It’s the news journalist’s dream: to have the scoop and a front-row seat at one of the biggest stories of the decade. But the events of 5 September 1972 – the Black September terrorist attack and hostage crisis at the Munich Olympics – were not a story that the men and women covering the Games for the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) expected to be telling. Nor was it, arguably, one that they were fully equipped to tackle. Tim Fehlbaum’s gripping real-life newsroom thriller deftly cuts between the nervy dramatised events behind the scenes and actual archive footage from ABC’s coverage of the tense standoff that saw two members of the Israeli team murdered and a further nine held at gunpoint in the Olympic village.

This lean media procedural, which is so tautly directed that you can practically feel the panic-sweat trickling down the back of your own neck, is a stark contrast to Steven Spielberg’s rather bloated and cumbersome version of the same events and their aftermath in his 2005 picture Munich.

Brisk, jittery and predominantly filmed with hand-held cameras, September 5 features a standout performance from a laconic Peter Sarsgaard as American TV veteran Roone Arledge, as well as a tightly wound John Magaro (recently seen in Past Lives) and Leonie Benesch (who excelled last year in The Teacher’s Lounge) as unflappable and resourceful German studio assistant Marianne. Led by Magaro’s greenhorn producer Geoffrey Mason, the team of sports reporters wrestle with dinosaur-sized studio cameras, contested satellite broadcast slots, security lockdowns and the professional and ethical minefield of setting the news agenda. It’s terrific: nail-chewing, edge-of-the-seat stuff.

• In UK and Irish cinemas