13th is a film that assembles an argument and lets you reject it. The argument: the 13th Amendment abolished slavery “except as a punishment for crime,” and that exception has been exploited to maintain a system of racial control in the United States from Reconstruction to the present day.

The film’s structure is chronological but not linear: it moves through periods, tracing the evolution from convict leasing after the Civil War to the mass incarceration boom that began in the 1970s. Each era has its political economy, its cultural products, its justifications.

The interview subjects include Bryan Stevenson, Michelle Alexander, Van Jones, Angela Davis, Cory Booker, and Newt Gingrich, a range that prevents easy dismissal as partisan advocacy.

13th was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary. It is one of the most important American documentaries of the past decade. Whether you agree with its thesis or not, it makes a case that demands engagement.