Hollywood's first reaction to the September 11 attacks was to alter, delay or even cancel films that unintentionally evoked the disaster.
Films specifically about the attacks, reactions and responses to them, and the post-9/11 world, include:
- ''9/11'', a documentary made from the footage taken by two French brothers, Jules And Gedeon Naudet , who were making a documentary about a rookie fireman when the attacks took place. They were one of the few people to capture the first plane hitting the towers on film and one brother follows the firemen into the stricken structures and narrowly escapes in the subsequent collapse. It was released in 2002 and introduced by Robert De Niro .
- ''WTC: The First 24 Hours'', released in February 2002, is a documentary shot by Etienne Sauret in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, showing the devastation and the initial rescue efforts. Originally an 11-minute short, later expanded to a half hour, the film includes no narration or music, and almost no dialogue.
- ''11'09"01 — September 11'', in which 11 directors present 11 stories (each 11 minutes, nine seconds, and one frame long) of the event’s impact around the world, was released in September 2002. The filmmakers taking part were Iran's Samira Makhmalbaf , France's Claude Lelouch , Egypt's Youssef Chahine , Bosnia'a Danis Tanovic , Burkina Faso's Idrissa Ouedraogo , Britain's Ken Loach , Mexico's Alejandro González Iñárritu , Israel's Amos Gitai , India's Mira Nair , the U.S.'s Sean Penn and Japan's Shohei Imamura .
- Spike Lee 's ''25th Hour'' is set in post-9/11 New York, and puts Ground Zero in the background of a pivotal scene.
- '' Fahrenheit 9/11 '', a June 2004 film by Michael Moore that examined the Bush administration's reaction to the attacks, became the highest-grossing documentary of all time. {Link without Title} Rather than replaying the familiar images of the burning towers, Moore evoked the disaster with images of bystanders' horrified reactions.
- '' World Trade Center '', a film by Oliver Stone , scheduled for release in August 2006, tells the story of two Port Authority police officers, John McLoughlin (played by Nicolas Cage ) and Will Jimeno (played by Michael Peña ), who were the last two rescue workers pulled from ground zero alive. Billed as "an uplifting story about everyday New Yorkers helping one another amid a cataclysmic tragedy."
- Fernando Zamora, a Mexican Film Student at Columbia University School of the Arts, managed to get into Ground Zero on September 11, 2001 and made two short films in homage to the victims. The films, ''Steps'' and ''Dust'', were aired on NBC and ABC Networks on September 12th and 13th respectively.
- United 93 , a film about the fourth hijacked plane and the terrorists' failure to use it as a missile when passengers attacked the terrorists.
- ''The Guys'', a play by Anne Nelson , explores the memories and emotions of a surviving fire captain and a writer who helps him write eulogies for his lost comrades. The play was first performed on December 4 2001 .
- "In Spirit" , a science fiction novella by Pat Forde, published in ''Analog'' in September 2002. A moving time travel story about 9/11, in which a form of "spiritual" time travel is perfected in the middle of the 21st century and the aged children of 9/11 victims are given the opportunity to go back in time and be with their loved ones "in spirit" in their final moments. Pat Forde takes many risks, most notably by telling the tale from the point of view of a terrorist who abbetted the hijackers on the ground and is 30-odd years into a life sentence when he's offered the chance to make himself a guinea pig in the time-travel experiments.
- '' Pattern Recognition '' (2003) by William Gibson was the first novel to address the attacks; the main character is a marketing consultant whose father disappeared in Manhattan on the morning of September 11. The novel is widely considered to be Gibson's finest.
- '' Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close '', a 2005 novel by Jonathan Safran Foer , follows the narrator, 9-year old Oskar Schell, whose father was on the upper floors of the World Trade Center when the jets crashed into the Twin Towers. To fight his grief and quell his imagination, Oskar embarks on a quest to find what he hopes is his father's most illuminating secret. In service of this quest, Oskar conquers many of his irrational fears and comforts other damaged souls.
- '' Windows On The World '', a 2003 novel by Frédéric Beigbeder , is set in the restaurant at the top of the North tower on September 11. It tells the story of Carthew Yorston and his two sons as they try to escape or somehow survive the attack. Each chapter of the book represents one minute in time between 8:30 and 10:30 on 9/11. It also features a parallel narrative wherein the author, a French writer sympathetic to America, discusses the process of writing the book and his motivations for doing so.
- '' Dead Air '', a novel by British novelist Iain Banks , published in 2002. It is set in London on September 11th 2001. The main protagonist is a left-wing radio 'shock jock' attending a wedding when news of the attacks filter through.
- The events of the day are referred to in the two books '' The Time Traveler's Wife '' by Audrey Niffenegger and '' I'm A Believer '' by Jessica Adams .
- ''Twilight of the Superheroes'' by Deborah Eisenberg.
- Art Spiegelman , Pulitzer Prize-winning author and illustrator of '' Maus '', published '' In The Shadow Of No Towers '' in 2004, a work that mourns both 9/11 and the political uses to which it has been put.
- Marvel Comics published books and comics based on the efforts of rescuers and fire fighters who risked their lives to save others during and after the attacks, donating proceeds their sale to relief funds. Among the books they published:
- '' Amazing Spider-Man '' (Vol. 2) #36, called the ''Black Issue'' for its completely solid black cover, explores how Spider-Man and other heroes like Captain America and Daredevil help in the aftermath of the attacks.
- Marvel also produced a book, ''Heroes'', featuring Pin-up s by various artists, many of which were oriented toward appreciation and admiration of emergency rescue workers, and patriotism. The cover was illustrated by Alex Ross , and the back cover, which showed a firefighter covered in ash, was illustrated by Marvel Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada (whose personal affection for firefighters had been long-established with his own creator-owned superhero, Ash), Todd McFarlane and Richard Isanove , and featured a poem by writer/director Kevin Smith .
- Marvel also produced an anthology book, ''A Moment of Silence'', featuring several stories, without dialogue or captions, based on the attacks. One of them focused on a real-life relative of a Marvel Comics employee, an engineer killed after deciding to enter one of the Towers to search for survivors. Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada illustrated the cover.
- A new Marvel series, ''The Call of Duty'', was also produced, which focused on firefighters.
- DC Comics produced two large books, ''9-11: Artists Respond'', Volumes 1 & 2, which featured short stories and single-page works of art from a wide variety of artists.
- Alternative Comics produced ''9-11 Emergency Relief'', a similar collection of works with a cover by Frank Cho . {Link without Title}
- Brian K. Vaughan's ''Ex Machina'', published by Wildstorm/DC, is set in a world in which a superhero called the Great Machine becomes mayor of New York after intervening in the September 11 attacks--managing to save only one of the towers.
- American composer John Coolidge Adams wrote his Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award -winning choral work On The Transmigration Of Souls in response to the attacks.
- Several songs on Bon Jovi 's 2003 album '' Bounce '' were inspired in whole or in part by the September 11 terrorist attacks and the mood thereafter. The song "Undivided", with its chilling verses and hopeful choruses most certainly enocompasses both the mood on the day and the feelings of unity in the country thereafter. Other songs like "Everyday" and "Bounce" became anthems of hope and inspiration. The sad ballad "Love Me Back to Life" also hints at the losses people experienced on 9/11.
- Bruce Springsteen 's 2002 album '' The Rising '' focussed almost entirely on the disaster, and was widely hailed as one of Springsteen's most profound works.
- Country singer Toby Keith wrote several songs in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks and the events associated with it thereafter. "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" is directly about the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the tough stance America pleged against terrorism immediately afterward. It was also inspired by the death of Keith's father, a man who lost his right eye in war, yet always remained loyal to his country. "The Taliban Song" is a hopeful song about the War on Terror in Afghanistan, that discusses how America came in and liberated the Afghani people. And "American Solider" is dedicated to U.S. troops and the hard lives they live to keep America safe.
- Ani DiFranco 's song/poetry Self Evident is about 9/11 and the US reaction.
- French songwriter Renaud wrote a song called " Manhattan Kaboul " that describes in parallel the deaths of a Puerto Rican immigrant in the World Trade Center and of a little Afghan girl under U.S. bombings.
- Italian band PGR wrote a song titled 11 Settembre 2001 .
- Radioheads 2003 album Hail To The Thief, reflected on a post 9 11 world.
- Eminem has made several overt references to the attacks as early as The Eminem Show, which was released in Spring 2002. Most notably, White America, Square Dance and Mosh have tackled his--and America's--place in a post 9/11 world.
- Leonard Cohen wrote the song about September 11, "On That Day", and released it on his 2004 album '' Dear Heather ''.
- Alan Jackson wrote and sang the song ''Where Were You (When the World Stop Turning)'' asking a series of questions about the listener's location when they heard the news of the bombing.
- Anti-Flag , a political punk band from Pittsburg, released their own post-9/11 song, "911 For Peace", which was written on the day of the attacks, and have since then released "Terror State" and "For Blood and Empire", securing where they stand as peace activists and patriots.
- The Beastie Boys ' album To The 5 Boroughs , released in 2004, focuses on life in post-9/11 New York. For example, the song "An Open Letter to NYC" features the lines "Dear New York, I know a lot has changed / two towers down but we're still in the game / home to many rejecting no one."
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