Thirteen Days

2000 Directed by Roger Donaldson

You'll never believe how close we came

The story of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962—the nuclear standoff with the USSR sparked by the discovery by the Americans of missile bases established on the Soviet-allied island of Cuba.

Shawn Driscoll Kevin Costner Drake Cook Lucinda Jenney Caitlin Wachs Jon Foster Matthew Dunn Kevin O'Donnell Janet Coleman Bruce Thomas Stephanie Romanov Bruce Greenwood Frank Wood Dakin Matthews Liz Sinclair Colette O'Connell Karen Ludwig Audrey Rapoport Marliese Schneider Steven Culp Dylan Baker Bill Smitrovich Henry Strozier Ed Lauter Michael Fairman

Alternative Titles

Treze Dias que Abalaram o Mundo, Trece días, 13 jours, Tizenhárom nap - Az idegháború, Tredici giorni, 13 วัน ปฏิบัติการหายนะโลก, 驚爆13天

thriller

145 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by AJ Black ★★★½ 1

It's quite a sobering thought to ponder that had the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 gone a different way, many of us may not even have been born. Thirteen Days succeeds for the most part in conveying, as the tagline says, just how unbelievably close we came to a Third World War and, let's be honest, nuclear Armageddon. Roger Donaldson's film takes what could have been an extremely dry approach in the form of a docu-drama and manages to spin out of it a sprawling but surprisingly tense narrative, despite being largely made up of men talking in rooms; it doesn't feel particularly cinematic in many places but it's attention to detail and visibly exhaustive research, coupled with a number…
Review by BAILEY THE LIBTARDTARIAN™ 💋 ★★★

It's imperative that every viewing of this film be in black and white, with the brightness and contrast dimmed.
Sucking the colours out gives the film a very Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove level tension at points in another film regarding humanity's experience with nuclear weapons, following the days of the Kennedy administration during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
I do not envy the immense task Jack and Bobby Kennedy endured in politics. Not in the slightest.
Review by Graham J ★★★ 1

Thirteen Days is about the.......*sigh* thirteen days in which the USA were in a missile tangle with the Soviets & Cuba, which was very close to resulting in a full blown Nuclear War (notice how I used capitals on each word to put across its seriousness).
I appreciate though, that director Roger Donaldson doesn't take an overly serious approach to the material. I was expecting a rigid, immensely talky, head scratchingly political drama, but RD gives it some 'movie oomph'. There is a persistent score which hints at patriotism and impending doom, and there's some really nice sequences in jets and boats that jolt your adrenalin between the heavy dialogue scenes.
The performances too, are aggressive and enjoyable.
But ultimately, it…
Review by Yasser Medina ★★★½

Me parece vertiginoso y muy palpitante lo que sucede en este thriller político, dirigido por Roger Donaldson, sobre uno de los momentos de mayor tensión de la administración de Kennedy: la crisis de los misiles de Cuba. El suspenso que siento en todas las escenas no me da tiempo ni para respirar cuando veo a los burócratas de saco y corbata encerrados, mayormente, en el Despacho Oval de la Casa Blanca tomando decisiones diplomáticas para impedir que la Guerra Fría termine en una catástrofe nuclear de proporciones incalculables. Son intrigantes las discusiones que esos hombres sostienen en la oficina, utilizadas por Donaldson para desarrollar un comentario político sobre los choques de poder en los altos círculos burocráticos (cualquier parecido con…
Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★½

61/100
[originally written on my blog]
Previously addressed in this format upon release [I'll add that earlier review to this site eventually], though I mostly just bitch about Costner's accent. Which bothers me less now than do the film's strenuous efforts to "humanize" the crisis, with relative small fry O'Donnell staring wistfully at the-son-who-might-be-nuked-tomorrow at a little league game and so forth. Still largely succeeds at making diplomacy exciting, if sometimes in the manner of an underdog sports movie: Adlai Stevenson is like the rookie 2nd-string quarterback who springs to life just as asst. coach Bobby K.'s about to sideline him. (Steven Culp's performance as the latter remains one of the best out-of-nowhere-and-right-back-again turns in recent memory.) This would never be a theatrical feature today, would it? It'd be developed for TV from the jump. Too talky, too subdued, too old. World saved not by derring-do but by back-channel agreement to mutually cave.
Review by Daniel Kibbe ★★½ 16

I've had to watch this in every high school governement class I've taken.
The system really is broken.

Recent reviews

Review by makeely ★

all these men would call me slurs
Review by The_BC ★★½

It's well acted and has some decent thrills but Thirteen Days is just kind of slow. I've never been a huge fan of political thrillers anyway so maybe this is someone's favorite movie because they really like these kinds of films. It's just not for me. 5.5/10
Review by Michael Nicholas ★

Kevin Costner plays a football coach to John F. Kennedy
watch this movie if you want to learn more about 1) men talking in rooms 2) kevin costner holding a football during too many dialogue scenes and 3) military showboating
don’t watch this movie if you care about two and half hours of your life
Review by Santiago ★★ 2

Just some boys being dudes
Review by Louise Reilly ★★★★

Excellent casting. Tension building was incredible
Review by kieronimo ★★★

dt, prime
Review by José Pablo Castañeda

jajajajaj qué mierda de veras
Review by Chris E

Great drama.
Review by nicky2910 ★★★★

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

It was a peaceful October day in 1962 when surveillance pictures reveal the construction of Soviet nuclear weapons on Cuba. During the following 13 days the Kennedys not only have to fight to prevent open war but also the warmongerers in their own ranks. Never has the world been that close to nuclear annihilation.
This movie consists of mainly talk... and more talk, there isn't any action. Nonetheless, it's full of suspense to see how in the end cooler heads prevailed - and maybe brought JFK the single most important victory of his presidency.
Of course, the whole thing is told from the American side, and I'd love to hear the Soviet side at one point (there have to be…