Ten years after her Oscar-nominated documentary '13th' opened the New York Film Festival, Ava DuVernay returns with a sequel of sorts: '14th,' which will close the 64th edition of the festival on Oct. 9. The film, a Netflix release, examines the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and argues its guarantees (birthright citizenship, due process, equal protection under the law, and the prohibition on insurrection by heads of state) are under systematic attack.

A follow-up a decade in the making

'14th' arrives a decade after '13th' opened the festival in 2016, on the eve of Donald Trump's first presidential term. That earlier documentary argued that loopholes in the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, led to mass incarceration of Black Americans. The New York Times critic Manohla Dargis called it "powerful, infuriating and at times overwhelming." Now, DuVernay and Festival at Lincoln Center frame '14th' as a direct response to recent political currents.

“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.”

Voices spanning the political spectrum

The documentary builds its argument with a chorus of voices from across the political and legal landscape. Participants include 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 and Robert Chang, lawyer and former Georgia State Representative Stacey Abrams, and commentators Donald T. Critchlow and Hasan Piker.

The 14th Amendment in the spotlight

The 14th Amendment states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." The Supreme Court recently blocked President Trump's effort to ban birthright citizenship, with the court noting that "the framers of the 14th Amendment extended that promise to 'every free-born person in this land.'" Festival organizers describe the film as "a tough-minded reckoning with our moment in crisis," drawing "a direct line from the Reconstruction era to today."

“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.”

Festival context and opening night

Last week, the festival announced its opening-night film: James Gray's 'Paper Tiger,' a 1980s family drama starring Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, and Miles Teller. The 64th New York Film Festival runs from Sept. 25 through Oct. 12, with the '14th' world premiere set for the closing night on Oct. 9.

“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. 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.”