Hostages is a 1992 American drama film directed by David Wheatley and written by Bernard MacLaverty. The film stars Kathy Bates, Colin Firth, Ciarán Hinds, Natasha Richardson, Jay O. Sanders, Josef Sommer and Harry Dean Stanton. The film premiered in the United Kingdom on ITV on September 23, 1992, and in the United States on HBO on February 20, 1993.

Plot

This film is a dramatization of the Beirut hostage crisis. After several real-life news clips highlight the situation in Beirut, including footage of bombings and attacks in the Lebanese capital along with the hijacking of TWA flight 847, the film opens with reporter John McCarthy finishing a story on Brian Keenan, an Irish lecturer who was kidnapped in Beirut days earlier. The following day, en route to Beirut Airport, McCarthy's car is surrounded and when identified as a British national, he is thrown back into the car which is commandeered by the kidnappers. He is brought to an apartment before being handed off to a group of men, who strip, blindfold and lock him in a closet.