Manhunt (2013)

An official selection of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, "MANHUNT" tells the remarkable true story of the two-decade search for the world’s most notorious terrorist.

Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi who had taken up the cause of the Muslim jihad and helped establish the secret terror network al-Qaeda, was one of America’s greatest threats. From the early 1990s he was the obsession of a small group of CIA analysts and operatives who were determined to stop him before he launched a strike on U.S. soil.

"MANHUNT" features testimony and recollections – many shared for the first time – from the CIA officers who labored to destroy bin Laden’s terrorist organization and eventually kill the man himself. Although audiences may know some of the story through fictionalized films such as “Zero Dark Thirty,” this real-life spy thriller includes behind-the-scenes accounts from actual analysts, targeters and operatives, who testify to the disagreements, frustrations, tragedies and triumphs that marked this fascinating and painful chapter in American history.

The first part of "MANHUNT" chronicles the frustration of many in the CIA who first targeted bin Laden in the early 1990s and felt their intelligence was falling on deaf ears. The film draws on the recollections of a group of female analysts known as The Sisterhood, the first officers to pinpoint intelligence that proved not only the existence of al-Qaeda, but evidence that Osama bin Laden was its leader. These dedicated analysts – officers such as Cindy Storer, Nada Bakos, Susan Hasler and Barbara Sude – began with a blank slate and worked deliberately to piece together disparate fragments of information to get a clearer picture of al-Qaeda. (Source: HBO)