UNITED 93

Year: 2006
USA: Universal Studios
UK: UIP (UK)
Cast: Lewis Alsamari, JJ Johnson, Trish Gates, Polly Adams, Cheyenne Jackson, Opal Alladin, Starla Benford, Nancy McDoniel, David Alan Basche, Richard Bekins, Susan Blommaert, Ray Charleson, Christian Clemenson, Liza Colón-Zayas, Lorna Dallas, Denny Dillon, Trieste Dunn, Kate Jennings Grant, Peter Hermann, Tara Hugo, Marceline Hugot, Joe Jamrog, Corey Johnson, Masato Kamo, Becky London, Peter Marinker, Jodie Lynne McClintock, Libby Morris, Tom O'Rourke, Simon Poland, David Rasche, Erich Redman, Michael J. Reynolds, John Rothman, Daniel Sauli, Rebecca Schull, Chloe Sirene, Olivia Thirlby, Chip Zien, Leigh Zimmerman, Khalid Abdalla, Omar Berdouni, Jamie Harding, Tom Fitzgerald, John Moraitis, Amanda Boxer, Morgan Deare, Daniel Fraser, Rich Sullivan, Tony Smith, Michael Bofshever
Director: Paul Greengrass
Countries: France / UK / USA
USA & UK: 111 mins
USA Rated: R for language, and some intense sequences of terror and violence
UK Certificate: 15 contains intense scenes of terrorisation and strong language
USA Release Date: 28 April 2006
UK Release Date: 2 June 2006

UK Distributor

Synopsis

Filmmaker Paul Greengrass—the compassionate and socially aware writer/director behind films that study the impact of terrorism in Northern Ireland in BLOODY SUNDAY and OMAGH, racial violence in THE MURDER OF STEPHEN LAWRENCE and one soldier's abandonment in RESURRECTED—now focuses his cameras on the day that changed the world forever.

In UNITED 93, Greengrass creates a gripping, provocative drama that tells the story of the passengers, crew and the flight controllers who watched in dawning horror as United Airlines Flight 93 became the fourth hijacked plane on the day of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil: September 11, 2001.

The filmmaker explores the events of this day by telling the story of a single flight and the ordinary, random sampling of flight crew, businessmen, wives, grandparents, students and others bound for San Francisco aboard a Boeing 757. In the course of the just over 90 minutes that the plane was aloft, the world below entered a new and violent age—viewed through a fog that slowly dissipated to reveal that America herself was under attack.

Faced with the daunting task of re-creating the events that took place onboard the doomed plane and down below, Greengrass and his researchers called upon a myriad of sources, conducting countless hours of face-to-face interviews with the families of the 40 passengers and crew, members of the 9/11 commission, flight controllers and other military and civilian personnel who took part in the events of the day. These interviews were distilled and, along with details from flight recordings, public record and historical fact, became the basis for the film. It was then played out by an ensemble of talented, yet largely unknown actors—democratically presented as random people sharing a flight—whose fact-grounded and acutely directed improvisations provided the highly charged human drama captured by Greengrass' cameras.

The result is a trenchant study—chronicled and filmed in real time—of the incendiary collision of modern day and old world...and the courage that was born from such a crucible.