Tim Fehlbaum’s third feature also stars John Magaro and Ben Chaplin as members of an ABC news crew meant to cover the Olympics but plunged into a major international crisis.

At a time when world events are instantaneously reported on social media and news sites, it’s an enlightening, altogether gripping experience to watch a film like September 5, which depicts how a dedicated crew at ABC Sports managed to broadcast the 1972 Munich Olympics terrorist attacks live to an entire nation.

Those enduring questions, as well as intense, lived-in performances from a terrific cast, help to make September 5 more than just a time capsule about how the news was handled in the pre-digital age; it’s an account that speaks to our time as well.

They include Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard), the ABC executive in charge of broadcasting the ’72 Munich games; Marvin (Ben Chaplin), the team’s smart and testy head of operations; Marianne (Leonie Benesch), a local German translator; and Geoff (John Magaro), a young producer meant to cover an uneventful day of boxing and volleyball, who winds up landing on something much more significant.

Things start off ordinarly enough, with a sleepy TV crew settling in for their shift after a day which saw Mark Spitz famously take home a gold medal in swimming, But then gunshots are heard at the Olympic Village, which is just a few blocks away from ABC’s temporary headquarters. Geoff, who’s been left in charge while the higher-ups take a much-needed day off, soon finds himself doing everything he can to both figure out what’s happening and report it live to viewers back in America.

With the help of Marianne, who goes from being a neglected backroom interpreter to a major field reporter, Geoff and his team quickly realize that a pivotal and possibly world-changing event is under way: Palestinian terrorists, belonging to a group known as Black September, have killed two Israeli athletes and taken nearly a dozen others hostage, asking for the release of hundreds of prisoners in return.

Felhbaum, who wrote the script with Moritz Binder, delivers some early exposition about Marvin and the other characters during the film’s opening scenes, which kick off with an exposé depicting the ABC Sports crew at work behind-the-scenes. After that, September 5 quickly becomes a play-by-play account of how the Munich coverage came together, and it’s a riveting one to watch.

Among the many obstacles Geoff faces, one of the main ones involves getting footage of the building where the hostages are being held. Quick on his feet and unafraid to take major risks, he has his team wheel a giant newsroom camera onto a hill outside the office, while a smaller 16mm rig is smuggled — along with star reporter Peter Jennings (Benjamin Walker) — into a building across the street from the Israeli dormitories under siege.

But that raises another quesiton: How do you get the 16mm footage back out of a zone under police lockdown? Geoff again comes up with a crazy idea, dressing up a crew member (Daniel Adeosun) as a Team U.S.A. athlete and having him sneak back and forth with a few film cans taped to his body. The exposed reels are then developed in an on-site lab, with one of them revealing the infamous black-and-white shots of a masked Black September member lingering outside on the balcony.