorist with the cowboy hat (Tony), shoots one of the athletes through the cheek, we see a terrorist in a denim jacket and beige ski mask looking on in the background. As the shot goes to a different angle we see a different terrorist in a yellow shirt threatening an athlete (out of shot).
Continuity
Avner's wedding ring is a different style late in the movie compared to earlier.
Continuity
When Avner and Louis are leaving Papa's house after their meeting, they are both seen entering the back seats of the car and sitting down. But in the next shot only Avner can be seen in the back of the car.
Continuity
Toward the end of the movie, Daphna's hand touching Avner's face. It's in a different position in three different shots.
Crew/Equipment Visible
When leaving Papa's farm, the camera and two operators are reflected on the side of the car.
Errors in Geography
When Avner meets Andreas and his friend Tony in a Rome café, there is a huge statue of Queen Victoria, in her extremely distinctive pose, in the middle of the square, with the British coat of arms on the pedestal, betraying the location as Malta.
Errors in Geography
When Avner and Ephraim are walking along the beach in Tel Aviv, the sea is to the left and the sun is casting shadows towards the camera, revealing that they are walking north. The scene must have been shot on the east coast of Malta, not in Tel Aviv, on Israel's west coast.
Errors in Geography
When Avner is on the airplane to Geneva, the flight number starts with SA, for South African Airways, which has never flown to Geneva.
Factual Mistake
Israeli weightlifter Yossef Romano is portrayed as a fit man who attempts a rescue, which eventually results in his death. At the time of the kidnapping, Romano was injured, and walking with crutches.
Factual Mistake
In the film, the German snipers at the airport were using rifles with telescopic sights. In reality, the Germans were criticized for their lack of preparation, including the fact that none of the snipers had telescopic or infrared sights.
Factual Mistake
When Carl goes into the apartment building lobby to "sweep" the scene of the first assassination, he picks up a spent shell casing that is clearly a .22 Caliber shell. The assassins were both armed with Beretta M1951 model pistols, which fire 9mm. (Interestingly, the actual assassins in real life likely used Beretta Model 70s, which do fire .22 Caliber.)
Miscellaneous
Late in the film Avner makes a telephone call from a booth on a street apparently in Brooklyn. He gives the phone's area code as 212. This was correct at the time the movie was set - Brooklyn changed to the 718 area code in 1984.
Miscellaneous
At the beginning of the movie, the Munich Olympic kidnappings are on TV. Actors are watching the footage on screen as if it was happening live, but the date of the events is displayed on the ABC news coverage. The news footage is clearly archive footage.
Miscellaneous
Just before the credits roll, Avner asks probing questions of Ephraim. They are in a small park on the north end of Gantry Plaza State Park, near 48th. Ave. & Center Blvd., just north of Avalon Riverview, Queens West, Long Island City. SSE across the East River are the high-rises of Peter Cooper Village behind Avner and to his left (our right), and the low-rises of Stuyvesant Town directly behind him. The World Trade Center towers have not been digitally added to these shots - "Break bread with me, Ephraim" - but have been added to the pullback about a minute later.
Miscellaneous
When Avner finds Carl dead and naked in the bed and moves his head, you can see Carl's eyes moving about four times.
Miscellaneous
When Jeanette the Dutch Assassin is dead and nearly naked in her chair, the reflection on her chest reveals that she is breathing.
Trivia:
The film leaves out some details from the real mission. One of them was when the group found one of the terrorists in Norway. The target was exiting a bus with a pregnant woman, and they killed him. The authorities tracked down the Agents' license plate number and arrested them, but it was later revealed that they had shot the wrong man. He wasn't even Palestinian, but a Moroccan waiter, and the pregnant woman was his wife. One detail that was included was another hit executed with two of the Agents dressed in drag, one of whom was Ehud Barak, who went on to become Prime Minister of Israel in 1999.
Guri Weinberg plays his own father, Moshe Weinberg, the Israeli wrestling referee and former champion who died in the massacre when Guri was just 1 month old.
Avner is called a "sabra" more than once. This is an Israeli term for a native born Jew, as opposed to an immigrant. "Sabra" originally referred to a tough kind of cactus (Opuntia cactus) which grew out in the desert.
The role of Avner was written keeping Eric Bana in mind.
Guri Weinberg plays his own father, Moshe Weinberg, the Israeli wrestling referee and former champion who died in the massacre when Guri was just 1 month old.
Avner is called a "sabra" more than once. This is an Israeli term for a native born Jew, as opposed to an immigrant. "Sabra" originally referred to a tough kind of cactus (Opuntia cactus) which grew out in the desert.
The role of Avner was written keeping Eric Bana in mind.
