"We are not leaving this building": Ruth Madeley leads Being Heumann's sit-in

Siân Heder's film about the 1977 Section 504 occupation arrives with Black Panthers bringing food and a comment section full of firsthand memories.

Channel: Apple TV Story of October 13, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 184,413 views a day, 30 times a normal first day on this channel (6,153).

Being Heumann — Official Trailer | Apple TV

Stairs come first. In the opening stretch of Apple TV's new Being Heumann trailer, Judy Heumann, played by Ruth Madeley, cuts through every polite explanation with one line: "The stairs are the problem!"

From there the trailer moves fast. A television reporter describes hundreds of disabled protesters at a San Francisco federal building, Judy calls Washington asking for Joseph Califano, and officials balk at the cost of the regulations. Then the activists walk in and stay. "We are not leaving this building until these regulations are signed," Judy tells them. A Black Panther offers support ("Count the Panthers in"), and food arrives for the people inside while police arrests mount on the street outside.

That is the real 1977 story. Section 504 had barred disability discrimination in federally funded programs since 1973, but the rules that would put it into practice had not been signed. The San Francisco sit-in, which lasted close to a month, helped force them through. The film shares its title with Heumann's own memoir.

Heder, who directed the Best Picture winner CODA, wrote the screenplay with Rebekah Taussig, the author of Sitting Pretty. Mark Ruffalo plays the bureaucrat in the protesters' way, and Daniel Durant, Leo in CODA, is in an ensemble that also includes Dylan O'Brien, Rob Delaney and Madeline Delp. The trailer carries Toronto and London film festival laurels.

It passed 127,000 views in 12 hours, far beyond the channel's usual first day for videos of this length, and the comments came in many times faster than usual. Several viewers praise the subtitles left on for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers. One remembers being paralyzed and getting his city to cut its curbs in 1979; others say they are in their thirties and never learned about any of this.

The last line belongs to Judy, aimed at anyone moved by the story: inspired to do something, or just inspired? Being Heumann opens in select theaters November 6 and streams from November 13.

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The numbers

A trailer for a disability rights drama started well ahead of the channel's usual pace, with a comment section to match.

the video's first day

usual first day here

6,153

this video

184,413

subscribers

2,480,000

no significant change in the last 7 days

total views

2,000,303,779

views per day

987,835

typical day: 1,480,359

the video

views

127,319

likes

1,591

comments

72

days online

1

subscribers: this channel and similar channels

E! News

2,660,000

Apple TV

2,480,000

CBS

2,380,000

Paramount Plus

2,350,000

Channel 4 Entertainment

2,340,000

Netflix Sports

2,310,000

As of October 13, 2026 · Data source: Trari Social News, Trari Traffic Trends and Ranking Platform, Google YouTube

Subscriber, view, like and comment counts are YouTube's. Rates, usual days, rankings, comparisons and categories are Trari's own calculations.