The film stars Oscar Isaac (who also produced) as the Mossad officer Peter Malkin, and Ben Kingsley as Eichmann, with Lior Raz, Mélanie Laurent, Nick Kroll, and Haley Lu Richardson.

In 1954, Mossad agent Peter Malkin mistakenly kills the wrong person while hunting a Nazi war criminal in Austria, damaging his reputation.

The Mossad team uses the evidence from the meeting to confirm Eichmann's identity and plan his capture – they intend to disguise themselves as an El Al air crew and fly him out while he is sedated.

With the Nazis and police bearing down on them, the rest of the team is forced to drastically alter their escape plan, resulting in two operatives having to be left behind.

On November 16, 2015, it was announced that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had bought an untitled spec script from Matthew Orton, about the team who found and captured Adolf Eichmann.

[7] In August, Lior Raz joined the production,[8] and in September, Mélanie Laurent, Nick Kroll, Joe Alwyn, Michael Aronov, and Haley Lu Richardson were cast, with filming to begin in Argentina on October 1.

However, in July 2018, the film was moved up to August 29, 2018, in the U.S., due to high test screening scores, and to avoid the crowded September field.

The website's critical consensus reads, "Operation Finale is well-intentioned, well-acted, and overall entertaining, even if the depth and complexity of the real-life events depicted can get a little lost in their dramatization.

[20] The New York Times' A. O. Scott gave the film a positive review, "It's a story very worth telling, told pretty well, with self-evident virtues and obvious limitations.

"[15] CNN's Thane Rosenbaum calls it "finely directed" and "no ordinary spy thriller", noting that the Israeli operation surely influenced espionage films during the cold war, and considers it surprising that it has received such "scant cinematic attention .. until now".

Rosenbaum notes that by giving a humanized rather than a monstrous portrayal of Eichmann, the film adopts Hannah Arendt's premise of the banality of evil.

[24] In his review for The Hollywood Reporter, John DeFore called the film "a lively historical thriller" and wrote, "Though not likely to enter the pantheon as either a true-life caper (Argo's people-smuggling was more exciting; Munich's tale of vengeance more affecting) or as a showcase for face-the-past mind games, the drama benefits from a strong cast and can easily replace 1996's The Man Who Captured Eichmann as the go-to dramatization of this episode.