Thirteen Days (2000)

In Thirteen Days, the power and peril of the American presidency is dramatically explored by director Roger Donaldson, who captures the urgency, suspense and paralyzing chaos of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The alarming escalation of events during those fateful days brought to the fore such public figures as Robert McNamara, Adlai Stevenson, Theodore Sorenson, Andrei Gromyko, Anatoly Dobrynin, McGeorge Bundy, Dean Acheson, Dean Rusk, and General Curtis LeMay. In addition many others -- politicians, diplomats and soldiers -- were on the front line of the showdown. In Thirteen Days, we see all of these people, -- and, above all -- President John F. Kennedy and his brother Bobby, through the eyes of a trusted presidential aide and confidante, Kenneth P. O'Donnell (Kevin Costner). O'Donnell, who served as Special Assistant to the President, was a key White House insider with a birdseye view of the crisis. His office was next door to the President's Oval Office, and he was a major behind the scenes figure in the Kennedy White House. In the film, O'Donnell serves as a conduit to this gripping dramatization of one of the most dangerous moments in modern history.