Starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts, the film follows an Interpol agent and an American district attorney who jointly investigate corruption within the IBBC, a fictional merchant bank based in Luxembourg.

Production began in Berlin in September 2008, including the construction of a life-size replica of New York's Guggenheim Museum for the film's central shootout scene.

[7] Louis Salinger, an Interpol detective, and Eleanor Whitman, an Assistant District Attorney from Manhattan, are assigned to investigate the International Bank of Business and Credit (IBBC), which funds criminal activities such as money laundering, terrorism, arms trading, and the destabilization of governments.

Salinger's and Whitman's investigation takes them to Milan, where the IBBC assassinates Umberto Calvini, an arms manufacturer and Italian prime ministerial candidate.

Salinger, Ornelas, and Ward locate Dr. Isaacson to whose practice the assassin's leg brace has been traced, and they are able to follow him to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Jonas Skarssen, the chairman of the IBBC, reveals to his lawyer White and security adviser Wexler that Calvini was killed so that they could have his sons buy missile guidance systems in which the bank has invested.

In Italy, Salinger tells Calvini's sons of the IBBC's responsibility for their father's murder, prompting them to cancel the deal with the bank and order White to be killed.

[12] The following month its funding increased to $7.9 million, based on the board's assessment that two-thirds of The International would be produced in Germany and that a number of Germans were in important roles, such as actors Armin Mueller-Stahl and Axel Milberg, cinematographer Frank Griebe, and production designer Uli Hanisch.

The lobby entrance scene was filmed in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, but for the shooting sequences a 118-foot (36 m) wide, life-size replica, including an audio visual exhibition with works of Julian Rosefeldt, was built in Germany.

The scene includes a sequence in which the protagonist sends a huge art-chandelier hanging from the ceiling crashing to the ground; the entire stunt was created using computer generated imagery.

[18] Clive Owen, discussing the film's relevance, said it "ultimately does ask questions about whether banks use people's money appropriately, and if they're completely sound institutions.

Scott commented on the opportunity to make a film critical of international finance, "that multinational weapons manufacturers can be portrayed as more decent, civic-minded and principled than global financiers surely says something about the state of the world.

[26] In his review for The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw wrote, "I felt occasionally that Owen's rumpled performance is in danger of becoming a little one-note ... but this is still an unexpectedly well–made thriller with brainpower as well as firepower".

[21] The New Yorker magazine's David Denby wrote, "And there's a big hole in the middle of the movie: the director, Tom Tykwer, and the screenwriter, Eric Warren Singer, forgot to make their two crusaders human beings".

In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan wrote, "It's got some effective moments and aspects, but the film goes in and out of plausibility, and its elements never manage to unify into a coherent whole".

[30] Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "B−" rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, "the star of the pic may well be NYC's Guggenheim Museum and Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, both of which figure in cool action chase sequences that pay handsome dividends".