The world premiere of Ava DuVernay‘s latest documentary feature, “14th,” is set to close the 2026 New York Film Festival (NYFF). It’s a follow-up of sorts to her incarceration documentary “13th,” which, 10 years ago and on the eve of President Trump’s first term, opened the NYFF.
Film at Lincoln Center announced “14th” as the closing-night selection on Tuesday, having unveiled James Gray’s “Paper Tiger” as the opener last week. NYFF runs September 25-October 12 in New York City.
“14th” tackles, of course, the 14th Amendment, which established the tenets of birthright citizenship that Trump’s presidency has disrupted — the Amendment that states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Per NYFF’s synopsis, “Ten years ago, filmmaker Ava DuVernay released her epochal documentary ’13th’ (NYFF54 Opening Night), which argued that loopholes in the U.S. Constitution’s 13th Amendment—the abolition of slavery—led to today’s mass incarceration of Black Americans. That film was released on the eve of Donald Trump’s presidency; since then, an alarming number of our democratic norms and principles have eroded, further disenfranchising Black Americans. In response to our distressing new reality, DuVernay has created a thrillingly expansive sequel of sorts, which passionately and persuasively details how the tenets of the 14th Amendment, ratified post–Civil War, are now under systematic attack.”
NYFF continued, “Building her case with an extraordinary chorus of voices — including Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), former Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), current Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA), legal minds Sherrilyn Ifill, Robert Chang, and Stacey Abrams, and social commentators like Donald T. Critchlow and Hasan Piker — DuVernay demonstrates how the 14th Amendment’s foundational principles of birthright citizenship, due process, equal protection under the law, and the prohibition for heads of state to engage in acts of insurrection all have been challenged to a dangerous degree in recent years. Drawing a direct line from the Reconstruction era to today, DuVernay’s film is a tough-minded reckoning with our moment of crisis.”
As with “13th,” Netflix will also release “14th” as part of this year’s awards season. “13th” received a nomination for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars in 2017. DuVernay’s 2014 Martin Luther King Jr. biopic was a Best Picture nominee; her last film was 2023’s narrative feature “Origin,” inspired by Isabel Wilkerson’s “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.”
“Exactly a decade after ’13th’ opened the New York Film Festival, it feels especially meaningful to return with ’14th’ as the 2026 Closing Night Selection,” said DuVernay. “NYFF has always been a place where films invite conversation rather than simply applause. To that end, ’14th’ attempts to interrogate a promise powerful enough to change a nation — and controversial enough to divide it for more than 150 years. There’s no better place to begin that conversation than NYFF. I’m grateful to Dennis Lim and team for believing in work that asks difficult questions, and I’m honored to share this film with New York audiences first. On behalf of everyone who worked to tell this story, we hope it leaves people debating, questioning, and, above all, imagining what is still possible.”
“We are honored to close this edition of the New York Film Festival with Ava DuVernay’s supremely timely follow-up to ’13th,’” said Dennis Lim, NYFF Artistic Director. “’14th’ is a movie for the moment that sees through the fog of the present. The great gift of this urgent and essential work is its clarity: Ava has made a film that shows us precisely what led us here, and what is at stake right now.”
