It was released on October 7 , 2016 on Netflix . '' 13th '' has garnered acclaim from film critics and has a 97 % rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 94 reviews . The critical consensus says : " '' 13th '' strikes at the heart of America 's tangled racial history , offering observations as incendiary as they are calmly controlled . " In a review from Awards Circuit , Angela Davis said " '' 13th '' is probably the most important movie you 'll ever see . " In 2017 , the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Oscars ; DuVernay became the first black woman to be nominated by the academy as a director in a feature category . The film also won a Peabody Award in 2017 and a Columbia Journalism School duPont Award in 2018
89th Oscars
89th Academy Awards
Ava DuVernay