United 93

Details

Paul Greengrass's powerful and unflinching account of one of the defining events of September 11, 2001 comes to 4K Ultra HD in the UK for the first time this October as United 93 marks its 20th anniversary.

On the morning of September 11, United Airlines Flight 93 leaves Newark International Airport bound for San Francisco with 40 passengers and crew aboard. Unknown to those on the aircraft, three other passenger jets have already become part of a coordinated terrorist attack which will change the world.

As air traffic controllers, the Federal Aviation Administration and the United States military struggle to understand a rapidly developing and unprecedented situation, Flight 93 is hijacked by four members of al-Qaeda and diverted from its original course towards Washington, D.C.

Initially, the passengers and crew have little understanding of what is happening beyond their own aircraft. But through a series of telephone calls to relatives and people on the ground, they gradually learn that hijacked aircraft have struck the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Virginia.

The realisation transforms their understanding of the situation.

Faced with the growing certainty that their aircraft is intended to become another weapon, the passengers and surviving crew members make the collective decision to fight back. Ordinary people who had boarded the flight as strangers begin working together in an attempt to regain control of the aircraft before it can reach its intended target.

Writer and director Paul Greengrass approaches their story with an almost documentary-like immediacy, moving between events aboard Flight 93 and the increasingly confused response unfolding in control rooms on the ground.

Rather than concentrating upon conventional character backstories or creating fictional heroes, United 93 attempts to reconstruct the events in close to real time, presenting the passengers and crew as a group suddenly confronted by circumstances none of them could possibly have anticipated.

That commitment to authenticity extended to the production itself. Greengrass cast a mixture of professional and non-professional performers, while several people involved in the real events of September 11 appeared as themselves, recreating their experiences for the film.

Among them was FAA National Operations Manager Ben Sliney, who had begun his first day in the position on September 11, 2001 and was responsible for the unprecedented decision to close United States airspace. In United 93, Sliney portrays himself.

The production was also developed with the cooperation of families of those who died aboard the flight, with Greengrass and his team researching the passengers and crew before filming. That relationship between the filmmakers and the families subsequently became the subject of one of the documentaries accompanying the home entertainment release.

Released theatrically in 2006, United 93 received widespread critical acclaim for its restrained and immersive treatment of the tragedy. Greengrass received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director, while Clare Douglas, Christopher Rouse and Richard Pearson were nominated for Best Film Editing. The film also received six BAFTA nominations, winning Best Director for Greengrass and Best Editing for Douglas, Rouse and Pearson.

United 93 will be released on 4K Ultra HD 5th October 2026 by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.