Black Sunday

Black Sunday follows an Israeli intelligence officer, David Kabakov, who uncovers a Palestinian militant group's plan to strike inside the United States. The organisation, known as Black September, intends to launch an attack during the Super Bowl in Miami, where the president and a stadium full of spectators will be present. Its instrument is a television airship that would hover above the game. Working with FBI agent Sam Corley, Kabakov pursues the people behind the scheme, among them Dahlia, a Palestinian operative, and Michael Lander, a troubled Vietnam veteran who pilots the airship. The film is based on Thomas Harris's novel.

John Frankenheimer directed this 1977 release, the eighth of the eighteen features he made, arriving between French Connection II and Prophecy. Robert Shaw plays Kabakov, Bruce Dern plays Lander, and Marthe Keller plays Dahlia, with Fritz Weaver, Steven Keats and Bekim Fehmiu in supporting roles. Ernest Lehman, Kenneth Ross and Ivan Moffat wrote the screenplay, and Robert Evans produced for Paramount. Made for about 8 million dollars, it returned roughly 16 million worldwide, a modest commercial result.

Audiences rate the film at 6.8 out of 10 on IMDb from around 9,800 votes, and 6.7 out of 10 on TMDB from roughly 170 votes. A critics' rating of 7.3 out of 10 from 33 reviews places it somewhat higher than those viewer scores. The film runs 143 minutes and mixes action, drama and thriller elements.