Munich is a 2005 historical film about the Israeli government's secret retaliation against the Black September terrorist group after the Munich massacre during the 1972 Summer Olympics. The film was produced and directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth.

 

The 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany, were supposed to be a peaceful gathering of outstanding athletes from around the world, but on September 5, the games took a sinister turn when eight masked Palestinian terrorists invaded the Olympic village, killing two Israeli athletes and abducting nine others. The kidnappers demanded safe passage out of Germany in addition to the release of Arab prisoners in Israeli and German prisons, but when they arrived at the Munich airport they were met by German police and military forces, and in the melee that followed, all nine hostages were killed. In the wake of the killings, the Israeli government gave Mossad, the nation's intelligence agency, a special assignment -- to track down and eliminate the Palestinians responsible for the death of the Israeli athletes. A young and idealistic Mossad agent (Eric Bana) is assigned to the four-man unit created to wipe out the Olympic terrorists, but while he believes in serving his country, as their bloody work goes on he begins to buckle under the weight of his work and wonders if he can morally justify his nation's acts of revenge. Munich also stars Geoffrey Rush, Daniel Craig, Mathieu Kassovitz, and Ciarán Hinds.

 

The film is based on the book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team by Canadian journalist George Jonas, which in turn was based on the story of Yuval Aviv, who claims to have been a Mossad agent. In the book, Aviv's story is told through a protagonist called "Avner".

 

The film was shot in Malta, Budapest, Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base, Paris, and New York.The box office gross was$130,346,986.

 

The film garnered a 78% favorable rating from critics (per Rotten Tomatoes). Roger Ebert praised the film, saying that "With this film (Spielberg)has dramatically opened a wider dialogue, helping to make the inarguable into the debatable." and placed it at the third on his top ten list of 2005. James Berardinelli wrote that "Munich is an eye-opener – a motion picture that asks difficult questions, presents well-developed characters, and keeps us white-knuckled throughout." He named it the best film of the year; it was the only film in 2005 which he gave four stars, and he also put it on his Top 100 Films of All Time list. Entertainment Weekly film critic Owen Gleiberman said that Munich was the first film of 2005.

 

The film was nominated for five Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director (Spielberg), Best Adapted Screenplay (Kushner and Roth), Best Film Editing (Michael Kahn) and Best Original Score (John Williams). However, it won none.