FILM · 2007 · USA
The Bourne Ultimatum
- Directed by
- Paul Greengrass
- Runtime
- 115 min
- Studio
- Universal Pictures, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, Ludlum Entertainment
60 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
Bourne is brought out of hiding once again by reporter Simon Ross who is trying to unveil Operation Blackbriar, an upgrade to Project Treadstone, in a series of newspaper columns. Information from the reporter stirs a new set of memories, and Bourne must finally uncover his dark past while dodging The Company's best efforts to eradicate him.
Summary: TMDB
49 Interesting Facts About The Bourne Ultimatum
- #003
Contains a major spoiler — show
Jason Bourne's final line — "look at us. Look at what they make us give" — echoes the dying words of the Professor (Clive Owen) in The Bourne Identity (2002).
- #004
Contains a major spoiler — show
The production allotted six weeks to film the thrilling car chase in lower Manhattan. In the sequence, all vehicles are operated at no more than thirty-five miles per hour, because the New York Police Department would not permit greater speeds due to public safety concerns.
- #005
The café Nicky Parsons chooses as the meeting place in Tangier is the Café de Paris, a popular haunt of spies and diplomats during the years when Tangier was an International City.
- #006
While they were filming in Tangier, it was the middle of Ramadan, when Muslims fast; no Muslim there could eat or drink during daylight hours. Interviews in the bonus material reveal that many crew members were Muslim and found it exhausting to shoot the film while unable to eat or drink. Matt Damon says he thought about how they would look "longingly at a cup of coffee or a sandwich." To accommodate these crew members, the rest of the crew tried to eat and drink discreetly.
- #007
The scene in which Bourne calls Pam Landy while watching her from a nearby building was reshot for this film. The footage from the end of The Bourne Supremacy (2004) was not used (except for a very brief shot of Pam Landy's office taken as Bourne hangs up the phone).
- #008
In his commentary on the R2 DVD, Paul Greengrass states that the relationship between Nicky and Bourne was deliberately scripted and filmed as "ambiguous but significant" prior to the memory loss.
- #010
Because the film's opening scene takes place immediately after the end of The Bourne Supremacy (2004), but the production gap was about three years, it was already January in Moscow. It would have been very cold there, so Berlin was chosen as the filming location and a Moscow set was built. The fake snow was made using paper and foam, and covering the entire set took more than five hours. Because paper and foam were used instead of real snow, there was no risk of melting.
- #012
Contains a major spoiler — show
The ending of this film mirrors the beginning of The Bourne Identity (2002), in which Bourne floats in a body of water.
- #013
In the file Pamela Landy faxes, a photo of producer Frank Marshall appears as one of the terminated agents.
- #015
The photo of Richard Chamberlain appears as one of the victims "terminated" by Bourne. Richard Chamberlain played the original Jason Bourne in the 1988 television film The Bourne Identity.
- #017
Contains a major spoiler — show
Although Jason Bourne is seen smiling in a flashback from The Bourne Identity (2002), he never smiles in this film.
- #018
Contains a major spoiler — show
The end-title music for The Bourne Identity (2002) and The Bourne Supremacy (2004) uses the same recording of Moby's "Extreme Ways." This film uses a new performance of the same song, titled "Extreme Ways (Bourne's Ultimatum)," with a completely different mix.
- #019
Contains a major spoiler — show
Operation Blackbriar, the focus of the film, was introduced in The Bourne Identity (2002). Near the end of that film, Abbott appears before a US congressional oversight committee and declares that Treadstone was a failure; he then closes a file and discusses Operation Blackbriar.
- #020
Contains a major spoiler — show
The swimming stroke Jason Bourne uses is a variant of the combat side stroke that combines a breaststroke arm pull with a scissor kick. The combat side stroke was developed and taught by US Navy SEALs.
- #021
Contains a major spoiler — show
Jason Bourne's original identity dossier reads: WEBB DAVID 829 63 1204 O NEG CATHOLIC.
- #023
Contains a major spoiler — show
As shown to Pam Landy on a computer screen, Jason Bourne enters New York from Brazil as Gilberto de Piento. The identity's passport is briefly shown in The Bourne Identity (2002) during Jason's investigation of the safe deposit box in Zurich, but there the spelling is Gilberto do Piento. Also in The Bourne Identity (2002), the name appears not as one of Bourne's aliases but as the name of the Brazilian Federal Police chief who signed the passport. In the old 2002 Brazilian passport, Bourne's name appears on another page and is actually given as João do Carmo.
- #024
At the CIA relay station where an operator listens to Simon Ross's call using Echelon, the numbers shown on screen are various locations in the United Kingdom. One of the numbers is 020 7946 0621, among others. These are fake numbers used by television and theater companies to add more realistic drama to films, no different from the "555" system used in the United States. The screen also shows Reading's dialing code and the fictional 01632 (the US "555" equivalent).
- #025
Contains a major spoiler — show
Paz, the asset pursuing Bourne, refuses to shoot him. The name Paz means "peace" in Spanish.
- #026
Daniel Brühl plays Marie's brother in only one scene. The character had been briefly mentioned in The Bourne Identity (2002).
- #027
Mark Ruffalo and Emile Hirsch turned down the role of Simon Ross.
- #028
When the CIA hacks Simon Ross's Guardian email, it finds a round-trip ticket to Turin, and the email is shown as sent from adrian.spanna@guardian.co.uk. Adrian Spanna worked on the film as a Second Unit Video Assist Operator.
- #029
As Bourne runs through the apartment buildings in Tangier, Morocco, there is a brief scene of a boy playing a game on a television to his right on the bed. The game is Hitman: Contracts (2004), in which you play a superhuman assassin traveling the world to kill high-profile targets, just as Bourne did before his amnesia.
- #030
Contains a major spoiler — show
When Landy sends Bourne an encrypted message via his fake date of birth, Bourne directs her to an address on East 71st Street. In the Jason Bourne books, Treadstone 71, the project that trained David Webb to become Jason Bourne, was based at 71st Street, New York.
- #032
Edgar Ramírez, who plays an assassin in this film, also played Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, Carlos, in the miniseries Carlos (2010). Carlos "The Jackal," though somewhat different from his counterpart in the miniseries, was the main antagonist of the Bourne trilogy written by Robert Ludlum.
- #033
As of 2025, with a 92% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, this is the best-reviewed Bourne film.
- #034
Madrid also doubled for Turin.
- #035
The average shot length in the film is two seconds.
- #036
Contains a major spoiler — show
Nicky is actually a somewhat trained field agent with various martial arts skills (judo, jiu jitsu) and some firearms training. This can be seen when her and Bourne's profile is shown on a screen before it is sent to Desh. However, she spent her career in logistics rather than hands-on field work.
- #038
At the time of its release, it became the highest-grossing film starring Matt Damon.
- #039
It is the highest-grossing film in the series.
- #040
Shooting in crowded locations such as the market in Tangier, the streets of New York City and London's Waterloo Station meant the producers essentially had to film in a guerrilla style. The presence of a large, conspicuous film crew could have affected the crowds in these places and interrupted the natural flow.
- #041
Tom Stoppard did an uncredited polish on the screenplay. He was mainly responsible for fleshing out the relationship between Bourne and Nikki.
- #042
Theatrical release prints were delivered to cinemas in two shipments, each under a fake name. Odd-numbered reels were labeled "Umber"; even-numbered reels were labeled "Buum".
- #043
The Tangier sequence was heavily influenced by the work of Gillo Pontecorvo, particularly his film The Battle of Algiers (1966). Pontecorvo died during the production of this section, and the cast and crew held a minute of silence in his memory.
- #044
CRI is a CIA "front company" or "proprietary company". It stands for Controlled Resources International.
- #045
This entry in the series marks the first time Matt Damon and Joan Allen physically shared a scene together.
- #046
All of the first three Bourne films end with Moby's song Moby: Extreme Ways (2002).
- #047
Matt Damon was paid 26 million dollars, his highest career salary along with The Bourne Supremacy (2004).
- #048
Twenty years earlier, James Bond had run across the rooftops of Tangier to escape the police in The Living Daylights (1987).
- #049
It is included in "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.
- #050
A copy of former United States President Bill Clinton's autobiography "My Life" can be seen on a shelf in Vosen's office. Above Clinton's, a copy of Nelson Mandela's autobiography "Long Walk to Freedom" is visible.
- #051
Bourne's arsenal consists of (in order) the two-tone SIG Pro SP2022 he uses in the bathroom at the start of the film, and a black SIG Pro he takes from the CIA. Agents at the Madrid office use a Beretta 92FS, which he takes from a Tangier police officer, and a black Glock 17 he obtains from a parking garage near the CIA. In New York City, he uses another SIG Pro in the building and while interrogating Dr. Albert Hirsch.
- #053
Contains a major spoiler — show
After the assassin's report, Bourne's birthday is clearly visible when Landy checks his file. Like the information in the Treadstone document she sees after the Hirsch document, this gains importance as the story progresses. Both relate to a scene in The Bourne Supremacy (2004).
- #054
Contains a major spoiler — show
Albert Finney plays Dr. Albert Hirsch, the creator who mentored Jason Bourne into becoming a cold-blooded assassin. Finney later played Kincade, James Bond's kindly protector, in Skyfall (2012), so Finney has been a mentor to both Jason Bourne and James Bond, albeit in very different ways.
- #056
Early promotional materials listed the writing credits as: Screenplay and Screenplay: Tony Gilroy. However, Gilroy later retained the sole screenplay credit and, after an arbitration conducted by the Writers Guild of America, received a shared screenplay credit with Scott Z. Burns and George Nolfi.
- #057
Paul Attanasio played an intensive role in rewriting the thrilling scene between Bourne and Hirsch.
- #058
Colin Stinton, who plays Neil Daniels, was also a CIA agent; he appeared as Henry Pollard in Spy Game (2001).
- #059
Matt Damon and Scott Glenn both appeared in Courage Under Fire (1996).
- #060
The three films in the Bourne series are arranged in alphabetical order: The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum.
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