6 Films With Powerful Depictions Of True Heroism

United 93 (2006)

The second film in this list to depict events of 9/11, United 93 brings an entirely different perspective to that fateful day, as filmmaker Paul Greengrass examines the experience of those on board the fourth plane to be hijacked. It is the style of the film that sets it apart – being made with an almost documentary approach, shot mostly in ‘real-time’, with little-known actors portraying the passengers, crew and hijackers aboard the flight.

United 93 was a regularly scheduled flight running from Newark to San Francisco, and was already a few minutes into its journey when terrorists began crashing other planes into landmark buildings. The four United 93 hijackers began their assault 46 minutes into the flight, and eventually managed to take control of the aircraft. During this time, passengers and flight crew managed to make 35 calls via airphone, and two cell phone calls – though not every call was able to connect. These calls did enable those on board to learn about the other hijackings, however, as family, friends and colleagues relayed information about the World Trade Center and Pentagon plane crashes. Realising that the hijackers intended to use their plane as another missile against the U.S, the passengers and crew attacked the terrorists, and prevented them from reaching their target – now assumed to be the U.S Capitol. Instead, it crashed in Stonycreek Township, Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

The film is meticulously pieced together using information from those that received phone calls, from the flight voice recorder, from the flight data recorder, and from cockpit transmissions. The result is the most factually accurate depiction of events as they unfolded, on a flight that nobody survived. While the film comes with a clear disclaimer that the use of some imagination was necessary, those connected with the participants in this event are almost unanimous in their praise of its realism.

But, as the screen fades to black, what remains is a heroism that not only saved countless lives on the ground that day, but that ultimately created a healing national narrative that continues to inspire. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 caught America by surprise, and changed the entire world. In the space of a few short hours, a group of determined terrorists wrought destruction and chaos at the heart of the most powerful nation on Earth – essentially paralysing it in the process. But then, there was United 93, and its passengers and crew. As government and military scrambled to catch up in those moments, and the whole world felt briefly powerless, these were the everyday heroes that literally wrested control from the hands of the perpetrators, and provided a wounded populace with a beacon of hope.