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O.J.: Made in America

2016 American documentary film

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 8, 2026
Entity authorityQ24514708 ↗
Source-derived summary

O.J.: Made in America is a 2016 American documentary, produced and directed by Ezra Edelman for ESPN Films and their 30 for 30 series. It was released as a five-part miniseries and in theatrical format. O.J.: Made in America premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2016, and was theatrically released in New York City and Los Angeles in May 2016 by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It debuted on ABC on June 11, 2016, and aired on ESPN.

The documentary explores race and celebrity through the life of O. J. Simpson, from his emerging football career at the University of Southern California, and his celebrity and popularity within American culture, to his trial for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman, and subsequent acquittal, and how he was convicted and imprisoned for the Las Vegas robbery 13 years later.

The documentary received critical acclaim and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy Awards. It was the longest film in the 30 for 30 catalogue and longest film to ever receive an Oscar nomination and win (surpassing War and Peace). The documentary became the last of its type to be nominated and win an Oscar after a new Academy rule barred any "multi-part or limited series" from being eligible for the documentary categories. Edelman received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming for his work on this project. The series also received a Peabody Award for its work.

Premise

Through interviews, news footage, and archival audio and video, O.J.: Made in America traces the life and career of O.J. Simpson, starting with his arrival at the University of Southern California as an emerging football superstar and ending with his incarceration in 2007 for robbery.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “O.J.: Made in America” as 2016 American documentary film. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2016, 2007—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2016-01-22. The account is most persuasive where Made, America and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 2016 American documentary film. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q24514708. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2016 and 2007.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “O.J.: Made in America”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow O.J.: Made in America primary sources, O.J.: Made in America archive and Made research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “O.J.: Made in America”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “O.J.: Made in America” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.