September 5th, 1972 — looking at it now — was not much different than October 7, 2023.

On the first date, Arab terrorists called Black September kidnapped and killed the 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team at the Munich games. It was a savage act, chronicled in the Steven Spielberg movie, “Munich” and Kevin MacDonald’s documentary, “One Day in September.”

Now we’ve got another point of view of the Munich massacre in Tim Fehlbaum’s “September 5th.” This film, concise and nail biting, is about how ABC Sports, led by Roone Arledge, Peter Jennings, and Jim McKay covered the attack instantly, live, from their Olympic headquarters in Munich — and kept it away from the news department.

“September 5th” is a short, ferocious movie that also brings up a lot of bad memories, not all of them 52 years old. You can’t not think about the Hamas massacre of 1,200 Jews at a music festival on October 7th, 2023. (The horrors are paralleled even though they’re not mentioned, of course, in the Fehlbaum film.)

The new film is a showcase memoir from ABC producer Geoff Mason, who’s still alive and was there when all hell broke loose. He’s played with wit and compassion by John Magaro, the 31 year old actor who recalls Dustin Hoffman or Richard Dreyfus and has already established quite a resume. Mason went on to collect 26 Emmy Awards and is a member of the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame. But he’s our go to guy as we meet Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard) who would become a TV network titan, as well as a young Peter Jennings (Benjamin Walker), producer Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin) and the German interpreter who helped save the day (an astonishing Marianne Gebhardt).

So what happened on international TV when there was only room for one network at a time on a single satellite? When there were no cell phones, and no ProTools? When film had to be developed and then manually edited? When there was no Google for fact checking? Fehlbaum underscores the stark reality of how dogged journalism used to work by seamlessly including archival footage. Former ABC Wide World of Sports star Jim McKay, who’s been dead since 2008, for example, becomes a key supporting player.

Apart from the terrorism being no less psychotic than it is today, these are the questions answered by “September 5,” which feels like a child of “Spotlight” and “Lou Grant.” Fehlbaum conveys the immediacy of the unknown threat, knowing how it will turn out. But the terrorism is never far from our minds, and the connection to October 7th is unavoidable. Nothing has changed in 50 years.

Sarsgaard’s Arledge is solid, and only can indicate how in the future this TV exec would become a legend thanks to abrasive confidence. Magaro’s Mason is written as the central character, and the actor gets high marks for leading us through the emergency. He’s our guide. Benesch is the bright light of the film as interpreter Gebhardt who is pressed into service and becomes they key member of the group without warning.

There is no happy ending. But “September 5” will be revelatory to younger generations to see how the world operated without digital equipment. It’s not just how the news was gathered and sent back to the US on the spot, but also how certain analogue things we take for granted — like AM Radio — shouldn’t be eliminated so quickly. If it weren’t for German AM Radio, the ABC Sports producers would have been in the dark.

Let’s start with Clint Eastwood.

The 94 year old director’s “Juror Number 2” made $5 million over the weekend…in Europe! It’s playing in France, Spain and the UK. So it’s a hit there. And we know that because box office numbers were reported.

But Warner Bros. is not reporting box office for the US, where “Juror Number 2” is playing in just 50 theaters. There’s an unconfirmed number of $300,000 for the US.

“Juror Number 2” is a terrific film and deserves marketing, wider release, and an Oscar campaign. But something screwy is going on. After
“Joker Folie a Deux” drove Warner’s into the ground they should be proud of Eastwood and celebrating him!

Also at the BO: Robert Zemeckis’s “Here” went nowhere. It made $5 million playing on 2,647 screens. It’s one of Tom Hanks’s lowest grossing films in which he stars. No one knows what it’s about, and no one wanted to see it. It’s a movie about technology, apparently. So strange.

“Conclave,” one of the best films of the year, is a hit. After a slow start, the Ralph Fiennes led thriller, directed by Edward Berger, is finding audiences. “Conclave” should be on every top 10 list of the year.

Jesse Eisenberg’s “A Real Pain” made $60,000 a apiece in four locations, two in LA and two in NY. Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin are phenomenal in this funny and emotional story of two cousins who reunite for a trip to see their grandmother’s home in Poland before she was taken to a concentration camp. It’s a satisfying if unnerving adventure, real filmmaking. Lots of awards coming.

Earlier this week I reviewed “The Outrun,” which is now on streaming. Saorise Ronan stars in this gem. By all means, for serious film lovers, check it out. Ronan must be nominated for Best Actress.

Sony Pictures Classics has at least three awards films including “The Outrun.” The great Pedro Almodovar’s “The Room Next Door” is a power punch with Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. I’ve reviewed that already. But I’ll have more tonight Walter Salles’s “I’m Still Here,” which also gets an Oscar run in November and is a sensational thriller ripped from the headlines, a true story from 1970 Brazil. Fernanda Torres also deserves a Best Actress nod.

Could SPC have three Best Actress noms — Swinton, Ronan, and Torres? And Supporting Actress for Moore? They should. Quite an achievement!

Election day is coming, but a few other things are happening on November 5th.

“The Outrun,” a movie whose title I can never remember — The Outset, The Upshot? — is coming to streaming after a four week run in theaters.

“The Outrun” made no money in its US theater release and didn’t get much attention, but it’s marvelous. Saoirse Ronan — Oscar nominated for four films including “Ladybird” and “Brooklyn” — gives the performance of her life as Rona, a 29 year old London girl with Scottish roots who is utterly lost. It’s up to Academy voters now to rescue it from oblivion.

The movie, directed by Nora Fingsheidt, takes place in the Orkney Islands on the northern most outstretch of Scotland. It’s winter, and dismal, but also gorgeous, and this is the place Rona (Ronan) lands to get sober after a wild time partying and drinking. Cinematographer Yunus Roy Imer captures of all it brilliantly, exposing the raw nature of Rona’s recovery in muted, washed out colors.

“I’m only happy when I drink,” she says at one point. She’s not kidding. She is dead serious. Her drinking lands in her some pretty tough spots, which we see in flashbacks in the non linear screenplay. Fingscheidt, an award winning German director, cuts back and forth as Rona comes to terms with her parents (the father is severely bipolar), her traumatized childhood, and her sometimes violent present in colorful London.

Saskia Reeves and Stephen Dillane are excellent as the parents. But the movie is all about Rona. You can’t take your eyes off of Ronan. She’s a beacon of light in a dark passage. Even though “The Outrun” didn’t score an audience in theaters, I hope it’s embraced on streaming platforms like Apple etc. “The Outrun” is one of the best films of 2024.