Young Washington

George Washington is twenty one and nobody yet. He is a younger son of a Virginia landholder; he expects no inheritance and wants to rise in the army. The British governor sends him on an errand to the Ohio country: he is to deliver a warning letter to the French. The errand turns into a frontier incident. Washington finds himself in a skirmish and the decisions he makes start a war. Then a fortification he builds is besieged and he has to surrender. The document he signs is written in French and he does not fully know what it says. Jon Erwin directs and co-wrote the screenplay. William Franklyn-Miller plays Washington; Ben Kingsley, Mary-Louise Parker, Kelsey Grammer and Andy Serkis are in the cast. The period it treats is the French and Indian War, Washington's soldiering years before the Revolution. At its centre is failure rather than success; the young Washington makes a run of wrong decisions and the film does not hide it. It premiered at the Tribeca Festival on 13 June 2026. It opened in the United States on 3 July 2026, distributed by Angel Studios. The production company is known for films grounded in faith and the narrative keeps that audience in view. Its limit is viewpoint; the narrative proceeds in the shape of a great man biography and does not sufficiently enter the slavery of the period. Who it is for: anyone curious about historical war drama and the founding period of America. Who it is not for: the viewpoint is one directional, the shape familiar, and the historical context simplified.