The Terminal
2004 film directed by Steven Spielberg
The Terminal is a 2004 American comedy-drama film produced and directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Stanley Tucci. The film is about an Eastern European man who is stuck in New York's John F. Kennedy Airport terminal when he is denied entry to the United States, but is unable to return to his native country because of a military coup.
The film is partially inspired by the true story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri who lived in Terminal 1 of Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, France, from 1988 to 2006.
After finishing Catch Me If You Can (2002), Spielberg decided to direct The Terminal because he wanted to make a film "that could make us laugh and cry and feel good about the world". As no suitable airport was willing to provide their facilities, an entire working set was built inside a large hangar at the LA/Palmdale Regional Airport, with the customs hall, offices and most of the film's exterior shots filmed at the Montreal–Mirabel International Airport.
The film was released in North America by DreamWorks Pictures on June 18, 2004, to generally positive reviews and was a commercial success, grossing $219 million worldwide.
Plot
Viktor Navorski, a traveler from Krakozhia, arrives at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport and learns that a coup d'état has occurred in his country while he was in the air. The United States does not recognize Krakozhia's new government, rendering Viktor's passport invalid and leaving him unable to either enter the United States or return to Krakozhia. U.S. Customs and Border Protection seizes his passport and return ticket pending resolution of the issue, leaving him stranded at the airport with only his luggage and a Planters peanut can in his possession.
Frank Dixon, the Acting Field Commissioner of the airport, instructs Viktor to stay in the transit lounge until the issue is resolved, but he becomes determined to make Viktor someone else's problem.
“The Terminal” enters the record as 2004 film directed by Steven Spielberg. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Terminal, film and directed can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q318766. VIAF identifies the subject as 228689682. The Library of Congress control number is no2004120007. 5 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 4 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2004, 1988, 2006 and 2002.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Terminal” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.