Munich (2005 Film)

The events at the center of the film began on September 5, 1972, when eight Palestinian gunmen belonging to the Black September organization infiltrated the Munich Olympic Village and seized members of the Israeli delegation.[5] Two Israelis were murdered during the initial takeover; nine additional Israelis — including athletes, coaches, and referees — were killed during a failed German rescue attempt at a nearby airfield, along with five of the gunmen and one German police officer.[5]

The film opens with a recreation of the kidnapping, intermingled with television footage of the unfolding crisis as the world watched.[6] The hostage standoff ends with the deaths of all eleven Israelis, after which Israel and its leaders are depicted mourning the dead and resolving to pursue the Black September terrorists responsible.[6] The film then portrays Golda Meir and her advisers approving a covert five-man team tasked with hunting down and assassinating people identified as having planned and executed the attack.[2]

The film follows Avner and his team from one assassination to the next as they work through a list of targets across Europe.[2] As the mission progresses, Avner grows increasingly uncertain about the morality of killing people without trial and whether all the targets were genuinely responsible for the massacre.[2] He ultimately becomes so troubled that he abandons the mission and severs his ties with Israel.[2]

The screenplay was written by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth.[3] Filming took place in Malta, Hungary, and New York, and the production had a reported budget of $70 million.[7][4] With a runtime of 163 minutes, the film includes dialogue in English, German, Italian, and French.[3] Its creators described the work as “fictional history,” distinguishing its dramatized account from documentary history.[2]

The source book, Vengeance, had been adapted previously as the 1986 television film Sword of Gideon, making Munich a later cinematic treatment of the same disputed account.[8] Spielberg described the film by saying, “It’s the most questioning story I’ve ever had the honor to tell,” framing its moral ambiguity as intentional.[9]

At its core, Munich raises questions about the ethics of counterterrorism: whether targeted killing without trial is justifiable, and whether Israeli reprisals contribute to an ongoing cycle of violence rather than ending it.[2] The film follows the squad through a succession of operations, using the agents' growing unease as its central dramatic engine.[2]

A notable exchange has a bomb-maker tell Avner: “We’re Jews, Avner. Jews don’t do wrong because our enemies do wrong…we’re supposed to be righteous. That’s a beautiful thing. That’s Jewish…”[3] This dialogue encapsulates the film's concern that hunting and killing terrorists, however justified by the provocation, could damage the moral character of those carrying out the mission.[3]

The film also includes a contrived encounter in which a Palestinian character explains his aims to Avner.[8] A Jewish Virtual Library reviewer noted objections to giving a terrorist such a platform but rejected the charge of moral equivalence, arguing that the Israeli agents are distinguished by their displays of conscience.[8] A Washington Institute essay, by contrast, argued that the film places Israel and the terrorists on a similar ethical plane while judging Israel more harshly for violating the Jewish ethic it is portrayed as embodying.[2]

A 2005 Washington Institute forum broadened the discussion beyond the film. Moshe Yaalon said counterterrorism should satisfy personal, societal, and international moral tests. Dennis Ross argued that targeted killings can deter and disrupt terrorist organizations but can also create martyrs and aid recruitment, and should therefore be evaluated case by case through cost-benefit and lessons-learned analyses.[10]

Munich received five Academy Award nominations: Best Picture, Best Director for Steven Spielberg, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, and Best Original Score.[1] Spielberg, Kushner, and Roth received Golden Globe nominations, and the American Film Institute included Munich among its movies of the year for 2005.[11][12]

Box-office figures vary according to measurement date. A March 2006 review reported approximately $47 million in United States earnings and a $63 million worldwide figure at that time, against the $70 million production budget.[8] Box Office Mojo now lists approximately $47.4 million domestically and $131 million worldwide across all releases.[7]

Disputed Historical Basis

The film's historical foundation drew sustained criticism. Munich was based on Vengeance, a 1984 book that relied principally on Yuval Aviv, who presented himself as the leader of a Mossad hit squad.[2] Israeli figures familiar with the matter disputed Aviv's claimed Mossad background and characterized his stories as products of his imagination; the Washington Institute essay consequently described many of the film's episodes as imaginary.[2] Former Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit said, “[The film] has no connection to reality whatsoever.”[13] The filmmakers, for their part, described the work as “fictional history.”[2]

Moral Equivalence Debate

The most heated controversy concerned whether Munich drew a false moral equivalence between Israeli agents and the Palestinian terrorists they hunted. Critics focused particularly on the encounter in which a Palestinian terrorist explains his political aims to Avner, objecting that the scene gave the terrorist a platform and contributed to the film's broader ethical comparison.[8][2] The Washington Institute argued that the film presents Israel and the terrorists as occupying a similar ethical plane and judges Israel more harshly because Israel is shown as violating the Jewish ethic on which it was founded.[2]

Former Israeli Security Agency head Avi Dichter criticized the film for making terrorism and counterterrorism appear deceptively simple. He argued that terrorism seeks to kill as many Israelis as possible regardless of other casualties, whereas counterterrorism focuses precisely on its targets and attempts to minimize other losses.[10] Retired IDF chief of staff Moshe Yaalon said the post-Munich counterstrikes against PLO bases in Syria and Lebanon had punitive and deterrent purposes and disrupted PLO capabilities.[10]

Criticism within the Jewish community also focused on the film's decision to give Palestinian characters substantive dialogue written by Tony Kushner.[9] A Jewish Virtual Library reviewer rejected the resulting accusation of moral equivalence, pointing instead to scenes in which the Israeli agents' conscience distinguishes them from the terrorists.[8]

Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League also defended the film, arguing that it portrayed the Munich attack as brutal terrorism without humanizing its perpetrators, while presenting the Israeli agents as people who ask difficult ethical questions about their mission.[14]

Spielberg pushed back against his critics. As quoted by Newsweek, he said that Munich “never once attacks Israel” and “barely criticizes Israel’s policy of counter violence against violence.”[9] He acknowledged that the filmmakers had been accused of “the sin of moral equivocation” but denied that the charge was warranted.[9]

Omissions and Framing

CAMERA argued that the film omitted important context surrounding Israel's retaliation campaign, including two Lod Airport attacks in May 1972 that killed 32 people, the shooting of an Israeli official in Brussels shortly after the Munich massacre, and a London letter bomb that killed an Israeli two weeks later.[3] In CAMERA's view, omitting this broader wave of terrorism placed Israel's counterterrorism campaign in an artificially narrow frame.[3]

A Jewish Virtual Library review also criticized the film for omitting the episode in Norway in which Israeli agents mistakenly killed the wrong man, even though it was a significant failure in the historical campaign.[8] CAMERA separately disputed the film's portrayal of Golda Meir's conduct after the massacre, contrasting the movie's account of her absence from the victims' funerals with a Jerusalem Post poll, taken one week after the killings, that reportedly identified her as Israel's most popular public figure.[3]