An interesting thriller with especially engaging performances by Bruce Dern and Robert Shaw, but plagued by some shoddy editing and cost-cutting special effects. Its finale involving an exploding blimp should be an exhilarating set-piece; instead, it lands with all the impact of a deflating balloon.

Solid movie, intense , exciting, memorable performances, With some shocking violence for a PG film, And nice seeing 1970's NFL players, Only demerit, movie is way too long,

I thought it was a good adventure film. In the movie the protagonist is an American GI disillusioned by Vietnam and losing his wife to another man while he was overseas. In the book, just in case you were wondering, he is a Kurd who is chosen for the terrorist mission in part because he is fair skinned with blue eyes and thus won't be exposed. If you like adventure I recommend the movie, whether or not you read the book. Robert Evans plays the Israeli intelligence officer in charge of stopping the attack.

Plodding. I saw a review with this in it and I don't think a movie can be more perfectly summed up with one word than this movie is. It's strange, since it has a solid cast and director, with an interesting premise for a disaster movie, but ultimately it just drags out on thriller autopilot. Which didn't keep me engaged in the slightest.

Michael Lander (Bruce Dern) is a pilot who flies the Goodyear Blimp over National Football League games to film them for network television. Secretly deranged by years of torture as a POW in the Vietnam War, he had a bitter court martial on his return and a failed marriage. He longs to commit suicide and to take with him as many as possible of the cheerful, carefree U.S. civilians he sees from his blimp each weekend. Lander is desperately in love with Dahlia Iyad (Marthe Keller), an operative from the Palestinian terrorist group Black September, who controls and manipulates him. They conspire together to launch a suicide attack using a bomb composed of plastique and a quarter-million steel flechettes. They plan to mount the bomb on the underside of the gondola of the Goodyear blimp which traditionally flies over the Super Bowl football game, and detonate it over the Miami Orange Bowl during Super Bowl X, in order to call attention to the plight of the Palestinians and to punish the US for supporting Israel. During a raid on a Black September unit in the Middle East, the Israeli counter-terrorist Mossad agent Major David Kabakov (Robert Shaw) surprises Iyad while she is bathing. His mission was to kill everyone in the unit; however, seeing her unarmed and naked, he spares her life and turns his attention to clearing the rest of the unit. She escapes. When the raid is complete, Kabakov finds a recorded message which Iyad had planned to publish after the terrorist attack. The recording explains the motive for the terrorism, but does not include any specific information about the attack plan itself. Collaborating with FBI agent Sam Corley, Kabakov tries to learn the details of the plan. Together, they are able to trace the path of a large amount of plastic explosive which Black September has illegally shipped into the USA. During the Super Bowl game, Kabakov figures out that Iyad and Lander have mounted the bomb on the Goodyear blimp. He and Corley commandeer a helicopter and set out in pursuit of the blimp, accompanied by several other police helicopters... Black Sunday was among the highest-scoring films ever in the history of Paramount Pictures test screenings, and was widely predicted in the industry as a "second Jaws". When it was released in March 1977, however, the film performed well below expectations. John Frankenheimer later said the film was hurt by the fact another movie about terrorism at a championship football game, Two-Minute Warning, had come out just beforehand and performed poorly. He also blamed the fact the movie was banned in Germany and Japan. Still, it became regarded by some as one of Frankenheimer's best thrillers. Although receiving generally favorable critical reviews, Black Sunday was appreciated more for its technical virtues and storyline than its character development. Reviewer Vincent Canby from The New York Times tried to rationalize his reaction: "I suspect it has to do with the constant awareness that the story is more important than anybody in it ... The characters don't motivate the drama in any real way." In a later review, Christopher Null took exception and identified the one key character who drove the plot: "... Black Sunday is distinguished by its unique focus not on the hero but on the villain: Bruce Dern ..." John Simon said that Black Sunday "is one of those films that are perfectly enjoyable to watch but which there is not all that much to say". Simon did praise the acting of Robert Shaw, Bruce Dern, Fritz Weaver, Michael V. Gazzo, William Daniels, Steven Keats and Walter Gotell, but said Marthe Keller lacked power and had no charisma. Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus reads, "A smart, tense thriller from director John Frankenheimer, Black Sunday succeeds on a technical level, even if it fails to bring its characters to vivid life." This partly slowpaced and talky John Frankenheimer thriller takes off in the second half and becomes quite intense and edgy. The focus on terrorism, in this case the Palestinian terrorist group Black September and their violent acts, are unfortunately as current as it was in the 70s. Solid ensemble with Robert Shaw, Bruce Dern and Marthe Keller (She really has something special). It must have been a nightmare to shoot during the real Superbowl. The inspiration of the story came from the Munich massacre, perpetrated by the Black September organization against Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics, giving both the novel and film its title. The idea of using a blimp as a terrorist weapon was most likely seen unrealistic in 1977, but after 9/11 nothing is. Yes, it does become maybe a bit over the top in the end, but that doesn´t really hurt the film in my opinion. "Black Sunday" is scary and feels current still today. Trivia: The National Football League (NFL) allowed the official use of real plays and logos in the movie, something which wouldn't be allowed today.

Really effective version that does justice to the book.

Whats not to love! The great Robert Shaw battles a demented Bruce Dern and crazed terrorists wanting to blow up the Super Bowl! Classic 70s disaster movie madness!! Watch this with ‘Rollercoaster’ and ‘Two Minute Warning’ !

Story/Screenplay: (3.5/5) Typical of 70's stories. Too many silly gun battles. However, the overall story was good, despite its flaws. Duration/Tempo: (3/5) At 2 hours and 23 minutes, it's a very, very long movie that felt shorter. Cast & Crew: (3.5/5) Robert Shaw, Bruce Dern, and Marthe Keller were solid. Summary: (3.5/5) The film felt a little long, but the story and cast were good. A thumbs up.

For all the scale of it, from the bloated blimp-like runtime to the propulsive percussive Williams score to actually filming at the big game, something here nonetheless feels small and shallow. The best and the worst of it can be summed up as follows: The climax features Robert Shaw as a Mossad agent on top of the Goodyear blimp. Also, the tagline reads "BLACK SUNDAY: It could be tomorrow!", but that's only true if today is Saturday—that's false advertising, if you ask me.

Sluggish and unfocused at first, but the climax is worth the wait.

The best thrilling movie ever made!

great movie, if you like this watch silent running

Thrillers in general tend to age poorly. This film is a slow burn that takes a long time doing vague international thriller things for an hour and then having a half-hour climax with the Goodyear blimp. While the image of a terrorist-crewed Goodyear blimp swooping down on a terrified stadium of football fans is iconic, the lead up to and conclusion of this film are limited by a slow paced show-it-all mentality and graphical limitations on stuntwork. A film can still succeed despite this if the characters are strong, but as much as I love Robert Shaw he's wasted here. He's got no character trait other than hardass, and his apparent tiredness gets no real play outside of a brief hospital scene. He's also not in a position to be proactive. We get more play out of Bruce Dern as a troubled Vietnam vet and the Palestinian terrorist with whom he's plotting. They're neither of them nice characters, but they do their best to be believably human. Still, you don't really want them to succeed, which means the whole cat-and-mouse angle never really gets the chance to take off.

A tense, exciting movie. Very well acted. Should have won Academy awards. Music is terrific, too. In the same league as the movie ' Jaws '.

This was pretty good. Still relevant in today's climate with terrorism. Bruce Dern does a pretty good job as an ex-POW turned terrorist. It's a little long in length at over 2+ hours.

Frankenheimer's adaptation of Thomas Harris's pre-Hannibal Lector novel sits somewhere between a political thriller and a disaster film. Marthe Keller plays a member of Black September (the real world terrorist group that organized and executed the attack on the Munich Olympics) who, with the help of Bruce Dern's disgruntled Vietnam vet, is planning a blimp attack on the Superbowl in Miami. It's up to Israeli intelligence agent Robert Shaw to stop them. This film kind of sits in that vague region between an enjoyably bit of entertainment and a dud. While Shaw is not completely believable as an Israeli, he's always a joy to watch. Dern is in top form. That said, there's no way this film should be 2 1/2 hours long and it has a tendency to really drag in long sections of that running time. The climax is exciting to a point, but they really did not have the technology to pull off a significant part of it. Worth a look just to enjoy this cast in a bit of pulpy fluff that gestures towards late 70's topicality.

Black Sunday is an excellent film. It is about a Black September terrorist group attempting to blow up a Goodyear blimp hovering over the Super Bowl stadium. Robert Shaw and Bruce Dern give fantastic performances. The screenplay is well written. John Frankenheimer did a great job directing this job. I enjoyed watching this motion picture because of the drama. Black Sunday is a must see.

Pretty solid 70's action thriller when it's all said and done. Bruce Dern is fantastic as the crazy terrorist. Only trouble is its about 20 minutes too long and by now some of special effects are extremely dated. Been on the DVR over a year so it was time to finish this one up.

A little too long, but Thomas Harris is great at creating crazy characters.

This is one of those political thrillers that emphasizes the political and neglects the thriller. It's a great pre-cannibal Harris story with great actors but the only good performance is Bruce Dern as a believable PTSD stricken vet trying to re-connect with a country from which he feels alienated.