The untold true story of America’s most-beloved actor and the iconic role that saved him, focuses on the most transformative season in Jimmy Stewart’s life—from winning the Academy Award® for Best Actor in The Philadelphia Story to enlisting and becoming a combat pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corps at the beginning of World War II. He flew twenty missions over Europe, rising to the rank of colonel by the end of the war, only to return home broken and disheartened. Then George Bailey and It’s a Wonderful Life came calling.

Reception on the Bay 6:00–7:30 PM

This year, we're doing something we've never done before. CIFF's beloved closing night reception moves to the stunning waterfront setting of the Marriott Coronado Island Resort & Marina — where the bay stretches out before you, the city skyline glitters across the water, and the open air makes every moment feel just a little more cinematic.

Join us for a gorgeous waterfront reception as the sun sets over San Diego Bay. Sip, mingle, and soak in the views — the kind of golden-hour moment that reminds you why we love gathering around great films and great company. With the downtown skyline reflecting off the water and the warm November air around you, it's the perfect prelude to one final night of cinema

Closing Night FILM 7:30

Callie and Minnie’s relationship is suddenly upended at the start of the summer before their senior year of high school. Left rudderless without her charismatic best friend, Minnie starts to form a complicated friendship with Callie’s mother.

Set in 1986 Queens and Brooklyn, an engineer aspiring to middle-class comforts is pulled into a shady deal with Russian criminals by his brother, a former NYPD cop — endangering his family with life-altering consequences.

A psychological thriller about 3 land men traveling to North Dakota to obtain mineral rights to land owned by a Native American man who hates the oil industry.

An intimate documentary portrait of visionary astronomer, author and television star Carl Sagan, whose groundbreaking ideas transformed our understanding of the cosmos and human existence.

The Last Spy is the riveting biography of 102-year-old CIA spymaster Peter Sichel, telling for the first time the epic and unvarnished history of the US foreign intelligence service from the inside. With a good dose of wit and humor to boot, Sichel unpacks the obscured roots of conflicts that plague today’s world and the toll espionage took on his personal life.

Set in a provincial Russian town in 2022, against the backdrop of the Russo-Ukrainian war, successful company director Gleb faces mounting corporate pressure — including a quota of workers to send to war — while discovering his wife's infidelity, sending his carefully ordered life spiraling toward violence. A remake of Claude Chabrol's The Unfaithful Wife.

An intimate documentary portrait of visionary astronomer, author and television star Carl Sagan, whose groundbreaking ideas transformed our understanding of the cosmos and human existence.

A young illustrator on the cusp of success leaves her exciting life in 1990s San Francisco to return to her eccentric family, who must confront their vibrant mother's Alzheimer's disease. Adult animated biographical drama based on Sarah Leavitt's graphic memoir.

A young illustrator on the cusp of success leaves her exciting life in 1990s San Francisco to return to her eccentric family, who must confront their vibrant mother's Alzheimer's disease. Adult animated biographical drama based on Sarah Leavitt's graphic memoir.