world trade centre movie reviews

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, chaz's journal, great movies, contributors, twin towers: the movie.

Now streaming on:

''This is not a political film. The mantra is 'This is not a political film.'" -- Oliver Stone , New York Times (July 2, 2006)

"It is one of the greatest pro-American, pro-family, pro-faith, pro-male, flag-waving, God Bless America films you will ever see." -- right-wing syndicated columnist Cal Thomas (July 20, 2006)

"World Trade Center" is about two men who, against all odds, survived the collapse of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. It combines fragments of two movies -- the one that Stone describes above, and the other that Cal Thomas flips over. It is a disaster movie and a feel-good inspirational movie -- both based on true stories -- and that is why I am of two minds about it.

While trapped in the rubble, Port Authority Police Officer Will Jimeno ( Michael Pena ) talks about a little girl who survived after four days of being buried under debris after an earthquake in Turkey. Which raises the question: What if this were a movie about some other disaster, man-made or natural, real or fictional, instead of about 9/11? Would American moviegoers respond to it any differently than they did to, say, " Poseidon "? Or is the movie just exploiting still-tender emotions about 9/11 to sell another "Amazing Rescues" episode -- Based on a True Story, but essentially indistinguishable from countless other such stories from around the world and throughout history? That's something viewers will weigh for themselves as they watch this film.

Seen strictly as a movie (a PG-13 disaster movie or an exploitation movie or an inspirational movie or however you may see it), "WTC" is a tale divided against itself. The scenes between the two officers, Sgt. John McLoughlin ( Nicolas Cage ) and Jimeno, pinned and immobilized, trying to keep each other alive in the pit of hell, are the best in the movie, because they feel the most authentically personal. You're right down there with them, and the actors play it for real. There's no need to overdramatize something as inherently dramatic as this.

Stone keeps his camera tight on these guys, conveying palpable sensations of weight, heat, dust and claustrophobia, and resists what must have been (for him) a powerful temptation to crank up the piano-and-strings. He overdoes the slow-motion in the early scenes, which fail to convey the overwhelming chaos most people who were there describe. And there are a few show-off CGI shots (like one that rises through the tangled debris and high up into the air above the vanished towers) that seem almost decadently gratuitous, but this is Oliver Stone, The Man With the Movie Mallet, so you get what you pay for.

Stone is uncharacteristically restrained and respectful in his treatment of these men and their families. Which is why the larger-than-life approach he takes to mythologizing the journey of USMC Staff Sgt. Dave Karnes ( Michael Shannon ), the film's Hero with a capital "H," feels so jarring and inappropriate. The real-life Karnes made his way to Ground Zero on September 11 because he saw a job that needed to be done, and knew he had to do it. His actions are authentic and unquestionably heroic, and they should have been allowed to speak for themselves.

Instead, Stone turns him into a monumental cypher, pumping him up with extra music and shooting him from portentous (and pretentious) low angles so that he's practically the Third Tower. Karnes is portrayed a man of determination and few words (when one of the rescue workers asks what he can call him for short, Karnes replies, "Staff sergeant"). But Stone pours on the gravitas, and gives him a speech that seems too flowery for his character. Karnes arrives at Ground Zero and proclaims that it is "like God made a curtain with the smoke to shield us from what we're not ready to see." I don't know if Karnes actually spoke these words or not (though it seems a peculiar thing for a rescuer to say to another rescuer when he knows his mission to go behind that "curtain" and search for survivors), but as it's depicted in the movie it strikes a resoundingly false note. The phrase "less is more" just isn't in Stone's directorial vocabulary. (He could take some lessons -- as could we all -- from Rudy Giuliani's flawless behavior and no-nonsense eloquence on that day. Speaking of casualties: "I don't think we want to speculate about that -- more than any of us can bear.")

Karnes is introduced dressed as a civilian, watching TV like everyone else. "I don't know if you guys realize it yet, but this country's at war," he says, and strides out of the frame. It's clear he's decided to do something about it. Cut to a close-up of a bible, open to the book of Revelation, followed by a shot of a looming cross. This is piling it on a bit thick for a movie that otherwise emphasizes the personal over politics and religion. Stone overtly Christianizes 9/11 in ways that go beyond the beliefs of his characters. A glowing apparition of Jesus appears twice, but the first time it just comes out of nowhere, and is followed by a memory-image of McLoughlin's wife. Where is this Jesus coming from? The second time it's directly tied to a character, and consequently feels natural and appropriate. You believe that's what this guy experienced, not just what the filmmaker is telling you to see.

One other moment that exemplifies how "WTC" loses credibility above ground: a former paramedic (played by the great, underused actor Frank Whaley ) who has lost his license finds his better self in helping to rescue Jimeno and McLoughlin. It's movingly done, up until his very last moment in the picture. When a volunteer asks him what he does, Stone cuts to another of those low-angle shots he weilds like a club, and lets a heavy pause hang in the air before he replies: "Paramedic." What an insult -- to the character and the audience. It throws you out of the movie by reminding you that you're watching a Hollywood movie. The scene would have been so much more moving if Stone had not underlined it three times and italicized it. Instead, the character is over-sentimentalized and leeched of some of his humanity in the process.

In other ways, Stone does emphasize the individual human stories. The cause of the devastation is never addressed, except in a few lines of dialog about "those bastards." But, of course, "WTC" is about 9/11, so it can't help but be political -- from its choice of TV clips to what it chooses not to show. As Stone told the New York Times : ''It seems to me that the event was mythologized by both political sides, into something that they used for political gain,'' he says. ''And I think one of the benefits of this movie is that it reminds us of what actually happened that day, in a very realistic sense.'' Not entirely realistic, but it's a PG-13 movie about mass murder -- somewhat sanitized to reach a wider, and younger, audience.

The problem with movies about individuals in such extreme situations (perhaps especially those that try to hew closely to the accounts of the survivors who lived the events depicted) is that they are stripped of some of their individuality. They are, by necessity, reduced to human essentials, and that doesn't always make for good movie drama. Yes, anyone in this situation would think, and probably say, something like, "Tell my wife and children that I love them." But since we don't know much about who these guys were before 9/11 (presented here as a hazy day rather than the crystal clear fall morning we remember -- where's CGI when you need it?), some moments in "WTC" feel more generic than personal or universal.

Stories of survival need to be told, and "World Trade Center" needs to be seen in perspective, as an early (five years later?) attempt to deal with a galvanizing tragedy in the lifetimes of many Americans. In ten years (or even next week), I don't know that this will be seen as anything more than an average TV movie about a not-so-recent disaster. "WTC" is not a definitive statement about 9/11, or one that is likely to make you see that day any differently than you do now. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I was reminded of what Stanley Kubrick said about " Schindler's List ": "Think that was about the Holocaust? That was about success, wasn't it? The Holocaust is about six million people who get killed. 'Schindler's List' was about six hundred people who don't." That's perspective.

A closing voice-over states the movie's theme, to the effect of, "I saw good that day." And it's true -- catastrophe can bring out the best in people, more than they even knew they had in them, and 9/11 witnessed countless heroic, compassionate and selfless acts. But perhaps the most emotionally resonant moment in "WTC" comes in a passage after the collapse of the towers, when the movie flashes to televised reactions from all over the globe. It's a reminder that 9/11 also represents a missed opportunity. In addition to remembering the victims and the many who risked -- and gave -- their lives trying to help others, it's important to remember the intense, "We are all Americans" outpouring of grief and sympathy that united so much of the world on that day, and for just a few days or weeks afterwards, before politicians had reduced 9/11 to an election slogan. And it's a sad, terrible reminder of the enormous good we've lost in the five years since. Had we been able to build on those feelings, it would have been the most constructive and meaningful tribute to those who were killed, and to their families, and to those who survived. Maybe this is a political movie after all.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

Now playing

Monica Castillo

Despicable Me 4

Matt zoller seitz.

Find Me Falling

Rebel Moon: Director's Cuts

Simon abrams.

Widow Clicquot

Glenn kenny.

Hollywoodgate

Brian tallerico, film credits.

World Trade Center (2006)

Rated PG-13 for intense and emotional content, some disturbing images and language

128 minutes

Maggie Gyllenhaal as Allison

Nicolas Cage as McLoughlin

Jay Hernandez as Dominick

Michael Pena as Will Jimeno

Stephen Dorff as Scott Strauss

Maria Bello as Donna

Patti D'Arbanville as Lynn

Craig Armstrong

Directed by

Oliver Stone
Andrea Berloff

Cinematography by

Seamus McGarvey

Latest blog posts

A Woman Without Peers: Gena Rowlands (1930-2024)

The Needle Drop Sessions: Pump Up the Volume & Untamed Heart

Locarno Film Festival 2024: Youth (Hard Times), Transamazonia, Moon

Thumbnails 8/15/24: Six Must-Reads You Don’t Want To Miss This Week

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Upcoming Movies and TV shows
Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

What's the Tomatometer®?
Login/signup

Movies in theaters

Opening this week
Top box office
Coming soon to theaters
Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

Fandango at Home
Prime Video
Most popular streaming movies
What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

81% Alien: Romulus Link to Alien: Romulus
100% Daughters Link to Daughters
78% Cuckoo Link to Cuckoo

New TV Tonight

96% Industry: Season 3
91% Bad Monkey: Season 1
100% Solar Opposites: Season 5
58% Emily in Paris: Season 4
60% Rick and Morty: The Anime: Season 1
-- Bel-Air: Season 3
-- SEAL Team: Season 7
-- RuPaul's Drag Race Global All Stars: Season 1
-- Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures: Season 2
-- Worst Ex Ever: Season 1

World Trade Center Reviews

Stone's work is thoroughly conformist and encourages various forms of backwardness.

Full Review | Feb 14, 2021

I can't recommend World Trade Center, but I will say I respect the effort. Still, I think the material deserved a better final product than the one that Stone has delivered.

Full Review | Nov 20, 2019

A simple, hauntingly devastating, yet finally optimistic experience.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 6, 2019

Alas, [Oliver Stone's] approach to the events of 9/11 come from the most banal and disconcerting elements of Hollywood filmmaking

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Nov 3, 2018

Admittedly, there are a few great shots... But, still, none of it says anything new. And it's just so sentimental.

Full Review | Aug 22, 2018

Does justice to this significant event in modern history by resisting the urge to deliver a final verdict on how or why it happened.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 12, 2018

I started crying when I was writing this review. It is a tough movie. You are going to cry, but I urge you to see it. And when was the last time you saw or read something that made you feel positive about the human race.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jan 5, 2018

. . .after that big opening sequence, the sudden and disorienting shift in focus feels odd; the movie very quickly acquires the predictable feel of an episode of ER.

Full Review | Aug 18, 2017

A questioning artist neutering himself for the sake of uplift

Full Review | Aug 30, 2009

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 20, 2008

A tentative mixture of tearjerker and disaster movie, cautious due to the requirement that it bear witness to the true-life heroism, staying within the tonal range that is sanctioned for American films depicting 9/11.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 19, 2008

World Trade Center is not a great film. It barely passes as a good one. For a film that should have hollowed out its audience, I walked out strangely unmoved.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Feb 28, 2008

For all its noble intent the film brings to celluloid life makes just about every fear anyone had about a Hollywood treatment of the 9/11 tragedy.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 25, 2007

No particular reason to exist other than to garland itself with medals for telling an Uplifting True Story About Good Men.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Jul 23, 2007

A loving, respectful, much-deserved tribute.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 14, 2007

Full Review | Original Score: C | Apr 24, 2007

Stone rolls out the victim card minus historical context.

Full Review | Apr 22, 2007

It's 9/11 ingeniously structured as the basis of a Beckett play.

Full Review | Mar 15, 2007

An emotional and gripping two hours plus that rarely flags.

Full Review | Mar 1, 2007

I began to feel as if Stone were singling out the 'decent' people of America and making this story theirs alone.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 19, 2007

Share full article

Supported by

Movie Review

Pinned Under the Weight of Skyscrapers and History in 'World Trade Center'

By A.O. Scott

Aug. 9, 2006

How will Hollywood respond? This question began to surface not long after the Sept. 11 attacks — shockingly soon after, if memory serves.

It was impossible to banish the thought, even in the midst of that day’s horror and confusion, that the attacks themselves represented a movie scenario made grotesquely literal. What other frame of reference did we have for burning skyscrapers and commandeered airplanes? And then our eyes and minds were so quickly saturated with the actual, endlessly replayed images — the second plane’s impact; the plumes of smoke coming from the tops of the twin towers; the panicked citizens covered in ash — that the very notion of a cinematic reconstruction seemed worse than redundant. Nobody needed to be told that this was not a movie. And at the same time nobody could doubt that, someday, it would be.

And now, as the fifth anniversary approaches, it is. For a while a lot of movies seemed to deal with 9/11 obliquely or allegorically. But Paul Greengrass’s “United 93” and Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center,” rather than digging for meanings and metaphors, represent a return to the literal.

Both films revisit the immediate experience of Sept. 11, staking out a narrow perspective and filling it with maximum detail. Mr. Stone, much of whose film takes place at ground zero, does not share Mr. Greengrass’s clinical, quasi-documentary aesthetic. His sensibility is one of visual grandeur, sweeping emotion and heightened, sometimes overwrought, drama.

There are many words a critic might use to describe Mr. Stone’s films — maddening, brilliant, irresponsible, provocative, long — but subtle is unlikely to be on the list. Which makes him the right man for the job, since there was nothing subtle about the emotions of 9/11. Later there would be complications, nuances, gray areas, as the event and its aftermath were inevitably pulled into the murky, angry swirl of American politics. But that is territory Mr. Stone, somewhat uncharacteristically, avoids.

“World Trade Center” is only the second film, after “U Turn,” that he has directed entirely from someone else’s script, and Andrea Berloff’s screenplay, her first to be produced, imposes a salutary discipline on some of the director’s wilder impulses. The unruly intellectual ambitions that animate both Mr. Stone’s most vigorous work — “Platoon,” “Wall Street,” “J.F.K.” — and his woolliest — “Alexander,” “Natural Born Killers” — may be held in check here, but the sober carefulness of this project nonetheless highlights some of his strengths as a filmmaker.

There is really no other American director who can move so swiftly and emphatically from intimate to epic scale, saturating even quiet moments with fierce emotion. He edits like a maestro conducting Beethoven, coaxing images and sequences into a state of agitated eloquence.

Ms. Berloff’s script is composed in the key of strong, simple feeling, and brought to life with vivid clarity by Seamus McGarvey’s cinematography. “World Trade Center” is, from the first frame to last, almost unbearably moving. It could hardly be otherwise, given the facts of the story and the memories it will stir up.

The movie concentrates on two Port Authority police officers, John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno, who were trapped deep in the rubble of the collapsed towers, where they had gone to help with the evacuation after the first plane hit. Starting before dawn on Sept. 11 and covering roughly the next 24 hours, the narrative switches back and forth from the men to their families, in particular the wives, who spend agonized hours waiting for news of their husbands’ fates.

Sergeant McLoughlin, played by Nicolas Cage, has a quiet, watchful air. A veteran of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, he rushes into the breach on 9/11 knowing that no adequate plan exists to deal with a catastrophe of this magnitude. Jimeno (Michael Peña), a rookie, is eager and a little anxious; his face registers his desire to prove himself on the job and also distinct shadings of fear — both the worry that he’ll mess up and, as the hours go by, a much deeper terror.

Pinned under tons of smashed masonry and twisted metal, they keep talking to each other to keep despair and sleep at bay, and you get the sense that it’s their first real conversation, an exchange of commonplaces in the face of death. McLoughlin and his wife, Donna (Maria Bello), have four children; Jimeno and his wife, Allison (Maggie Gyllenhaal), are expecting their second, and as the two men talk, the banalities of domestic life take on an almost sacred cast.

In an Oliver Stone film actors are well advised to bring their own nuances, and the delicacy and insight of the performances in “World Trade Center” complement the director’s bold brushstrokes. Ms. Bello reveals Donna’s toughness without overstating it, while Ms. Gyllenhaal suggests a complicated, prickly personality underneath the panic and grief.

Mr. Cage turns all his intensity inward, playing a man who can be a little self-conscious about his own reticence. (“People don’t like me because I don’t smile a lot,” he says.) He looks older and more worn than he has in other films, and he wears his character’s tired stoicism like an old shirt.

Mr. Peña, who played the good-hearted locksmith in “Crash,” is friendlier and jumpier; Jimeno slips naturally into the role of McLoughlin’s talkative kid brother. the temperamental contrast between the two actors keeps the movie going through its long, difficult middle stretch.

Both the officers and their wives spend most of “World Trade Center” in different states of paralysis. The men are physically immobilized, while the women, surrounded by well-meaning friends and family, can neither help their husbands nor learn for sure what has happened to them. And so they sit stricken, by the telephone or in front of the television, as a maelstrom of hectic activity engulfs New York and its environs.

It is this combination of frantic action with stunned, shocked impotence that “World Trade Center” most effectively reproduces. The details are all in place — the office paper falling like snow; the voices of Tom Brokaw and Aaron Brown extemporizing a collective interpretation of something no one could have imagined; the briefly glimpsed faces of George W. Bush and Rudolph W. Giuliani projecting leadership from the television screen — but the point of the movie is not so much to construct a visual replica as to immerse you, once again, in shock, terror, rage and sorrow. And also in the solidarity and concern — the love — that were part of 9/11.

The movie is not only about the victims of the attack and their families, but also about their rescuers, notably David Karnes (Michael Shannon), who leaves his office job in Connecticut, puts on his Marine Corps uniform and slips into ground zero to search for survivors. Karnes is the only character in the film who looks past the smoke and suffering and articulates a desire for revenge.

But Mr. Stone and Ms. Berloff, like Mr. Greengrass, keep their distance from post- — or, for that matter, pre- — 9/11 politics. The two men buried under the Trade Center don’t even know what brought it down, and everyone else is much too busy to begin learning the exotic vocabulary we would all eventually acquire. This movie has nothing to say about Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda or jihad. That comes later.

In the Sept. 11 of “World Trade Center,” feeling transcends politics, and the film’s astonishingly faithful re-creation of the emotional reality of the day produces a curious kind of nostalgia. It’s not that anyone would wish to live through such agony again, but rather that the extraordinary upsurge of fellow feeling that the attacks produced seems precious. And also very distant from the present. Mr. Stone has taken a public tragedy and turned it into something at once genuinely stirring and terribly sad. His film offers both a harrowing return to a singular, disastrous episode in the recent past and a refuge from the ugly, depressing realities of its aftermath.

“World Trade Center” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has scenes of extreme, upsetting violence, most of which reproduce images that were originally seen on television during daylight hours.

WORLD TRADE CENTER

Opens today nationwide.

Directed by Oliver Stone; written by Andrea Berloff, based on the true stories of John and Donna McLoughlin and William and Allison Jimeno; director of photography, Seamus McGarvey; edited by David Brenner and Julie Monroe; music by Craig Armstrong; production designer, Jan Roelfs; produced by Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher, Moritz Borman and Debra Hill; released by Paramount Pictures. Running time: 129 minutes.

WITH: Nicolas Cage (John McLoughlin), Michael Peña (Will Jimeno), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Allison Jimeno), Maria Bello (Donna McLoughlin), Stephen Dorff (Scott Strauss), Jay Hernandez (Dominick Pezzulo) and Michael Shannon (Dane Karnes).

World Trade Center Review

29 Sep 2006

129 minutes

World Trade Center

It’s easy to forget that September 11, 2001, started like any other day. A sunny morning where ordinary people got out of bed, showered, looked in on their sleeping kids, and then went to work amid the purposeful bustle of New York’s rush hour. Oliver Stone wants us to remember that, commencing his latest exploration of America in crisis with an elegantly edited montage of daily routines; the simple rhythms of life. Loved ones, family ties, honest toil: see what was at stake? What is still at stake? After getting lost in Greece, Stone is back on home turf — his fragile dream of a golden America.

What happens next, foreshadowed quite literally by the outline of a passenger jet rippling across the face of a building, is forever imprinted on our minds from those movie-like television images that traced 9/11’s traumatic progress. Cinema, however, as Paul Greengrass revealed in United 93,

is able to take us through the protective shield of the screen and into the gut-wrenching immediacy of ‘event’. And here, tooled with seamless special effects and his gift for transforming history into pulsating cinema, Stone tosses us into the very centre of the maelstrom.

It’s a nightmare at once familiar and utterly alien, as a handful of transit cops, who hadn’t yet been able to help a soul, found a skyscraper descending upon them like a house of cards. Never has the sheer immensity of that concept — unimaginable tons of masonry let loose by gravity — been made so stunningly apparent. If nothing else, Stone fully translates the catastrophic enormity at 9/11’s Manhattan epicentre.

Two of those cops would awaken entombed in an underworld of twisted metal and shattered concrete lit by spurts of gassy flame, like something conjured by the lurid imagination of Hieronymus Bosch or Terry Gilliam. Reality had passed into

a realm of dark fantasy. But, as a rescue worker warns, it was “likely to come down like pick-up sticks” at any moment.

When the chaos is silenced for the claustrophobia of their entrapment, the film’s urgency becomes stifled. Cutting between the two men at the gates of death and the families trapped in a hell of uncertainty, Stone runs the risk of getting all mushy on us. To his credit, he largely keeps the sentiment at bay, viewing his protagonists — played with quiet force by Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena as the cops, and Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal as their pensive wives — as noble, blue-collar folk. But screenwriter Andrea Berloff is guilty of letting them sound like the Hallmark Channel. Or is it that the events of the day reached such a melodramatic pitch? Under such extremes, perhaps we do find solace in movie-talk.

If Greengrass was reaching for truth, a cut-glass form of vérité filmmaking in which the violent shudders of its recreation are almost painful, then Stone is pursuing the straightforward emotions of big cinema. It’s a much easier film to take than United 93, and a far less challenging one, but it may ultimately be more effective. You have to engage an audience with the familiar patterns of disaster movies and soap operas if they are to process the ocean of terror and sadness that lies beneath. This is a director with the sense that populism can carry ideas far wider than the fierceness of art.

In a work of considerable restraint and emotional directness, there are only slivers of Stone’s needling intensity and political paranoia — Bush appears only on a passing television screen. The provocateur of his prodigious past does emerge in the suggestion of a religious subtext (Pena’s Will experiences visions of Christ) and a glance toward the war to come (the Marine who unearths them did two tours in Iraq). And the ever-present hold of Vietnam can be felt in its hymn to brotherhood in suffering. But there are no grassy knolls, no industrio-military complexes, no mention of terrorism or conspiracy.

This is an Oliver Stone cautiously finding his way back into filmmaking — at the risk of over-reading things, it’s possible to see a connection between the movie’s place in the recuperation of America and his own recovery from the critical reception of Alexander. This is about honouring a value system he believes in — love, courage, humanism — and his conviction that it is the indomitable heart of the working man that defines America. Which could make it Stone’s most optimistic film.

Jon Bernthal Will Be Daredevil's Punisher

Movies | 09 06 2015

Movies | 22 05 2006

World Trade Center (2006)

In the days after September 11, some cultural commentators foresaw an end of an era of irony and cynicism, the death of a jaded, postmodern culture in which nothing could be taken seriously.

Artistic/Entertainment Value

Moral/spiritual value, age appropriateness, mpaa rating, caveat spectator.

Writing for Time magazine, Roger Rosenblatt declared, “For some 30 years — roughly as long as the Twin Towers were upright — the good folks in charge of America’s intellectual life have insisted that nothing was to be believed in or taken seriously. Nothing was real. With a giggle and a smirk, our chattering classes — our columnists and pop culture makers — declared that detachment and personal whimsy were the necessary tools for an oh-so-cool life. … The ironists, seeing through everything, made it difficult for anyone to see anything.”

Perhaps not quite coincidentally, for most of that same thirty years, Oliver Stone has been making movies steeped in jaded cynicism and skepticism, if not always irony. From Platoon to Wall Street to JFK to Natural Born Killers , ruthlessness, corruption and decadence are the order of the day in Stone’s world.

You could say it’s ironic, then, that World Trade Center — as unabashed a tribute to heroism and human decency as Hollywood has produced in years — should be directed by Stone. Stone is personally hostile to patriotism and nationalism, which he has called “the two most evil forces that I know of in this century or in any century.” Yet World Trade Center is as wholesomely all-American as the prologue of Born on the Fourth of July — the key difference being that this time Stone isn’t setting up a house of cards in order to knock it down.

When three NYC cops step forward to volunteer to rush into the crippled towers and try to rescue civilians, the film isn’t out to debunk their naivete, but to honor their courage. When ex-Marine Dave Karnes (Michael Shannon), surveying the smoking ruins of Ground Zero, declares that “It’s gonna take a lot to avenge this,” it isn’t the blind rage of a bloodthirsty zealot, but the grim resolve of a righteous warrior.

“9/11 showed us what human beings are capable of,” one character reflects in an epilogue set two years after the fact. “The evil, yeah, sure. But it also brought out a goodness we forgot could exist. … It’s important for us to talk about that good, to remember, because I saw a lot of it that day.”

Based on the true story of police officers John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno (Nicholas Cage and Michael Peña), who were almost the last survivors to be pulled from the smoking rubble of the Twin Towers, World Trade Center is so doggedly decent and uplifting that a number of critics have suggested that it feels less like the work of an Oliver Stone than a Ron Howard.

Perhaps it is even reminiscent of a particular Ron Howard movie: Backdraft , Howard’s 1991 tribute to the heroism of big-city first-responders who rush toward disaster scenes while everyone else rushes away. An even more exact parallel might be a post-9/11 film has also been compared to Backdraft : Ladder 49 , starring John Travolta and Joaquin Phoenix in a story about a rescue effort involving an injured firefighter trapped in a burning warehouse.

Like Ladder 49 , World Trade Center tells its story against a backdrop of Christian and Catholic faith. Crucifixes, crosses, a Bible and other religious trappings are in evidence, and a Catholic character actually has a vision-like experience of Jesus Christ modeled on the Sacred Heart image.

Also like Ladder 49 (and Backdraft ), World Trade Center has its share of melodrama and cliché. Characters have lines like “I finally figured out the only thing I’m good at is helping people” and talk about “people taking care of each other, for no other reason than it was the right thing to do.”

Sometimes this kind of writing can evoke unaffected sincerity; other times, it seems merely trite, perhaps reflecting the inexperience of first-time feature screenwriter Andrea Berloff. A flashback shows Jimeno and his pregnant wife Alison (Maggie Gyllenhaal) snuggling in bed, playfully debating whether to name their unborn daughter Olivia or Alyssa. Then Will winds up trapped beneath the fallen towers, and neither he nor Alison knows if they’ll ever see the other again. Sure enough, before you can say “The Gift of the Magi,” Alison, who originally liked Olivia, switches to Alyssa, while Will, who wanted Alyssa, does his best to leave his wife a message urging her to choose Olivia.

World Trade Center includes some striking images and moments. As the police rush toward Ground Zero, they are engulfed in a blizzard of office paper pouring from the gaping wounds in the towers. Anonymous evacuees drift silently past the advancing police, some covered in dust or streaked with blood.

Alarming groans from the building above as the police proceed through the main concourse foreshadow the disaster they can hardly imagine. Then there’s a striking moment toward the end of the film, after nearly 24 hours of imprisonment at the epicenter of the worst terrorist attack in US history and nearly 12 hours of rescue efforts, as McLoughlin becomes one of the last people in the world to learn what actually happened to the World Trade Center.

But World Trade Center is more a sentimental melodrama than the story of an event. It rushes through the suspense and logistics of the first act in order to spend as much time as possible in the hole with McLoughlin and Jimenez and in the homes of their families. Where Paul Greengrass’s brilliant United 93 crafted a documentary-like anatomy of events without presuming to get inside people’s heads or explain actions or motivations, World Trade Center is a more conventional Hollywood film, with dramatic dialogue, characters following clearly plotted arcs, and a swelling soundtrack to reinforce the mood.

It’s also worth noting that United 93 focused on the one subplot from that day of infamy that was in any way a victory against the terrorists. Every passenger on that flight died, yes — but their actions prevented the hijackers from reaching their intended target in Washington, DC.

World Trade Center tells a story with more traditionally heroic protagonists and a formally happier ending, but it is also arguably less inspirational. That these brave men walked willingly into the smoking towers is laudable, certainly; that they survived is a veritable miracle. But what they survived was an unmitigated disaster, an absolute triumph of evil. By contrast, what happened on that field in Pennsylvania was also a tragedy, but a victory as well.

I’m grateful for every one of the score of survivors pulled from the ruins of Ground Zero in that first 24 hours. But I’m more grateful for the resistance of the passengers of Flight 93. I’m gratified by the readiness with which ordinary Americans grasped and responded in kind to the previously unimaginable atrocity in which they found themselves, depriving the terrorists of the advantage of surprise that they would never again be able to use in this way.

This is not to say that stories of Ground Zero aren’t worth telling, or that World Trade Center doesn’t work at all, in a Hallmark Channel sort of way. Cage’s familiar screen presence recedes effectively into the role of McLoughlin, and Peña is even better as rookie Jimeno. Gyllenhaal is disarmingly brittle and disconnected as Alison, while Maria Bello gives a moving performance as McLoughlin’s wife Donna, and gets one of the movie’s most affecting scenes with a grieving mother (Viola Davis, very effective in a small part).

Is it enough? When United 93 opened, the question was first raised whether it’s “too soon” for 9/11 movies. I don’t think it’s “too soon” for a film like United 93 , which is riveting without making an entertainment of its subject. World Trade Center , though, feels more like “just a movie.” Is it “too soon” for a movie like that? No one can presume to answer that question for anyone else, but World Trade Center raises the question for me in a way that United 93 didn’t.

Crisis of meaning, part 3: What lies beyond the Spider-Verse?
Crisis of meaning, part 2: The lie at the end of the MCU multiverse
Crisis of Meaning on Infinite Earths, part 1: The multiverse and superhero movies
Two things I wish George Miller had done differently in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Furiosa tells the story of a world (almost) without hope

Now Playing

Skip to main content
Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Real Cops Say 'World Trade Center' Gets It Right

Oliver Stone's World Trade Center is based on the Ground Zero ordeal of two New York Port Authority police officers and their rescuers, including one from the NYPD. Two of the cops depicted in the film discuss their ordeal: one who was trapped, a second who came to the rescue.

Letterboxd — Your life in film

Forgotten username or password ?

Start a new list…
Add all films to a list…
Add all films to watchlist

Add to your films…

Press Tab to complete, Enter to create

A moderator has locked this field.

Add to lists

Where to watch

World trade center.

Directed by Oliver Stone

The world saw evil that day. Two men saw something else.

Two police officers struggle to survive when they become trapped beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Nicolas Cage Michael Peña Maria Bello Maggie Gyllenhaal Danny Nucci Stephen Dorff Jay Hernandez Michael Shannon Dorothy Lyman Peter McRobbie Wass Stevens Frank Whaley Stoney Westmoreland Viola Davis Lola Cook Connor Paolo Anthony Piccininni Alexa Gerasimovich Morgan Flynn Armando Riesco Jon Bernthal Jude Ciccolella Julie Adams Joe Starr William Jimeno Nick Damici Martin Pfefferkorn Razame de la Crackers Nelson Peña Show All… Marcos Palma Andre Ward Lisa Yuen Cliff Bemis Harmonica Sunbeam Ned Eisenberg Nicholas Turturro Tyree Michael Simpson Kevin Feely Mark Elliot Wilson Tawny Cypress Robert Blanche Tom Wright Terry Quinn Ed Jewett Maria Helan Brad William Henke Patti D'Arbanville Donna Murphy Nicky Katt Lucia Brawley Kimberly Scott Dara Coleman Tiffany Romano Gregory Jbara Jordan Lage Tony Genaro Aixa Maldonado Jay Acovone Howard Samuelsohn David H. Ahl Arthur J. Nascarella Thom Prin Jr. Steve Chappell William Mapother Thomas F. Duffy Tommy Asher Charles A. Gargano Thomas McHale Lalanya Masters Greg Collins Scott Fox Louis Raimondi Victor Spadaro John Kiernan Liz A. Randall Roger Cross Jossara Jinaro Joseph Esposito Gary Stretch Kurt Caceres John C. McGinley

Director Director

Oliver Stone

Producers Producers

Debra Hill Michael Shamberg Stacey Sher Moritz Borman Robert S. Wilson Robert S. Costanzo Chantal Feghali

Writer Writer

Andrea Berloff

Story Story

John McLoughlin

Casting Casting

Kerry Barden Suzanne Smith Crowley Mary Vernieu Billy Hopkins Paul Schnee J.C. Cantu

Editors Editors

David Brenner Julie Monroe

Cinematography Cinematography

Seamus McGarvey

Assistant Directors Asst. Directors

Simon Warnock Darin Rivetti Kathryn-Ann Oaks Shertzer Maggie Murphy

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

Norman Golightly Donald J. Lee Jr.

Lighting Lighting

John G. Velez Alejandro J. Castillo Greg Gladstone

Camera Operators Camera Operators

Peter Rosenfeld Christopher Duskin Michael Pinkey

Additional Photography Add. Photography

Kyle Rudolph Stephen S. Campanelli Sebastián Almeida

Production Design Production Design

Art direction art direction.

Richard L. Johnson Jeffrey D. McDonald Hinju Kim

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Beth A. Rubino Gregory S. Hooper Randall D. Wilkins Kathleen Rosen Chad B. Daring

Special Effects Special Effects

Jeff Brink Gary D'Amico Garnet Baril

Visual Effects Visual Effects

Chantal Feghali Carol Corwin Andy Brown Michael Bruce Ellis Andy Taylor Richard McBride Jamee Houk John Scheele Edwina Hayes

Stunts Stunts

Doug Coleman Brian Avery Todd Bryant Jeremy Fitzgerald Roy T. Anderson Meegan E. Godfrey Rick Avery Eliza Coleman John Cenatiempo Jennifer Lamb Stephanie Finochio Mickey Giacomazzi

Composer Composer

Craig Armstrong

Sound Sound

Jeremy Pitts Sarah Monat Hector C. Gika Michael Keller Scott Wolf Wylie Stateman Renée Tondelli Scott Millan Linda Lew Harry Cohen Jeffrey Wilhoit Ann Scibelli Daniel R. Kerr John Pritchett Nerses Gezalyan Robin Harlan Randy Singer

Costume Design Costume Design

Michael Dennison

Makeup Makeup

James Sarzotti Mindy Hall Kimberly Felix

Hairstyling Hairstyling

Mary L. Mastro Suzy Mazzarese-Allison Ilona Herman Marc Boyle

Paramount Pictures Double Feature Films Intermedia Kernos Filmproduktionsgesellschaft & Company Ixtlan

Germany USA

Releases by Date

01 sep 2006, 02 sep 2006, 14 sep 2006, 17 sep 2006, 20 sep 2006, 11 oct 2006, theatrical limited, 09 aug 2006, 15 sep 2006, 21 sep 2006, 22 sep 2006, 28 sep 2006, 29 sep 2006, 05 oct 2006, 06 oct 2006, 07 oct 2006, 12 oct 2006, 13 oct 2006, 19 oct 2006, 01 nov 2006, 02 nov 2006, 09 nov 2006, 17 nov 2006, 25 nov 2006, 08 dec 2006, 22 mar 2007, 04 sep 2007, 07 sep 2009, releases by country.

Theatrical M

Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

Theatrical 12
Premiere Helsinki International Film Festival
Premiere Deauville Film Festival
Theatrical U
Premiere Panorama of European Cinema
Theatrical 13
Theatrical 16
Theatrical 15
Premiere Venice Film Festival
Theatrical T
Premiere Tokyo

Netherlands

Premiere Film by the Sea Film Festival
Physical 12 DVD
Physical 12 Blu-ray
TV 12 SBS 6

Philippines

Theatrical Manila
Theatrical M/12

Russian Federation

South korea.

Theatrical 11
Theatrical 12A
Theatrical PG-13
Theatrical limited Valley Film Festival
Theatrical Montevideo

129 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by 🐝harley🌿 ★★ 4

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

If you watch this movie backwards, firefighters plant Nic Cage and Michael Peña in the ground and they blossom into two beautiful skyscrapers.

Review by shookone ★ 1

paramount studio exec #1: hey, it's five years. i think we should do a movie about 9/11 finally.

paramount studio exec #2: sure man, but let's not take any risks. i don't wanna have a scandal in our house.

PSE#1: soooo, heroic dinner TV movie about US solidarity, with a lot of schmooze and hope and shit?

PSE#2: dinner TV movie it is! hey Steven, you got time?

Steven Spielberg: this is too delicate for me.

Michael Bay: hey guys, i'm down! can a couple of transformers save Nicolas Cage out of the rubble? and then go fight some muslims over in some arab country?

Peter Berg: wait guys, i wouldn't need heavy machinery. just Mark Wahlberg being our prototype…

Review by matt lynch ★★★

The jangly Oliver Stone 9/11 movie this was sometimes criticized for not being might indeed have been an electric, angry moral corrective, but not necessarily a constructive one. Maybe a stretch but inside this seemingly conventional story of heroism seems to be Stone's mournful memory of the last point at which Americans banded together to do something that represented our ostensible values. We sort of blew it after that.

Review by karlails ★★½ 2

I rate it 9/11.

Review by bill griff ★★½

Something about having Nic Cage paired with 9/11 just feels offensive.

Review by aksel 1

watched this at the supermega office with chiblee right after he landed from his 12 hour flight

Review by Logan Kenny ★★

Stone's attempt to make his 9/11 film profoundly melodramatic instead of utterly perverse is one of his biggest miscalculations as a filmmaker. this is a movie that could have been made by anyone. no exploding eyeballs or humanity in sight.

Review by piangero ★★ 1

Not sure how they managed to make a film about 9/11 boring but they did it

Review by Jay Cheel ★½ 4

Roland Emmerich's Godzilla meets a Hallmark Channel Original Movie. Wish Stone would've taken more time exploring Maria Bello's repressed vampirism.

Review by Cole Turner ★★ 1

This seems like something made-up from a subreddit discussing films while creating fake film posters for laughs.

Review by jenna✨ ★ 4

VIOLA DAVIS?????????

Review by Johnny2Cellos ★½ 8

“This entire thing is like a pile of pick up sticks”- dialogue in this movie describing ground zero

Very weird that they focused on the few cops who went into the towers instead of the HUNDREDS of firefighters.

Similar Films

Select your preferred backdrop

Select your preferred poster, upgrade to remove ads.

Letterboxd is an independent service created by a small team, and we rely mostly on the support of our members to maintain our site and apps. Please consider upgrading to a Pro account —for less than a couple bucks a month, you’ll get cool additional features like all-time and annual stats pages ( example ), the ability to select (and filter by) your favorite streaming services, and no ads!

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

For Parents
For Educators
Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

Movie Reviews
Best Movie Lists
Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

Best TV Lists
Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
Common Sense Selections for TV
Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

Book Reviews
Best Book Lists
Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

Game Reviews
Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

Podcast Reviews
Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

App Reviews
Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

YouTube Channel Reviews
YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

How to Prepare Your Kids for School After a Summer of Screen Time

Family Tech Planners
Digital Skills
All Articles
Latino Culture
Black Voices
Asian Stories
Native Narratives
LGBTQ+ Pride
Best of Diverse Representation List

Multicultural Books

YouTube Channels with Diverse Representations

Podcasts with Diverse Characters and Stories

World trade center.

Common Sense Says
Parents Say 3 Reviews
Kids Say 6 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

By Cynthia Fuchs , based on child development research. How do we rate?

Inspiring 9/11 account too much for younger kids.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 14+?

A shot of the hole left by one of the planes shows flames; a tiny figure appears

One "f--k;" other profanity used by injured men.

Mention of Target, CVS aisles show glimpses of products.

Characters smoke cigarettes.

A couple appears in bed together during a white-lit, happy flashback (some kissi

Any Positive Content?

Characters cope with traumatic circumstances with resolve, courage, and compassi

Violence & Scariness

A shot of the hole left by one of the planes shows flames; a tiny figure appears from a long distance, jumping/falling from one of the towers; scenes of the collapsing towers are disturbing (loud noises, chaotic editing, cuts to black screens); people emerge from towers bloody and dazed; TV image of United Flight 93 crash site in Pennsylvania; men lying beneath rubble are plainly injured (they have trouble breathing, lose consciousness, describe their crushed knees and other damage; a trapped man fires a gun into the air, then dies.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Drinking, drugs & smoking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A couple appears in bed together during a white-lit, happy flashback (some kissing, much laughing).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Characters cope with traumatic circumstances with resolve, courage, and compassion.

Parents need to know that this film isn't appropriate for younger kids and may be too much for sensitive teens. It includes explicit images of the World Trade Center Towers collapsing, mostly from inside the buildings (with crashing/exploding sound effects). It also features potentially upsetting television footage and recreations of Ground Zero, the air filled with smoke and dust, with fires burning. Early on, you see a body falling from a tower (and cops' horrified reactions); later, several men are crushed by the falling building; one dies on screen, gurgling blood from his mouth as another observes (again, horrified). At the hospital the victims' injuries are visible (broken limbs, bloody faces). Family members waiting for news are tense and sad, and some argue; a woman cries about her lost son; a pregnant woman vomits; some characters smoke cigarettes and use occasional harsh language. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

Parents say (3)
Kids say (6)

Based on 3 parent reviews

good acount of 9/11

What's the story.

"Based on actual accounts of surviving participants," WORLD TRADE CENTER builds on details. Port Authority Police Department Sergeant John McLoughlin ( Nicolas Cage, ) begins a routine day on 9/11, then leads his team on a mission to help people escape the World Trade Center, but the towers fall and trap him and rookie cop Will Jimeno (Michael Pena). Injured, they hang on for long hours. The survivors' waiting comprises much of the film, their fear and character exposed in tight close-ups. Unable to move, their heroism is defined by their pain and fortitude, rather than comic-booky action. We also see TV viewers around the world, shocked at the destruction, and worried families including Will and John's. John and Will essentially talk each other into staying awake, and there is a supremely subjective moment experienced by Will -- the film's effort to reconstruct what went on in the men's minds during this most grueling experience. In another subplot, we see Ground Zero through the eyes of hardnosed Marine Dave Karnes (Michael Shannon), who, according to an epigraph, goes on to seek "vengeance" during two tours in Iraq.

Is It Any Good?

While it may not be time for all viewers to see the film's images of devastation, others will appreciate the uplifting point as it focuses on a small group of people to recount a vast tragedy. September 11th remains a difficult day to remember, even as it's increasingly mythologized and recast in media images.

Will and John's story is more effective than the heavy-handed representation of Marine Dave Karnes. A kind of military guardian angel, he looks at Ground Zero and proclaims, "It's like God made a curtain with the smoke, shielding us from what were not ready to see." It's an outsized, quintessentially Stoneian moment (think: Willem Dafoe dying with arms outstretched in Platoon ), resolutely apolitical and burdened with mythic meaning).

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the relationship that develops between the two survivors, John and Will: How do they keep each other alive by sharing personal stories? How does the community get through the waiting and grieving? How do the kids react to their fathers' unknown status? How do their mothers answer their questions in ways that are honest and also comforting?

Families can also talk about their own recollections of the day and answer any questions kids may have about the tragic events.

Movie Details

In theaters : August 9, 2006
On DVD or streaming : December 12, 2006
Cast : Maria Bello , Michael Pena , Nicolas Cage
Director : Oliver Stone
Inclusion Information : Female actors, Latino actors
Studio : Paramount Pictures
Genre : Drama
Run time : 125 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : intense and emotional content, some disturbing images and language
Last updated : May 3, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

What to watch next.

Reign Over Me

Fahrenheit 9/11

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

World Trade Center (2006)

Your changes have been saved

Email is sent

Email has already been sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

World Trade Center

Academy Award®-winning director Oliver Stone tells the true story of the heroic survival and rescue of two Port Authority policemen - John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno - who were trapped in the rubble of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, after they went in to help people escape. The film also follows their families as they try to find out what happened to them, as well as the rescuers who found them in the debris field and pulled them out. Their story shows how the best in people rose above the tragic events of that day. ============= "Will and I feel an obligation to all those men that we lost that day," says Port Authority Police Dept. Sgt. John McLoughlin. "Through us, we're able to get the story out of all those men that sacrificed themselves that day. There is no doubt in my mind that the filmmakers wanted to show honor and respect to those who perished too." "John and me, we're down-to-earth people, we're just regular American families," says Jimeno, "but a lot of regular Americans were doing the best they could that day. I am very honored to represent that." The motion picture based on their experiences, "World Trade Center," is directed by three-time Academy Award®-winner Oliver Stone, who says that from the moment he read Andrea Berloff's screenplay, he knew this was a story that he wanted to tell.

Nicolas Cage Joins Oliver Stone's Edward Snowden Movie

Nicolas Cage will star as a former U.S. Intelligence official in director Oliver Stone's Edward Snowden biopic with Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Margot Robbie Joins Gambling Drama Dangerous Odds

Warner Bros. is in talks to acquire Marisa Lankester's memoir Dangerous Odds, with Margot Robbie attached to star in the gambling drama.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Reveals More The Legend of Conan Details

Producer Fredrik Malmberg and writer Andrea Berloff also offer insight into the story, with Conan fighting to retain his throne at 60 years of age.

The Legend of Conan Lands Screenwriter Andrea Berloff

Arnold Schwarzenegger is reprising the title role in this first of a planned trilogy for Universal Pictures.

Stephen Dorff Talks Immortals [Exclusive]

The actor portrays Stavros in Tarsem Singh's 3D mythological epic, due in theaters November 11.

BOX OFFICE BEAT DOWN: Limitless Takes Over the Box Office with $19 Million!

While Rango and Battle: Los Angeles hold their ground at second and third place, respectively.

BOX OFFICE PREDICTIONS: Will Battle: Los Angeles Be Able to Defend Its Spot at the Top of the Charts?

Or does Limitless, Paul and The Lincoln Lawyer stand a chance at taking down the reigning champ this weekend?

BOX OFFICE BEAT DOWN: Battle: Los Angeles Destroys the Box Office with $36 Million!

While Rango falls to second place and Red Riding Hood debuts at number three.

LOL Production Begins

The Mandate Pictures film stars Miley Cyrus and Demi Moore.

Andrea Berloff to Pen Straight Outta Compton

The World Trade Center writer to take on the N.W.A. rap group.

HBO Films Grabs the Rights to Guests of the Ayatollah Novel

The movie will be based on the novel by Mark Bowden.

The Dark Knight Breaks Blu-ray Records!

Blu-ray sales alone have reached 1.7 million worldwide.

NBC Announces Mid-Season Lineup

Take a look at what changes are in store for the network.

The Dark Knight Rises Up to DVD and Blu-ray on December 9th!

The street date for this year's biggest film is finally confirmed, and we get a glimpse at the artwork and the sell-sheets for the releases!

Dreamworks Picks Up Andrea Berloff Spy Thriller

Based on the true story of two spies in the upper levels of the intelligence agency.

NBC Announces New Fall Schedule

The network is giving an early glimpse at what to expect for the new season.

Craig Armstrong to Provide Score for The Incredible Hulk

The composer for Elizabeth: The Golden Age will create the music for Marvel's Jade Goliath.

Jon Bernthal Discusses Day Zero [Exclusive]

The young actor talks about his role, working alongside Elijah Wood and Chris Klein and his thoughts on the delayed Pinkville project.

Justin Timberlake Joins the Cast of The Love Guru

The Mike Myers' comedy also stars Jessica Alba, Romany Malco and Verne Troyer.

Notice: All forms on this website are temporarily down for maintenance. You will not be able to complete a form to request information or a resource. We apologize for any inconvenience and will reactivate the forms as soon as possible.

DVD & Streaming

World Trade Center

Drama , War

Content Caution

In Theaters

Nicolas Cage as John McLoughlin; Michael Peña as Will Jimeno; Maria Bello as Donna McLoughlin; Maggie Gyllenhaal as Allison Jimeno; Jay Hernandez as Dominick Pezzulo; Michael Shannon as Dave Karnes; Stephen Dorff as Scott Strauss

Home Release Date

Oliver Stone

Distributor

Paramount Pictures

Movie Review

As he always did, John McLoughlin woke up at 3:29 a.m. It was Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. The 21-year veteran of the Port Authority Police Department in New York City quietly dressed for work. It would be one of the last normal things he did that day, though he could not know that as he peeked in on each of his four slumbering children before heading into the city.

After arriving at the station, Sgt. McLoughlin barely finishes doling out daily assignments to his Port Authority officers when they are interrupted by an ominous, muffled thump . Inaccurate initial reports indicate Tower One of the World Trade Center has been hit by a commuter plane, and the officers spring into action.

In the shadow of the smoldering skyscraper, with soot and a ghostly deluge of paper raining down upon them, McLoughlin asks for volunteers to head into the complex. Three men answer his call: Will Jimeno, Dominick Pezzulo and Antonio Rodrigues. Before the team can haul oxygen upstairs, however, the unthinkable happens: The first of the Twin Towers collapses. McLoughlin, Jimeno and Pezzulo dive into an elevator shaft—which saves their lives, though McLoughlin and Jimeno are pinned beneath rubble too heavy to move. Pezzulo bravely attempts to free Jimeno, but the collapse of the second tower takes his life. It’s as Sgt. McLoughlin says much earlier: “We prepared for everything … but not this.”

Only 20 people were found alive after the towers collapsed. This is the story of Nos. 18 and 19.

As their ordeal begins, their savior is still 50 miles away, in Wilton, Conn. There, former Marine Staff Sgt. Dave Karnes hears the news and feels compelled to travel to Ground Zero to search for survivors. And his determination to follow his sense of God’s leading makes all the difference for John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno.

Positive Elements

Despite its tragic context, World Trade Center delivers a powerful story that focuses on the life-giving relational bonds between its main characters. Trapped beneath tons of debris, John and Will realize they have to keep talking to stay awake and stay alive. They share poignant stories about their wives and families. John tells Will, “I married the right one, you know?” Will concurs. And on a scrap of a paper, Will manages to scratch out a note to his wife, Allison: “I [heart] U, A.” Though no one can hear him, Will screams what he wants his pregnant wife to name their baby (the name she wanted): “Officer Jimeno requests his daughter be named Olivia. … Please tell my family I love them very much.”

Both men recall tender memories of moments with their wives and children (and their wives, Allison and Donna, have similar flashbacks). They talk about their careers as well. “The only thing I ever wanted to be was a cop,” Will says. When John begins to feel guilty for the deaths of other officers under his command, Will tells him, “They did what they had to do. They couldn’t have lived with themselves if they hadn’t gone in.”

Karnes and other rescuers who climb down through the wreckage to save the trapped men, put themselves at considerable risk in their selfless efforts. Willing to sacrifice his ability to walk for the sake of his comrade, Will pleads with the rescuers, asking them to cut off his leg (which they don’t have to do) because it’s blocking their ability to get to John.

As John slips from consciousness during his rescue, he dreams of his wife and apologizes for not being the best husband or dad. She reassures him that their relationship was hard but did have moments of magic and connection. Then, in his mind, he imagines her telling him, “Get off your a–, John. Get up, and come home.” When John finally sees his wife at the hospital, he tells her, “You kept me alive.”

Both wives are depicted as human, yet strong, capable and loving women who are devoted to family. Despite grief and fear, each does her best to stay engaged with her kids and help them through the heart-wrenching uncertainty.

Spiritual Elements

The film strongly affirms people of faith and the role of supernatural belief during times of crisis. Will’s faith in God plays a key role in him finding the mental strength to survive. Likewise, Karnes credits God with leading him toward the trapped men.

Of all the characters, Karnes’ faith is the most personal. After hearing the news of the tragedy, he goes to his church to talk with his pastor about what to do. Karnes believes God has called him to go to New York City to help with the rescue operation. He tells his pastor, “God gave me a gift to be able to help people and to defend our country.” That conviction leads him into the wreckage in search of survivors, whom he’s convinced he will find.

Standing just outside Ground Zero, Karnes says, “It’s like God made a curtain with the smoke, shielding us from what we’re not yet ready to see.” But when others call off the search for the night, Dave keeps looking.

Underneath Karnes feet, John prays the Lord’s Prayer. And Will has two visions of Jesus bringing him a bottle of water. After the second vision, he encourages John with: “[Jesus is] telling us something, Sarge. He’s telling us to come home. Don’t go to sleep on me, John.” Will’s mother is also shown praying with a rosary.

Sexual Content

Images of New York City in the hours before the attack include a prostitute striking a provocative pose and partially pulling up her skirt. Flashbacks show each of the married couples kissing; Will and Allison are shown in bed together in modest pajamas. Allison is later shown in a cleavage-baring top. When a police officer climbs over Will in the rubble, Will jokes, “Why can’t I ever get a female cop?”

Violent Content

We watch the tower’s collapse in slow motion from inside the lobby area where John and his team are setting up. It feels eerily realistic. Chunks of the building rain down upon the trapped teammates as they sprint for an open elevator shaft. After the collapse, John is virtually buried alive, and all we see of him until the end of the film is his face; Will is pinned by a huge piece of debris. Another slab of wreckage falls violently on Dominick when Tower Two collapses, pinning his legs and part of his torso and injuring him critically (blood flows from his mouth). Delirious and in shock, he pulls his gun and fires several rounds before dying. (It’s unclear why he does this.)

Fireballs, presumably from exploding gas mains, shoot past the terrified men; a piece of burning rubble scorches Will’s arm badly. In the heat, the remaining rounds in Dominick’s gun “cook off,” further tormenting the trapped men.

Numerous scenes depict victims of the attack with bloody wounds on their faces and lots of blood on their clothes. A team of medical personnel attend to a man on the sidewalk who appears to be dead. From a distance, we see someone jumping from the building and watch that person’s body fall most of the way to the ground. Will screams as the rescuers use power tools to pry him out.

Crude or Profane Language

The people struggling to deal with the horror of what has happened use quite a bit of profanity in World Trade Center . The f-word is spoken clearly once; another character starts to use it but trails off without finishing. The s-word is uttered four times, and characters take Jesus’ and God’s names in vain close to 20 times (including two instances of “g–d–n”). “H—” is used as an expletive half-a-dozen times; Ground Zero is twice described as “hell.” Other vulgarities (“b–ch,” “a–,” “d–n,” “p-ss” and “bastards”) are spoken two or three times each. Characters also use the terms “schmuck” and “jerk-off.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Two scenes depict men smoking cigarettes. One of Allison’s relatives drinks a beer. After Allison reacts to the news that the towers have collapsed by vomiting, her father orders a tranquilizer prescription for her. (She’s never shown taking it.)

Other Negative Elements

We glimpse John’s torso in the shower through translucent glass. We also see a police officer in his boxer shorts in the station’s locker room.

United 93 offered the first big-screen re-enactment of the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Before I saw it, I wasn’t sure I was ready to revisit that day, and I wondered if even trying to make such a movie constituted the worst kind of entertainment exploitation. Ultimately, that film’s respectful treatment of an infamous day in American history surprised me.

Nevertheless, I had similar concerns going into World Trade Center . I (like many others) questioned whether controversial director Oliver Stone (who helmed both Natural Born Killers and JFK ) could possibly be trusted to honorably recapitulate the events at the epicenter of that dreadful September morning. Thankfully, Stone checked his revisionist-history and political impulses at the door. In their place, he’s given us a deeply moving story of hope and fortitude. If anything, World Trade Center projects light across this black canvas in a way United 93 didn’t. Voice-over remarks made by John remind us of our nation’s ability to unify and of our awakened desire to help others “because it’s the right thing to do.”

In addition, the tightly interwoven themes of friendship, family and faith are among the most compelling of any film I’ve seen in a long time. I couldn’t stop thinking about my wife, my parents and siblings, my close friends as I watched this drama unfold. It’s evocative, heart-rending stuff that makes you grateful for your life and everyone you ever cared deeply about. I was also impressed by the positive treatment given to a Christian man and the guiding role of his faith. It’s not overstating the case to say that Dave Karnes’ obedience to God directly resulted in a rescue that likely wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

Still, like United 93 , World Trade Center is not an easy film to watch. And no one who decides to see it should make the mistake of imagining as entertainment its realistic language and violent images. But this one story at the heart of that tragic day is a moving reminder of the power of faith, hope and love. In Mr. Stone’s words, “I wanted to do what I did in Platoon , to use realism to honor the people who were there at Ground Zero that day. [John and Will] stay alive because of their hearts and their connection with their families. They stop taking their lives for granted, which I think is a pretty important message to get across.”

Adam R. Holz

After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.

Latest Reviews

My Penguin Friend

Alien: Romulus

It Ends with Us

Weekly reviews straight to your inbox.

🙌 Awesome, you're subscribed!

Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon!

Get us in your inbox

By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and consent to receive emails from Time Out about news, events, offers and partner promotions.

Awesome, you're subscribed!

The best things in life are free.

Déjà vu! We already have this email. Try another?

Love the mag?

Our newsletter hand-delivers the best bits to your inbox. Sign up to unlock our digital magazines and also receive the latest news, events, offers and partner promotions.

Things to Do
Food & Drink
Arts & Culture
Time Out Market
Coca-Cola Foodmarks
Los Angeles

World Trade Center

Time out says, release details.

Release date: Friday 29 September 2006
Duration: 130 mins

Cast and crew

Director: Oliver Stone
Screenwriter: Andrea Berloff
Nicolas Cage
Michael Pena
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Maria Bello
Stephen Dorff
Jay Hernandez
Michael Shannon

Been there, done that? Think again, my friend.

Discover Time Out original video

Press office
Investor relations
Work for Time Out
Editorial guidelines
Privacy notice
Do not sell my information
Cookie policy
Accessibility statement
Terms of use
Modern slavery statement
Manage cookies
Advertising

Time Out Worldwide

All Time Out Locations
North America
South America
South Pacific

Cast & crew
User reviews

World Trade Center

Two Port Authority police officers become trapped under the rubble of the World Trade Center.
On September, 11th 2001, after the terrorist attack to the World Trade Center, the building collapses over the rescue team from the Port Authority Police Department. Will Jimeno and his sergeant John McLoughlin are found alive trapped under the wreckage while the rescue teams fight to save them. — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
On the quiet but fateful day of September 11, 2001, the officers of New York City's Port Authority, Sergeant John McLoughlin and William J. Jimeno, received an emergency call. But, as they tried to evacuate the building after the sudden and devastating attack on the World Trade Center towers by massive airliners piloted by terrorists, McLoughlin and Jimeno found themselves trapped inside the crippled skyscraper. As two of the last people found alive in the wreckage, both McLoughlin and Jimeno fought tooth and nail to cling to their lives, hoping that the rescuers, who combed through the debris, and their worried spouses--Donna McLoughlin and Allison Jimeno--would never lose hope and abandon them. In the face of calamity, the city and an entire nation refused to give in to fear. Will the world ever be the same again after 9/11? — Nick Riganas
In the aftermath of the World Trade Center disaster, hope is still alive. Refusing to bow down to terrorism, rescuers and family of the victims press forward. Their mission of rescue and recovery is driven by the faith that under each piece of rubble, a co-worker, a friend a family member may be found. This is the true story of John McLoughlin and William J. Jimeno, two of the last survivors extracted from Ground Zero and the rescuers who never gave up. It's a story of the true heroes of that fateful time in the history of the United States when buildings would fall and heroes would rise, literally from the ashes to inspire the entire human race. — JJ Brent ([email protected])
On September 11, 2001, Port Authority police officers John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno, who are patrolling the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan, see a plane fly dangerously low overhead. As all of the police officers return to the station, they take a glimpse at the TV, and find that the North Tower of the World Trade Center has been hit by a plane. Sergeant McLoughlin assigns many of the officers to assist in an evacuation attempt of the (still undamaged) South Tower, and they board a commandeered Metropolitan Transit Authority bus. On the bus, they hear reports that the South Tower has also been hit. When they arrive at the site of the World Trade Center, they realize the extent of the disaster and see one of the first victims to jump out of the towers to certain death. As Jimeno drops off their police equipment in 5 World Trade Center, officers proceed to get safety equipment and enter the concourse between the towers. The group consists of McLoughlin, Jimeno, Dominick Pezzulo, and Antonio Rodrigues. An officer named Chris Amoroso appears to inform them of other events, such as the attack on the Pentagon and the second plane's hit on the South Tower, though the group does not accept this. As the men prepare to enter the North Tower, the buildings begin to rumble. McLoughlin realizes that the South Tower is collapsing onto them and that their only chance of survival is to run into the service elevator shaft. Chris trips and does not have time to get up. Rodrigues is unable to get to the shaft in time. McLoughlin, Jimeno and Pezzulo manage to escape the huge amounts of dust and rubble flying down from the South Tower. However, as the rubble continues to crush the elevator shaft, the three are trapped. As the cascade of debris subsides, Pezzulo realizes he can free himself and manages to move nearer to Jimeno who, along with McLoughlin, is pinned under rubble and cannot move. Pezzulo tries but fails to shift the debris covering Jimeno's legs and is told by McLoughlin not to leave. As Pezzulo becomes optimistic that they will live, the rumbling begins again as the North Tower starts to collapse as well. Although Jimeno and McLoughlin are not further harmed, Pezzulo is fatally wounded. After he fires a gun through a gap in the rubble to try to alert rescuers to their position, he dies. Jimeno and McLoughlin spend hours under the rubble, in pain but exchanging personal information. McLoughlin is particularly anxious to keep Jimeno from falling asleep, and Jimeno also realizes that by straining to grab a metal bar above his body, he can make a noise that rescuers might hear. Two United States Marines, Dave Karnes and Marine Sergeant Thomas, who are searching for survivors in the rubble of what was once the World Trade Center, do hear it and find the men, calling for help to dig them out. Jimeno is rescued first, and then hours later McLoughlin is lifted out of the debris, barely alive. They are then both reunited with their distraught families at the hospital.

Contribute to this page

See more gaps
Learn more about contributing

World Trade Center Reviews

66 Metascore
2 hr 8 mins
Drama, Suspense, Action & Adventure
Watchlist Where to Watch

Oliver Stone directed this poignant account of two New York City policemen who were trapped under the rubble of the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001.

Agent provocateur Oliver Stone's microcosmic, deeply respectful, resolutely nonpartisan human-interest story, from a screenplay by Andrea Berloff, is light-years away from the BATTLE OF ALGIERS-style political thriller he publicly envisioned making about 9/11 during the nerves-afire aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. In fact, this fact-based story of "courage and survival" may be the least provocative and most conventional film of a notoriously contentious career, a film whose formulaic roots will be immediately apparent to anyone who's ever seen a claustrophobic film about miners trapped in a cave-in, mountain climbers buried by an avalanche or sailors sweating bullets aboard a downed submarine. September 11, 2001: Veteran Sergeant John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) rises in the dark to prepare for his 90-minute commute from Goshen, New York, to the 42nd Street bus terminal that houses the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police force. Younger officer Will Jimeno (Michael Pena) makes his shorter trip from Clifton, New Jersey; other members of the precinct trickle in by train and subway, joke in the locker room, suit up and get their assignments at roll call. They start their beats, looking for runaways, discouraging vagrants, observing dealers working the terminal's corners, giving directions to tourists... and then, at quarter to nine, everything changes. Stone is in peak form re-creating the hour between the moment the first plane crashed and the fall of 2 World Trade Center: the confusion and disbelief at the news reports, the scramble of emergency responders, the shower of paper blanketing the plaza and the layer of ash spewing down from the burning floors, the dazed evacuees drifting through the streets, bloodshot eyes staring out from gray skin, the creaking death rattle of Tower 2 as it begins to give way and as McLoughlin orders his four-man volunteer team — Jimeno, plus officers Dominick Pezullo (Jay Hernandez), Christopher Amoroso (John Bernthal) and Antonio Rodrigues (Armando Riesco) — to run. And then the darkness: Amoroso and Rodrigues are gone, an aftershock kills Pezullo and McLoughlin and Jimeno are alone in the wreckage, wounded and pinned at least two stories below street level without water or working radios. Stone divides the rest of the film among the trapped men, their increasingly desperate wives (Maria Bello, Maggie Gyllenhaal) and the deeply eccentric Dave Karnes (Michael Shannon), a devoutly Christian former Marine who calmly left his job as a Connecticut accountant, got a short-back-and-sides haircut, put on his old uniform and drove to New York, where he boldly walked past police barricades onto the groaning, smoldering pile and started looking for survivors. Beautifully acted and thoroughly myopic, the film manages to strip 9/11 of its context and scope, boiling it down to an intimate story of decent, ordinary people dealt a staggeringly bad hand and dealing with it, each according to his or her nature. Stinging details shine through with piercing clarity: Jimeno asking, "What happened to the buildings?" as his rescuers finally lift him from the hole, his wife marveling that he's "breathing out rocks" as she glimpses ER staffers suctioning gravel and ash from his mouth. But Stone, the master of the epic conspiracy and the operatic spectacle of diametrically opposed forces at war for men's souls, is so entangled in the trees that he's lost sight of the forest — who could have imagined?

Get the Reddit app

The goal of /r/Movies is to provide an inclusive place for discussions and news about films with major releases. Submissions should be for the purpose of informing or initiating a discussion, not just to entertain readers. Read our extensive list of rules for more information on other types of posts like fan-art and self-promotion, or message the moderators if you have any questions.

Thoughts on World Trade Center (2006)?

By continuing, you agree to our User Agreement and acknowledge that you understand the Privacy Policy .

Enter the 6-digit code from your authenticator app

You’ve set up two-factor authentication for this account.

Enter a 6-digit backup code

Create your username and password.

Reddit is anonymous, so your username is what you’ll go by here. Choose wisely—because once you get a name, you can’t change it.

Reset your password

Enter your email address or username and we’ll send you a link to reset your password

Check your inbox

An email with a link to reset your password was sent to the email address associated with your account

Choose a Reddit account to continue

COMMENTS

World Trade Center movie review (2006)
Stone is uncharacteristically restrained and respectful in his treatment of these men and their families. Which is why the larger-than-life approach he takes to mythologizing the journey of USMC Staff Sgt. Dave Karnes ( Michael Shannon ), the film's Hero with a capital "H," feels so jarring and inappropriate.
World Trade Center
Rated 4/5 Stars • Rated 4 out of 5 stars 09/20/23 Full Review Jacob B While not as powerful as fellow 9/11 film United 93, World Trade Center is still a poignant drama with great performances ...
World Trade Center
Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 20, 2008. Matthew De Abaitua Film4. A tentative mixture of tearjerker and disaster movie, cautious due to the requirement that it bear witness to the true ...
World Trade Center (2006)
World Trade Center: Directed by Oliver Stone. With Nicolas Cage, Maria Bello, Connor Paolo, Anthony Piccininni. Two Port Authority police officers become trapped under the rubble of the World Trade Center.
World Trade Center
In the Sept. 11 of "World Trade Center," feeling transcends politics, and the film's astonishingly faithful re-creation of the emotional reality of the day produces a curious kind of nostalgia.
World Trade Center (film)
World Trade Center is a 2006 American docudrama disaster film [3] directed by Oliver Stone and written by Andrea Berloff.The film is based on the experience of a team of New York City police officers during the September 11 attacks, in which they were trapped inside the rubble of the collapsed World Trade Center.The film was shot between October 2005 and February 2006, and theatrically ...
World Trade Center Review
129 minutes. Certificate: TBC. Original Title: World Trade Center. It's easy to forget that September 11, 2001, started like any other day. A sunny morning where ordinary people got out of bed ...
World Trade Center (2006)
World Trade Center celebrates the ties that bind us, the bonds that keep us going, the goodness that stands as a rebuke to the horror of that day. Perhaps, in the future, the times will call for more challenging, or polemical, or subversive visions. Right now, it feels like the 9/11 movie we need. This is a film of terrific selectivity.
World Trade Center critic reviews
World Trade Center celebrates the ties that bind us, the bonds that keep us going, the goodness that stands as a rebuke to the horror of that day. Perhaps, in the future, the times will call for more challenging, or polemical, or subversive visions. Right now, it feels like the 9/11 movie we need.
World Trade Center (2006)
A life-affirming movie about courage. jmoney-2 26 July 2006. It's a little known story from a day we know all too well. "World Trade Center" tells the gripping true story of two of the last men pulled out of the rubble of Ground Zero alive. Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena play Port Authority Police officers.
World Trade Center (2006)
Where Paul Greengrass's brilliant United 93 crafted a documentary-like anatomy of events without presuming to get inside people's heads or explain actions or motivations, World Trade Center is a more conventional Hollywood film, with dramatic dialogue, characters following clearly plotted arcs, and a swelling soundtrack to reinforce the mood.
World Trade Center
September 11, 2001 was an unusually warm day in New York. Will Jimeno, an officer with the Port Authority Police Department, was tempted to take a personal day to enjoy his hobby of bow hunting, but ultimately decided that he would go to work. Sergeant John McLoughlin, a respected veteran of the PAPD, had been up for hours - a requirement of his daily, 1½-hour trek to the city. They and ...
Real Cops Say 'World Trade Center' Gets It Right : NPR
Oliver Stone's movie World Trade Center opened this week. It's the story of two of the last survivors to be rescued from Ground Zero after the Twin Towers collapsed on 9/11. NPR's Anne Hawke spoke ...
‎World Trade Center (2006) directed by Oliver Stone • Reviews, film
Synopsis. The world saw evil that day. Two men saw something else. Two police officers struggle to survive when they become trapped beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Remove Ads. Cast. Crew. Details. Genres.
World Trade Center Movie Review
"Based on actual accounts of surviving participants," WORLD TRADE CENTER builds on details. Port Authority Police Department Sergeant John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage,) begins a routine day on 9/11, then leads his team on a mission to help people escape the World Trade Center, but the towers fall and trap him and rookie cop Will Jimeno (Michael Pena).). Injured, they hang on for long ho
World Trade Center (2006)
Academy Award®-winning director Oliver Stone tells the true story of the heroic survival and rescue of two Port Authority policemen - John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno - who were trapped in the ...
World Trade Center
Despite its tragic context, World Trade Center delivers a powerful story that focuses on the life-giving relational bonds between its main characters. Trapped beneath tons of debris, John and Will realize they have to keep talking to stay awake and stay alive. They share poignant stories about their wives and families.
World Trade Center 2006, directed by Oliver Stone
The real banal, soppy stuff takes place outside, and with the policemen's waiting, worried families. 'World Trade Center' is horrific and rousing, and exactly as expected from a film that ...
REVIEW: World Trade Centre (2006) : r/movies
REVIEW: World Trade Centre (2006) making my way through dozens of films I haven't yet watched, and reviewing many of them. CAST: John McLoughin is a cop. He helped out in 1993 when the Trade Centre was bombed by Timothy McVeigh. He is married to Donna, and the two have a son. McLoughlin wears a thick moustache.
'World Trade Center': Movie Review
The 2006 movie World Trade Center, an early and very close-up piece of one of the most disastrous moments in recorded history, begins with silence. And out of nowhere, as you expected, disaster…
World Trade Center (2006)
On September, 11th 2001, after the terrorist attack to the World Trade Center, the building collapses over the rescue team from the Port Authority Police Department. Will Jimeno and his sergeant John McLoughlin are found alive trapped under the wreckage while the rescue teams fight to save them. — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
World Trade Center
Stone is in peak form re-creating the hour between the moment the first plane crashed and the fall of 2 World Trade Center: the confusion and disbelief at the news reports, the scramble of ...
Thoughts on World Trade Center (2006)? : r/movies
It came out so quickly after 9/11 that it came across as a studio cash grab. From a general audience standpoint, it was too much a reminder of something that in many minds had still "just happened." 5 years is about the appropriate amount of time for high quality documentaries, not major motion pictures. 4.

Movie Reviews

Roger Ebert

Now playing

Monica Castillo

Despicable Me 4

Find Me Falling

Rebel Moon: Director's Cuts

Widow Clicquot

Hollywoodgate

World Trade Center (2006)

Directed by

Cinematography by

Latest blog posts

A Woman Without Peers: Gena Rowlands (1930-2024)

The Needle Drop Sessions: Pump Up the Volume & Untamed Heart

Locarno Film Festival 2024: Youth (Hard Times), Transamazonia, Moon

Thumbnails 8/15/24: Six Must-Reads You Don’t Want To Miss This Week

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Email not verified

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

World Trade Center Reviews

Pinned Under the Weight of Skyscrapers and History in 'World Trade Center'

World Trade Center Review

Related Articles

World Trade Center (2006)

Artistic/Entertainment Value

Now Playing

Real Cops Say 'World Trade Center' Gets It Right

Related NPR Stories

Letterboxd — Your life in film

Add to your films…

Add to lists

Where to watch

The world saw evil that day. Two men saw something else.

Director Director

Producers Producers

Writer Writer

Story Story

Casting Casting

Editors Editors

Cinematography Cinematography

Assistant Directors Asst. Directors

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

Lighting Lighting

Camera Operators Camera Operators

Additional Photography Add. Photography

Production Design Production Design

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Special Effects Special Effects

Visual Effects Visual Effects

Stunts Stunts

Composer Composer

Sound Sound

Costume Design Costume Design

Makeup Makeup

Hairstyling Hairstyling

Releases by Date

Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

Netherlands

Philippines

Russian Federation

Popular reviews

Similar Films

Select your preferred backdrop

Or browse by category:

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

Common Sense Selections for Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers