Ava DuVernay‘s documentary 14th, exploring the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, will receive its world premiere as the closing night selection of the 2026 New York Film Festival. The Netflix film, which will screen on Oct. 9, serves as a follow-up to DuVernay’s 2016 doc 13th, which opened that year’s New York Film Festival, and explores how the 14th Amendment and its provisions for birthright citizenship, due process and equal protection under the law and outlawing insurrection by elected officials have become the subject of a permanent argument. blogherads.adq.push(function () { blogherads .defineSlot( 'medrec', 'gpt-article-mid-article-uid0' ) .setTargeting( 'pos', ["mid-article1","mid-articleX","mid","mid-article"] ) .setTargeting( 'viewable', 'yes' ) .setSubAdUnitPath("ros\/mid-article") .addSize([[300,250],[2,2],[300,251],[620,350],[2,4],[4,2],[320,480],[620,366]]) .setClsOptimization("minsize") ; }); Related Stories TV German TV in Crosshairs After Network Cancels "Antifascist" Performance Movies NY Film Festival Sets James Gray's 'Paper Tiger' as Opening Night Film Set for release later this year, 14th blends scholarship with present-day headlines and features insights from politicians, historians, cultural voices and legal minds. “If 13th asked who gets caged, then 14th asks who gets counted,” DuVernay said when Netflix announced 14th last week. “This is not a film about the past tense of freedom. I’m not interested in asking you to look back. The film asks what kind of country is being written beneath our feet now … while we’re busy believing the stories we’ve all been told.” The doc features the voices of Democratic and Republican politicians, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Anna Paulina Luna, Sen. Alex Padilla and former Sen. Jeff Flake. The film also includes legal experts Sherrilyn Ifill, Robert Chang and Stacey Abrams; commentators Donald T. Critchlow and Hasan Piker; and historians Eric Foner and David Blight. “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,” DuVernay said in a statement. “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 [NYFF artistic director] 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.” blogherads.adq.push(function () { blogherads .defineSlot( 'medrec', 'gpt-dsk-tab-mid-article2-uid1' ) .setTargeting( 'pos', ["mid","mid-article2","mid-articleX"] ) .setTargeting( 'viewable', 'yes' ) .setSubAdUnitPath("ros\/mid-article2") .addSize([[300,250],[300,251],[620,350],[2,4],[4,2],[320,480],[620,366]]) .setClsOptimization("minsize") ; }); Lim added, “We are honored to close this edition of the New York Film Festival with Ava DuVernay’s supremely timely follow-up to 13th. 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.” The Oscar-nominated DuVernay, who has won Emmy and Peabody awards among other honors, directed and produced the Array film. Spencer Averick, Tammy Garnes and Paul Garnes also produced 14th. DuVernay’s film comes as President Donald Trump has attacked the birthright citizenship provision of the 14th Amendment, signing an executive order to heavily restrict the Constitutional guarantee. In June, the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s order by a vote of 6-3. The 64th New York Film Festival, which will open with the North American premiere of James Gray’s Paper Tiger, is set to run from Sept. 25-Oct. 12.