Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream film critics, gives "Thirteen Days" a score of 67, based on 31 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade A-. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave "Thirteen Days" a rating of 3 stars out of 4, and said "The movie's taut, flat style is appropriate for a story that is more about facts and speculation than about action. Kennedy and his advisers study high-altitude photos and intelligence reports, and wonder if Khrushchev's word can be trusted. Everything depends on what they decide. The movie shows men in unknotted ties and shirt-sleeves, grasping coffee cups or whiskey glasses and trying to sound rational while they are at some level terrified...[T]hings might not have happened exactly like this, but it sure did feel like they did." Some former Kennedy administration officials and contemporary historians, including Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Special Counsel Ted Sorensen, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, criticized the film for the depiction of Special Assistant Kenneth O'Donnell as chief motivator of Kennedy and others during the crisis. Prior to seeing the movie, McNamara reacted to the premise in a "PBS NewsHour" interview:  For God's sakes, Kenny O'Donnell didn't have any role whatsoever in the missile crisis; he was a political appointment secretary to the President; that's absurd. According to McNamara, the duties performed by O'Donnell in the film were closer to the role Sorensen played during the actual crisis: "It was not Kenny O'Donnell who pulled us all together—it was Ted Sorensen." After seeing the movie McNamara remarked that while he still thought the filmmakers took some creative liberties with certain characters, he ultimately thought that it was a reasonable historical portrayal of the crisis:  I think it's an absolutely fascinating portrayal and a very constructive and responsible portrayal of a very, very serious crisis not only in the history of this nation but in the history of the world. Costner traveled to Cuba in 2001 to screen the film for Fidel Castro, saying at a press conference, "It was an experience of a lifetime to sit only a few feet away from him and watch him relive an experience he lived as a very young man." The DVD & VHS was released on July 10, 2001. The DVD release marked the debut for New Line's Infinifilm label.