12 Years a Slave is a 2013 award-winning movie based on the book with the same name. In fact, John Ridley won one of the awards for the film, the Oscar Best Writing of an Adapted Screenplay. The movie is a about a man named Solomon Northup who was a free Black who got kidnapped and sold into slavery. The book was written by Solomon Northup himself, who wrote the story based on the events he went through in his 12 years of slavery. Northrup was born free in the north and was living with his family in New York. He was a skilled violinist and also worked in labor. In 1841, two men offered him a job to play the fiddle in a circus. He accepted and, while traveling, was drugged and sold into slavery. The film is a very accurate and is praised for its depiction of Solomon's book. In the film and the book, Northrup depicted the treatment slaves were subjected to at the time. His second owner, John M. Tibaut, was very brutal in his beatings toward Northrup, who fought back a couple times, which resulted in him returning to his previous owner where  he spent the remainder of his slavery.

Northrup tried to escape multiple times before he was finally able to go back home. He was able to leave after an abolitionist named Samuel Bass helped him send letters back to his family which led to his freedom in 1853. Shortly after he was free, Northrup wrote a book about his time in slavery, 12 Years a Slave. After this, he was a speaker and was even believed to work in the Underground Railroad. He died sometime in 1857 and was buried in an unknown location. The film is considered one of the greatest films about slavery and the things people had to go through. In addition to winning the Oscar for Best Writing of an Adapted Screenplay, it also won an Oscar for Best Motion Picture of the Year in 2014, and Lupita Nyong’o won an Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role. The film also won a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama. Dozens of other awards were given by various groups recognizing the film, the actors and the crew of the movie.