Movies

’Being Heumann’ Is a Timely Reminder of Others’ Humanity

The 'Being Heumann' trailer brings forward a piece of undertold 20th century history.

Ani Bundel

14 Oct 2026 — 3 min read

Michael Patrick Thornton, Andrew Pilkington, Rein Barcel, Ruth Madeley, Rio Finnegan, Antwan Tolliver, Roberta Colindrez, Ray Fisher and D’Arcee Charington Neal in "Being Heumann" (Photo: Apple TV)

Not enough people have heard of Judith Heumann, but if Apple Studios can land its latest film in the awards-season conversation, that will finally change. Known as the “Mother of the Disability Rights Movement,” Heumann, who passed in 2022, played a pivotal role in shaping legislation that led to the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Based on Heumann’s memoir of the same name, Being Heumann is set in the late 1970s, when the first major push for the rights of disabled Americans occurred in the wake of the Vietnam War. The latter half of the 20th century brought major medical advances that made it possible to save injured soldiers’ lives, but restoring functional limbs was still decades away. This led to a boom in the disabled population in the 1970s, as those who had been drafted and injured – many of them with no interest in being professional soldiers – returned home to face decades of life as wheelchair users.

Heumann, on the other hand, had been disabled since she was eighteen months old, the result of a childhood polio infection. Her courage and leadership in assembling the Section 504 Sit-In in San Francisco, the longest takeover of a governmental building in U.S. history, was crucial to the establishment of the first framework defining the rights of the disabled individual, which went on to become the basis for the nationwide Americans with Disabilities Act a decade later in 1989.

Here’s the film’s synopsis.

They wouldn’t take Judy Heumann’s phone calls, so she took their building. In 1977, a young disabled woman and a scrappy coalition of outsiders decide they’ve had enough. What begins as one impulsive act becomes the longest occupation of a federal building in American history, as hundreds spontaneously seize government offices and refuse to leave until the bureaucrat in their way takes action. Bringing rebellion in all its forms to the hallowed halls, a movement’s accidental leaders struggle to find their path forward where none has ever been paved for them.

Ruth Madeley (Doctor Who) stars as the titular Judy Heumann; the film’s cast also features Mark Ruffalo (Task), Rob Delaney (PONIES), Jon Beavers (Watson), Dylan O’Brien (Teen Wolf), Daniel Durant (CODA), Ray Fisher (Justice League), and Madeline Delp (Inaccessible Family Love).

Siân Heder, who won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for CODA, directs from a script she co-wrote with Rebekah Tassig, adapted from Heumann’s memoir. David Permut (Hacksaw Ridge) and Kevin Walsh (Napoleon) produce for The Walsh Company under his overall deal with Apple. Heumann’s managers John W. Beach and Kevin Cleary (of Gravity Squared Entertainment) serve as producers. Executive producers include Heumann, Being Heumann co-author Kristen Joiner, and Diana Pokorny.