Münih

Munich

Movie · 2005 · 4 people

Steven Spielberg directed and produced Munich, a 2005 historical drama and political thriller. The 157-minute film opened in the United States on 23 December 2005 and in Turkey on 27 January 2006. Tony Kushner and Eric Roth wrote the screenplay, drawing on George Jonas's book Vengeance. It received five Oscar nominations, and in 2017 The New York Times ranked it 16th among the best films of the 21st century so far.

The story begins at the 1972 Munich Olympics, where members of the Palestinian group Black September kill eleven Israeli athletes, and moves on to the covert Israeli campaign called Operation Wrath of God. A small team led by the former Mossad agent Avner (Eric Bana) hunts down and kills those held responsible across Europe, while the mission's moral and emotional cost grows heavier. The cast includes Daniel Craig, Ciarán Hinds, Mathieu Kassovitz, Geoffrey Rush, Ayelet Zurer, Mathieu Amalric, Michael Lonsdale and Moritz Bleibtreu.

It was filmed in Malta, Budapest, Paris and New York, with music by John Williams. Spielberg called the film fiction inspired by real events: it alters the chronology and scale of the operations, and its Mossad unit does not match the real one. It took $47 million in the United States and about $130 million worldwide.

DirectorSteven Spielberg
Production companyAmblin Entertainment

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Through different eyes

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

Munich opens with the killing of eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics and goes on to question the moral price of the covert revenge campaign that followed. Its strength is that it never lets go of the question of where answering violence with violence leads. But viewers interested in the history should know that Spielberg described the film as fiction inspired by real events: the chronology and scale of the operations are altered, and the Mossad unit it shows does not match the real one. So it is best watched not as a historical record but as an argument of conscience. That it drew criticism from both Jewish and Muslim viewers shows how sensitive the subject is.

Action & Thriller Fan Puts pace, tension and set pieces first; little patience for slow drama.

Tracking targets across European cities, secret plans and operations that could go wrong at any second: the tension in Munich is genuinely high. But this is no classic spy adventure. It runs 157 minutes and chooses weight over speed, so the long conversations and soul-searching in between may test your patience. The team of Eric Bana, Daniel Craig and Ciarán Hinds is solid. As a political thriller it hits hard, just don't expect wall-to-wall action.

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Munich puts the tools of genre filmmaking, tracking, covert operations and suspense editing, at the service of a moral inquiry. Tony Kushner and Eric Roth's script slowly piles up the weight that falls on the team after each successful move, and that accumulation is the film's real dramatic spine. Eric Bana's Avner makes a centre that looks resolute outside and is coming apart within. Shooting in Malta, Budapest, Paris and New York gives the film a wide sense of geography. Five Oscar nominations and sixteenth place on The New York Times's 2017 list come as no surprise. Even so, at 157 minutes the second half lets some repetition show.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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