NEWPORT BEACH FILM FESTIVAL 2026 REVIEW! Everyone thinks they know Jimmy Stewart, the stammering everyman who made us believe in small-town heroes and honest senators, but how many of us know that he was a war hero, even though he’d bristle at that title? Director Aaron Burns’ Jimmy zeroes in on the handful of years that turned Hollywood’s leading man into a decorated bomber pilot, and nearly broke him along the way.
We start with Jimmy Stewart (KJ Apa) having just won the Oscar for Best Actor for The Philadelphia Story, and Hollywood ready to hand him the keys to the cinematic kingdom. Studio boss Louis B. Mayer (Jason Alexander) has big plans for his lanky, aw-shucks star, and gossip queen Hedda Hopper (Sarah Drew) is tracking his every move and every gal by his side. But war is raging in Europe, and Jimmy has just been drafted. Thanks to Mayer, he’s off the hook, and Hopper can’t help but run with the story of a cowardly Stewart. So he does the one thing nobody in town saw coming. He walks away from the biggest job in Hollywood and enlists in the U.S. Army Air Corps, a natural fit for the lifelong flyboy.
At first, the Army tries to get Jimmy to shoot recruitment films, but like his father in WWI, he wants to fly. He ultimately becomes a captain and a B-24 bomber pilot and lands overseas under Colonel Terrill (Rob Riggle), with Second Lieutenant Martinez (Julian Works) among his crew. But combat has a way of affecting you, as Jimmy watches men in his squadron die during missions and then, as a captain, is forced to write letters home to their families. Jimmy bears a great deal of guilt and survivor’s remorse. The one place Jimmy can catch his breath is with Lady Julia (Kara Killmer), who gives him a soft place to land between the bombs.
The story then follows Jimmy through the aftermath of one of the worst bombing runs of the war…one in which he did not participate…and the slow degradation of a man suffering from what no one could name…post-traumatic stress disorder.
Jimmy Stewart (KJ Apa) chats with a guest at a glamorous Hollywood party in Jimmy.
“He walks away from the biggest job in Hollywood and enlists in the U.S. Army Air Corps, a natural fit for the lifelong flyboy.”
As a fan and admirer of Jimmy Stewart since I was a kid, I had no idea. Sure, I could have read the biography the film was based on, but who reads these days? From start to finish, I was thoroughly engaged in Jimmy Stewart’s life. I couldn’t help but admire a man who thought his highest calling was serving his country…and almost dying for it. The film covers his active-duty years, and it’s pretty brutal and intense for a story about Jimmy Stewart.
The film is bookended by Jimmy being offered the role of George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life by Frank Capra (Max Casella). It opens with the offer to a reluctant Jimmy Stewart, and by the end, you feel his reluctance. Maybe the suicidal Bailey is not that far from where the actor was at the time.
As a film, Jimmy plays like a typical biopic, moving from one highlight of Jimmy’s life to another. KJ Apa almost disappears as Stewart. He finds a take on Stewart that honors the man without ever becoming a caricature, which is no small feat since everyone in America probably has a Jimmy Stewart impression up their sleeve. Apa nails some dramatic moments. One inspires the troops, and another digs deep into a man living in despair.
As we slowly become a nation whose divide is wider than the Grand Canyon, Jimmy is exactly the film we need to see. Aaron Burns’ Jimmy is the story of sacrifice and service that America might just need as medicine for what ails this country today.
Jimmy screened at the 2026 Newport Beach Film Festival.
