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School movies fall into two major categories, namely, teachers as heroes or teachers as incompetent idiots and villains. Then there are a handful of others that are hard to categorize. Here is a sampling of school and teacher related movies in approximate historical order.
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- Blackboard Jungle - early 1950's
The film that launched the careers of Bill Haley and Glen Ford.
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- To Sir With Love
The song of the same name sung by Lulu can still be heard in supermarkets and oldies radio stations. The film is predictably heart-warming and features a young Sidney Portier.
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- Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
This film always made me feel uneasy with its portrait of a teacher who is so involved in her role that she loses perspective.
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- Up the Downstairs Case
A successful old film that was based on a book by a high school teacher who kept a journal of incidents that occurred at school. (I highly recommend writing down the triumphs, tragedies and humor that occur at your job, especially if you are a teacher or a school administrator.)
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- If
Strange, surrealistic movie about a British public school, which features the beatings, I was so familiar with from my own school days.
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- Fast Times at Ridgemont High
A classic from the book by Cameron Crowe, who has recently hit it big with 'Jerry McGuire'. Great cast and solid 70's soundtrack. Among the "unknowns" who appear in the film are Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nicolas Cage, Forest Whittaker and Judge Reinholdt. Cameron Crowe is now back with an autobiographical look at the 70's with 'Almost Famous' featuring a great performance by Phyllis Seymour Hoffman who can't go wrong of late.
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- Unman, Whittering and Zigo
I can't find it in the video stores, but this was a little gem of a thriller set in a private boarding school. It begins with a new teacher, who is informed by his students that unless he conforms to their expectations they will kill him and/or his wife, just as they killed the teacher he replaced.
- Dead Poet's Society
My all time favorite. Well cast, well edited and well written. Robin Williams is excellent in the quintessential teacher role.
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- The Browning Version
Beautiful English public school film. Oscar-worthy performance by Albert Finney.
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- Pump Up the Volume
Early Christian Slater taking on the local school with his private radio station.
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- Mr. Holland's Opus
Another in the 'humble teacher as hero' genre of films. It's easy to write off as too sentimental, but I enjoyed it.
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- Stand and Deliver
True story of a Hispanic teacher who was so successful teaching math to inner city students that he was accused of fixing the exam results.
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- Ferris Bueller's Day Off
This is a film about not going to school. It's funny and features a typical vengeful, incompetent teacher stereotype.
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- Heathers
A cheeze-free black comedy. This is not your standard students-with-hearts-of-gold diamond-in-the-rough sort of American high school movie: the popular girls are nasty, and the rebel boy to whom the film's star Winona Ryder turns as a relief from the 'in' crowd, is a bitter sociopath Christian Slater. When the movie was first released, its over the top scenarios—school bombing and football team murders—were intended as a dark antidote to sunny 90210 versions of high school life. Its increasing relevance gives the movie unsettling bite.
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- Good Will Hunting
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon wrote and took lead roles in this one. Actually it's a University based film but it seems to fit the genre, with another juicy part for Robin Williams.
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- Dangerous Minds
Michelle Pfeiffer really strains credibility as a dedicated inner city school teacher.
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- Music of the Heart
Meryl Streep beating the odds to turn her students on to music. I couldn't really buy into this one.
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- Election
Two thumbs up. Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon star in a very good recent film about high school student council election.
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Any others? Let us know.
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