Thirteen Days

Thirteen Days is a 2000 American historical political thriller film directed by Roger Donaldson. It dramatizes the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, seen from the perspective of the American political leadership. Kevin Costner stars as top White House assistant Kenneth P. O'Donnell, with Bruce Greenwood featured as President John F. Kennedy, Steven Culp as Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and Dylan Baker as Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. While the film carries the same title as the 1969 book Thirteen Days by former attorney general Robert F. Kennedy, it is in fact based on the 1997 book The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis by Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow. It is the second docudrama made about the crisis, the first being 1