Dramatic films
Zero Dark Thirty
Chronicles the decade-long search for Osama bin Laden following the September 2001 attacks, and his death at the hands of Navy SEAL Team 6.
Call Number: Education, Music and Media Video DVD VIDEO 10923Publication Date: 2012
Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close
Based on the novel by author Jonathan Safran Foer, director Stephen Daldry's post-9/11 drama follows the journey of a nine-year-old boy as he attempts to solve a family mystery. Two years after his father is killed in the September 11th terrorist attacks, the curious boy discovers a mysterious key hidden in a household vase and begins an exhaustive search for the matching lock. Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock star.
Call Number: Education, Music and Media Video DVD VIDEO 9808Publication Date: 2011
Reign Over Me
Alan Johnson runs into his old college roommate, Charlie Fineman, on the streets of New York City and is surprised to find that Charlie does not remember him at all. Alan later learns that Charlie is suffering with grief over the loss of his family on 9/11. Flooded with grief, Charlie quits his job and isolates himself from everyone around him. Alan attempts to help Charlie get over his grief by rekindling their friendship. As Alan spends a lot of time with Charlie, it puts a strain on his relationship with his wife and kids.
Call Number: Education, Music and Media Video DVD VIDEO 6992Publication Date: 2007
United 93
This powerful film about September 11th, one of the darkest days in our history, paints an unforgettable and inspiring portrait of the 40 passengers and crew who sat down as strangers and found the courage to stand up as one.
Call Number: Education, Music and Media Video DVD VIDEO 2416Publication Date: 2006
The Guys
A powerfully moving and unexpectedly humorous film about a NYC journalist who is called upon to help a fire captain pay tribute to the men he lost during the World Trade Center attacks.
Call Number: Education, Music and Media Video DVD VIDEO 1471Publication Date: 2002
11'09"01 September 11
Eleven filmmakers from eleven countries reflect on the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in short films each lasting 11 minutes, 9 seconds and 1 frame.
Call Number: Education, Music and Media Video DVD VIDEO 1311Publication Date: 2002
Documentaries
Twin Towers
Tells the story of the events that occurred in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001 through the eyes of emergency response personnel. Focuses on Joseph Vigiano, a highly decorated member of NYPD Emergency Services Squad 3, and his brother, John Vigiano Jr., a firefighter. When the first building of the World Trade Center was struck, both Joseph and John were first responders, and both died when the buildings collapsed. Includes news footage, footage of the emergency personnel originally planned for a reality-TV show, interviews with their families and home videos.
Call Number: Education, Music and Media Video DVD VIDEO 2025Publication Date: 2004
My Trip to Al-Qaeda
In 2006, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lawrence Wright staged 'My Trip to al-Qaeda,' a one-man play that explored the moral dilemmas he encountered while researching his bestselling book, 'The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.' Now, Academy Award winner Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side) brings Wright's off-Broadway show to the screen, chronicling fundamentalist Islam's rise to power, as well as Wright's struggle to maintain objectivity as a journalist in the wake of 9/11.
Call Number: Education, Music and Media Video DVD VIDEO 11326Publication Date: 2012
Searching for the Roots of 9/11
Features columnist Thomas L. Friedman as he investigates questions about the Sept. 11, 2001 suicide attacks. Travelling the Middle East and Southeast Asia, Friedman conducts interviews with various persons in an attempt to understand what drove the nineteen men to conduct the attacks, as well as why the attacks were, and continue to be, supported by people from the region.
Call Number: Education, Music and Media Video DVD VIDEO 1459Publication Date: 2004
Remembering 9/11
Examines the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001, including the background of the terrorist group al-Qaeda and their leader Osama bin Laden. Includes archival film footage of the World Trade Center collapse in New York City, and interviews with rescue workers, survivors, and victims' families.
Call Number: Education, Music and Media Video DVD VIDEO 11170Publication Date: 2011
September 11th
Includes a collection of specials that document New York City on September 11, 2001, including: "102 Minutes That Changed America," "I-Witness to 9/11," "Hotel Ground Zero," "The Miracle of Stairway B," and "The Day the Towers Fell."
Call Number: Education, Music and Media Video DVD VIDEO 11144Publication Date: 2011
9/12: From Chaos to Community
Follows several volunteers at Ground Zero through a series of events reuniting them with each other after the closing of the site. Their stories present a portrait of the city within a city that was Ground Zero and examines how an extremely diverse group of people transcended politics and culture in an effort to heal their city and themselves.
Call Number: Education, Music and Media Video DVD VIDEO 9306Publication Date: 2006
Why the Towers Fell
NOVA investigates the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers along with forensic engineers. It presents the engineers' conclusions and the most definitive explanation of how and why the towers collapsed. Interviews with several survivors.
Call Number: Education, Music and Media Video DVD VIDEO 463Publication Date: 2002
Film and television criticism
Parallel Lines: Post-9/11 American Cinema by
Parallel Lines describes how post-9/11 cinema, from Spike Lee's 25th Hour (2002) to Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty (2012), relates to different, and competing, versions of US national identity in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The book combines readings of individual films (World Trade Center, United 93, Fahrenheit 9/11, Loose Change) and cycles of films (depicting revenge, conspiracy, torture and war) with extended commentary on recurring themes, including the relationship between the US and the rest of the world, narratives of therapeutic recovery, questions of ethical obligation. The volume argues that post-9/11 cinema is varied and dynamic, registering shock and upheaval in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, displaying capacity for critique following the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal mid-decade, and seeking to reestablish consensus during Obama's troubled second term of office.
Call Number: General Collection PN1995.9.T46 W47 2014Publication Date: 2014
Film and Television after 9/11 by
In Film and Television After 9/11, editor Wheeler Winston Dixon and eleven other distinguished film scholars discuss the production, reception, and distribution of Hollywood and foreign films after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and examine how moviemaking has changed to reflect the new world climate. While some contemporary films offer escapism, much of mainstream American cinema since 9/11 is centered on the desire for a "just war" in which military reprisals and escalation of warfare appear to be both inevitable and justified. Films of 2002 such as Black Hawk Down, Collateral Damage, and We Were Soldiers demonstrate a renewed audience appetite for narratives of conflict, reminiscent of the wave of filmmaking that surrounded American involvement in World War II. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon galvanized the American public initially, yet film critics wonder how this will play out over time. Film and Television After 9/11 is the first book to provide original insights into topics ranging from the international reception of post-9/11 American cinema, re-viewing films of our shared cinematic past in light of the attacks, and exploring parallels between post-9/11 cinema and World War II-era productions.
Call Number: General Collection PN1993.5.U6 F477 2004Publication Date: 2004
Cinematic Terror: A Global History of Terrorism on Film by
Cinematic Terror takes a uniquely long view of filmmakers' depiction of terrorism, examining how cinema has been a site of intense conflict between paramilitaries, state authorities and censors for well over a century. In the process, it takes us on a journey from the first Age of Terror that helped trigger World War One to the Global War on Terror that divides countries and families today. Tony Shaw looks beyond Hollywood to pinpoint important trends in the ways that film industries across Europe, North and South America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East have defined terrorism down the decades. Drawing on a vast array of studio archives, government documentation, personal interviews and box office records, Shaw examines the mechanics of cinematic terrorism and challenges assumptions about the links between political violence and propaganda.
Call Number: General Collection PN1995.9.T46 S53 2015Publication Date: 2014
