For thirteen extroardinary days in October 1962, the world stood on the brink of an unthinkable catastrophe. Across the globe, people anxiously awaited the outcome of a harrowing political, diplomatic and military confrontation that had threatened to end in apocalyptic nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union.

In Thirteen Days, the power and the peril of the American presidency is dramatically explored by director Roger Donaldson, who captures the urgency, suspense and paralysing 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).