FILM · 2004 · USA
The Terminal
- Directed by
- Steven Spielberg
- Runtime
- 128 min
- Studio
- DreamWorks Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, Parkes+MacDonald Production
42 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
An Eastern European tourist unexpectedly finds himself stranded in JFK airport, and must take up temporary residence there.
Summary: TMDB
All facts (42)
- #001
The film was inspired by the story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri. After being refused entry to the United Kingdom because his Iranian passport and United Nations refugee document had been stolen, he landed at Charles De Gaulle Airport near Paris in 1988. French authorities would not let him leave the airport, so as a stateless person with nowhere else to go he stayed in Terminal One. He was eventually given the choice of entering France or returning to Iran, but he chose to live in the terminal and to tell his story to everyone who would listen. His mental health reportedly deteriorated over the years. When he was offered the chance to live in France, he refused because the documents did not state that he was "Sir Alfred," and he claimed to have forgotten his native Persian. He left the terminal in August 2006 to be hospitalized for an unspecified illness. He later lived in a hotel paid for with the money he received from the film (DreamWorks reportedly paid him $250,000 for the rights to his biography). Nasseri returned to Charles de Gaulle Airport in October 2022. He died in Terminal 2F on 12 November 2022.
- #002
Contains a major spoiler — show
While Viktor and Amelia eat dinner, the janitor Gupta juggles hoops and plates. Kumar Pallana was a real juggler and toured the world with the shows he performed in his youth.
- #003
The girl with the suitcase whom Viktor tries to help is Steven Spielberg's daughter.
- #004
The airport set built for the film was based on Düsseldorf International Airport. The set was constructed in an old hangar, featured three working escalator sets, and was a nearly full-size replica filled with many popular stores (such as Burger King, Mrs. Fields and W. H. Smith). Some of these brands were hired by DreamWorks, while others approached the studio once word of the production spread. Most of the stores and restaurants were built by the construction crews that build mall and airport stores for the companies concerned, and some contained fully functional equipment such as ovens and cash registers. However, a brand's presence on the set did not guarantee it would appear in the film; DreamWorks had full control over the edit, and some brands appeared only briefly or not at all.
- #005
The note on the photocopy of the hand attached to the "All Gates" sign reads "FREE THE GOAT."
- #006
Viktor was originally going to come from Slovenia. This was changed on the advice of Mark Rijavec, a former consul of the Republic of Slovenia in the United States. Some people regard Slovenia as the Switzerland of Eastern Europe, and he said that the outbreak of a civil war in one of the European Union's new member states would not have seemed believable.
- #007
In the scene where Viktor and the others sing the Krakozhian national anthem, they are singing the Albanian anthem with "gibberish" words.
- #008
Zoe Saldaña said that working on this film after her negative experience on Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) made her more comfortable on large-scale productions. She explained: "I came out of Pirates not having had a very good experience overall. I felt very lost in the trenches of it and I didn't think that was right. Eight months later I worked with Steven Spielberg and he restored my faith that big ones can be great too."
- #009
Viktor comes from the fictional country of Krakozhia but speaks Bulgarian. The Fodor's guide and the magazine page featuring jazz greats are in bad Russian. The label on the can of Planters peanuts is neither Bulgarian nor Russian. Viktor's driver's license was issued in 1995 in Homel, Belarus, and had expired by the time filming began. The name written on it in Cyrillic is Gulnara Gulina. It was a real license provided by Gulnara Gulina, a Belarusian woman working in the American film industry. The producers added Viktor Navorski's English name and photograph.
- #010
Viktor crosses himself in the Eastern Orthodox Christian style (three fingers, finishing from right to left). Many Eastern European countries are Eastern Orthodox, and Tom Hanks converted to Eastern Orthodoxy because of his Greek Orthodox wife, Rita Wilson.
- #011
The book Viktor holds in the Borders bookstore at the airport is Dr. Seuss's "Oh, The Places You'll Go!"
- #012
Tom Hanks's father-in-law is of Bulgarian origin. His character, Viktor Navorski, speaks Bulgarian.
- #013
Contains a major spoiler — show
The film was shot with two endings. In the original version shown at the film's first screening on 26 May 2004 in Orange, California, there was another ending in which Catherine Zeta-Jones's character, Amelia, goes to Manhattan with Viktor. The changes made to the film caused the start date of Steven Spielberg's next film, Munich (2005), to be delayed by several weeks, which meant that Ben Kingsley could no longer appear in it because of his commitment to appear in Roman Polanski's Oliver Twist (2005).
- #014
After Viktor conquers Bavaria with Amelia and they discuss what Napoléon Bonaparte gave to Josephine, he puts his right hand inside his jacket, the famous pose Napoléon used in many portraits.
- #015
Tom Hanks had been involved in the project long before Steven Spielberg came on board.
- #016
Officer Torres goes to Star Trek conventions dressed as Yeoman Rand. Zoe Saldaña later played Uhura in "Star Trek (2009)" and its sequels.
- #017
Contains a major spoiler — show
It is hard to know exactly how long Viktor has been at the airport, apart from Amelia saying "9 months" at about 1:35:50. At about 0:20:50, the people ahead of Viktor are given a customs stamp reading "SEP 04 2003." Later the same day, at about 0:22:15, Viktor receives a customs stamp reading "JAN 17 2004." At about 0:34:00, Viktor watches a news report saying that Wayne Newton is 61 years old today; since his birthday is 3 April 1942, this means the current date is 3 April 2003. At about 0:41:20, Viktor receives a customs stamp reading "MAY __ 2003" (though the label on the stamp reads "SEP 14 2003"). Near the end of the film, at about 1:31:20, Viktor receives a stamp reading "OCT 10 2004."
- #018
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Steven Spielberg said the film is a slight homage to Jacques Tati's Playtime (1967) and to Frank Capra's work with its "honest sentiment."
- #019
Contains a major spoiler — show
As Viktor is about to board the plane to return home, Dixon whistles the melody of "For All We Know (We May Never Meet Again)" while watching the security camera screens.
- #020
The Terminal was chosen as the opening film of the 2004 Venice Film Festival.
- #021
Contains a major spoiler — show
The film's plot centers on Viktor obtaining the last autograph from a jazz artist. In the end credits sequence, actors, directors and others sign their names.
- #022
Viktor Navorski reads a note stating that he plans to stay at the "Ramada Inn, 161 Lexington." In real life, 161 Lexington Avenue, New York, was indeed home to the Ramada New York/Eastside Hotel during the filming of The Terminal. Its history stretches back 110 years to its first opening in 1914 as The Hotel Rutledge for Women, and it maintained a women-only policy until the 1930s. It later carried both the Quality Inn and Ramada brands. Apple Core Hotels, its long-time owner, made the property an in-house brand from April 2017 and renamed it The Hotel @ New York City.
- #023
Milodragoviç is Russian and is played by the Russian actor Valeriy Nikolaev, but his surname is South Slavic (for example Serbian or Slovenian). In the film's Russian-dubbed version, Milodragoviç spoke Bulgarian rather than Russian, and although his surname is not quite Bulgarian, he introduced himself as Bulgarian. The Albanian taxi driver Goran, who appears at the end of the film, also has a South Slavic name.
- #024
It is the third collaboration between Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg after Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Catch Me If You Can (2002). More than ten years later they would reunite twice more, on Bridge of Spies (2015) and The Post (2017).
- #025
While construction workers watch Viktor rearrange his bathroom wall, the foreman wears a 'Little Italy' FDNY Engine 55 shirt. Steve Buscemi was a firefighter at Engine 55. After the September 11 attacks, he quietly returned to the company to search for the missing.
- #026
As Amelia does her makeup at the table with Viktor, she takes out an Elizabeth Arden compact. Catherine Zeta-Jones, who plays Amelia, is a spokesperson for Elizabeth Arden cosmetics.
- #027
Tony Randall appears uncredited in the film's "I Love New York" television commercial.
- #028
Tom Hanks's performance as Viktor Navorski was widely acclaimed and earned him a Golden Globe nomination.
- #029
It was Steven Spielberg's first film to use the Digital Intermediate process.
- #030
The production team built a replica of Terminal 4 at Palmdale Regional Airport in California for the film. Construction of the airport set took more than four months and was highly detailed.
- #031
After Immigration, Customs and Agricultural Inspectors were merged to form Customs and Border Protection (CBP), it took time for the new CBP Officer to receive the uniform depicted in this film. During filming, many CBP Officers had not yet been issued the new uniform.
- #032
The Terminal is based on the real-life story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri. Mehran Karimi Nasseri spent 18 years in Terminal 1 of Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.
- #033
Most (though not all) of the flights on the departure board were flights operated by Star Alliance members. United Airlines is a founding member of Star Alliance.
- #034
Bernie Mac was considered for a role, but had to withdraw due to a scheduling conflict.
- #035
The cast includes three Oscar winners: Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Zoe Saldaña, and one Oscar nominee: Stanley Tucci.
- #036
At various points, Sam Mendes, Lasse Hallström and Robert Zemeckis were attached to direct.
- #037
The book Amelia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) buys at Borders is 'Napoleon Bonaparte: A Life' by Alan Schom, a historian specializing in French history whose work on Napoleon was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. In The Terminal, Amelia puts forward a revisionist theory about Napoleon's death. Alan Schom's book was controversial at the time of publication for presenting an extremely revisionist view of Napoleon: "It exposed his destructive personality toward friends and the subjugated country, his love of conquest, subjugation and power. He literally held every country in Western and Central Europe captive thanks to the presence of French bayonets and the flow of their taxes to Paris. Napoleon's attempt to exclude Britain from Europe caused that continent's trade and economy to be destroyed and led to great hardship. A paranoid egotist, everything he did was for himself. His wars resulted in the deaths of a million Frenchmen, excluding his enemies. Tens of thousands of women and girls were raped by his soldiers as they marched across Europe for 15 years. Napoleon was ultimately a terrorist; until the arrival of Hitler and Stalin, he was the worst in European history."
- #038
Dolores (Zoe Saldaña) tells Viktor (Tom Hanks) that she enjoys going to conventions. Viktor passes this on to Enrique (Diego Luna), who puts the pieces together and says she must be a "Trekkie." The film was released 5 years before Zoe Saldaña played Uhura in J. J. Abrams' Star Trek (2009).
- #039
Early in the film, Tom Hanks asks where he can buy Nike shoes. Tom Hanks also wore Nike while running back and forth across the country in Forrest Gump.
- #040
As Victor (Tom Hanks) watches Amelia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) pass through the terminal and mistakenly thinks he has waved at her, Big Bill Broonzy's "The Glory of Love" plays over the airport loudspeakers. The same song is used in the end credits of Intolerable Cruelty (2003), released a year earlier, in which Zeta-Jones also appeared as the love interest.
- #041
When Victor learns English by comparing the text of two Fodor's guides, he looks at a note about the series "Friends." Episodes of "Friends" are often used by ESL students to learn English.
- #042
After Viktor Navorski ruins the political asylum discussion, he begins listing random things he is afraid of. In a reference to Jaws (1975), also directed by Steven Spielberg, he says the last thing he is afraid of is sharks.
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