The Children's HourMovies like The Children's Hour
- Key Features:
- False accusation, Lesbianism, Homophobia, Reputation, Social stigma, Innocence, Private school, Suicide, Gossip, Tragedy, Extremism, Coming of age, Character study
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, restrained
- Target Audience:
- Classic film enthusiasts, Drama lovers, LGBTQ+ cinema viewers, Viewers interested in social issue films
- Emotional Arc:
- Innocence → Accusation → Despair
The Children's Hour

An unruly student at a private all-girls boarding school scandalously accuses the two women who run it of having a romantic relationship.
The Children's Hour
After writing a tell-all book about her days in the dance troupe "Barry Nichols and Les Girls", Sybil Wren is sued for libeling her fellow dancer Angele. A Rashômon style narrative presents the story from three points of view where Sybil accuses Angele of having an affair with Barry, while Angele insists that it was actually Sybil who was having the affair. Finally, Barry gives his side of the story.

As a 13-year-old, fledgling writer Briony Tallis irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit.

At an exclusive boys' school, a new gym teacher is drawn into a feud between two older instructors, and he discovers that everything at the school is not quite as staid, tranquil and harmless as it seems.

The Farels are a power couple: Jean is a prominent French pundit and his wife Claire an essayist known for her radical feminism. Together they have a model son, Alexandre, who is a student at a prestigious American university. During a brief visit to Paris, Alexandre meets Mila, the daughter of his mother’s new partner, and invites her to a party. The next day, Mila files a complaint against Alexandre for rape, destroying family harmony and setting in motion an inextricable media-judicial machine that posits opposing truths.

A 15-year-old girl incites chaos among her friends and a media frenzy when she accuses her drama teacher of sexual harassment.

Jealousy flares after the headmistress of an elite boarding school for girls becomes obsessed with a new student.

Julien, a young teacher, is wrongfully accused of sexual misconduct by a teenage girl from his class. As he faces mounting pressures from the girl’s older brother and her classmates, the situation spirals out of control. Allegations spread, the entire school is thrown into turmoil, and the teacher has to fight to clear his name.

Gardener Napoleone takes a job in a southern-Italian villa and quickly finds himself embroiled in a menage-a-trois with Paola and her mother, which soon leads to sex, death and mayhem.

A widower and two of his sons become infatuated by their beautiful housekeeper, and all three set out to seduce her using their own unique methods.

A teacher lives a lonely life, all the while struggling over his son’s custody. His life slowly gets better as he finds love and receives good news from his son, but his new luck is about to be brutally shattered by an innocent little lie.

Rubens is a carefree, charismatic swimming instructor who finds himself accused of displaying inappropriate affection toward one of his students by the boy's mother. Other parents and colleagues are only too eager to condemn him.

Megan Carter is a reporter duped into running an untrue story on Michael Gallagher, a suspected racketeer. He has an alibi for the time his crime was allegedly committed—but it involves an innocent party. When he tells Carter the truth and the newspaper runs it, tragedy follows, forcing Carter to face up to the responsibilities of her job when she is confronted by Gallagher.

As Dominique Marceau is being tried for the murder of Gilbert Tellier, accounts by different witnesses paint a picture of the kind of relationship the two used to share.

When a high school senior discovers her teacher is seducing her boyfriend, events turn deadly after the teacher tries to cover it up.

The McMartin family's lives are turned upside down when they are accused of serious child molestation. The family run a school for infants. An unqualified child cruelty "expert" videotapes the children describing outrageous stories of abuse. One of the most expensive and long running trials in US legal history, exposes the lack of evidence and unprofessional attitudes of the finger pointers which kept one of the accused in jail for over 5 years without bail.

A tale about a happily married couple who would like to have children. Tracy teaches infants, Andy's a college professor. Things are never the same after she is taken to hospital and operated upon by Jed, a "know all" doctor.

In a small Breton town, a 10-year-old girl is found murdered. René, her art teacher, a professional painter, is the last person to have seen her alive. The inspector in charge of the investigation immediately questions him. In this small provincial town where people all know each other and regularly meet at the Bar des Amis, René is increasingly unsettled by the other inhabitants' suspicions and by the inspector's investigation. Children stop coming to him for lessons. His wife, Viviane, a district nurse, protects him and supports him with her love. However, a self-centred media-star writer adds to René's confusion...

Paris in the 1920s. Marguerite Dumont is a wealthy woman with a passion for music and the opera. For years, she has performed regularly for a circle of guests. But Marguerite sings tragically out of tune and no one has ever told her. Her husband and her close friends have always encouraged her in her illusions. Things become very complicated the day she gets it into her head to perform in front of a genuine public, at the Opera.

For a class project, three college students decide to invent an unfounded rumor about the most popular girl on campus. But as the rumor spreads, it begins to spiral out of control.

A young Englishman dreams of escaping from his working class family and dead-end job as an undertaker's assistant. A number of indiscretions cause him to lie in order to avoid the penalties. His life turns into a mess and he has an opportunity to run away and leave it all behind.

A father and daughter are on their way to dance camp when they spot the girl's best friend on the side of the road. When they stop to offer the friend a ride, their good intentions soon result in terrible consequences.

Following a traffic accident, things take a turn when the victim's identity is revealed.

In the midst of a marital crisis, a High Court judge must decide if she should order a life-saving blood transfusion for a teen with cancer despite his family's refusal to accept medical treatment for religious reasons.

When one of her students is suspected of theft, teacher Carla Nowak decides to get to the bottom of the matter. Caught between her ideals and the school system, the consequences of her actions threaten to break her.

Acclaimed writer and historian Deborah E. Lipstadt must battle for historical truth to prove the Holocaust actually occurred when David Irving, a renowned denier, sues her for libel.

A drama teacher's taboo relationship with an unstable student strikes a nerve in her jealous classmate, sparking a vengeful chain of events within their suburban high school that draws parallels to "The Crucible".

The unruly schoolgirls of St Trinian's are more interested in men and mischief than homework and hockey. But greater trouble than ever beckons when the arrival at the school of Princess Fatima of Makyad coincides with the return of recently expelled Arabella Fritton, who has the kidnap of a prize racehorse on her mind. The first film in the classic comedy series.

Two youngsters declare to their parents that they want to get married. Not sometime in the future but as soon as possible.

A struggling female soprano finds work playing a male female impersonator, but it complicates her personal life.

Jean, a PE teacher, is forced to live a double life. When a new student arrives and threatens to expose her sexuality, Jean is pushed to extreme lengths to keep her job and her integrity.

A high-class call girl accused of murder fights for the right to stand trial rather than be declared mentally incompetent.

Armand, a 6-year-old boy, is accused of crossing boundaries against his best friend at elementary school. While no one knows what actually happened between the two boys, the incident triggers a series of events, forcing parents and school staff into a captivating battle of redemption where madness, desire and obsession arise.

When Nora witnesses Abel being bullied by other kids, she rushes to protect him by warning their father. But Abel forces her to remain silent. Caught in a conflict of loyalty, Nora will ultimately try to find her place, torn between children's and adult's worlds.

Housemaid Georgette loves to gossip and this causes major trouble to people around her.

Benson is a Casanova who tricks women into having sex with him before leaving them. He is content with this game until he meets Jamison, a real operator who poses as an exiled prince and not only gets women to share his bed but also to give him money to help him fund his supposed counter-revolution.

Best friends Sophie and Agatha navigate an enchanted school for young heroes and villains — and find themselves on opposing sides of the battle between good and evil.

Monsieur Bosquier, the owner of a private school, is far from pleased when his eldest son, Philippe, fails his end of year exams. He decides to send his wayward offspring to England to improve his English. In exchange, Philippe’s host, a wealthy whisky distiller, Mac Farrel, will send his daughter, Shirley, to live with the Bosquiers in France. However, Philippe has already decided to spend the summer holidays on a yacht with his friends, so he sends a fellow student, Michonnet, to England in his place. The deception is soon discovered but things go from bad to worse when Philippe and Shirley fall in love and fly to Scotland to get married...

Three girlhood friends now at college share first loves, first kisses and first betrayals. At the center of it all is the best-looking boy on campus. Can a self-conscious dreamer hook the biggest fish in the pond?

A student will do anything to become part of the "in-crowd" at the exclusive school she attends in New York.

In 1964 Bronx, two Catholic school nuns question the new priest's ambiguous relationship with a troubled African-American student.

After the sudden death of her mother, Aurore Gagnon is abused by her disturbed step-mother as her town remains in the silence followed by her death. Based on a true story.

Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged British novelist who is both appalled by and attracted to the vulgarity of American culture. When he comes to stay at the boarding house run by Charlotte Haze, he soon becomes obsessed with Lolita, the woman's teenaged daughter.

Wealthy passengers fogged in at London's Heathrow Airport fight to survive a variety of personal trials.

A new student, Manuela, enters a strict girls' boarding school after her mother’s death, where she finds comfort in a kind teacher, stirring complex emotions within her.

The cruel and abusive headmaster of a boarding school, Michel Delassalle, is murdered by an unlikely duo -- his meek wife and the mistress he brazenly flaunts. The women become increasingly unhinged by a series of odd occurrences after Delassalle's corpse mysteriously disappears.

In 1930s Paris, Madeleine, a pretty, young, penniless, and talentless actress, is accused of murdering a famous producer. Helped by her best friend, Pauline, a young, unemployed lawyer, she is acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. A new life of fame and success begins, until the truth comes out.

College and high school serve as the backdrop for two stories about dysfunction and personal turmoil.

Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged British novelist who is both appalled by and attracted to the vulgarity of American culture. When he comes to stay at the boarding house run by Charlotte Haze, he soon becomes obsessed with Lolita, the woman's teenaged daughter.

A youth group is preparing for what will be the summer of their life, including secrets, lies, sex, confusion, evenings and holidays.

Out drinking one night after a fight with her boyfriend, three men brutally rape Sarah Tobias in a bar while people watch and cheer. District Attorney Kathryn Murphy takes the case; however, she allows the rapists to receive a mild sentence. A distraught Sarah decides to seek punishment for the men who witnessed and encouraged the rape. To get justice, Sarah must take the stand and revisit the night of her attack.

A very gentle middle-aged man is married, but when he falls in love with another woman, he decides that to divorce his wife would humiliate her too much – so instead he decides to kill her.

A former prostitute works to create a new life for herself in a small town, but a shocking discovery could threaten everything.

Stella is 6 but she is going to school for the first time. Happy, exuberant (maybe too much) she is a lovely child, but is often absent. Her parents say she is fragile. She tells her teacher, Céline, she fell when asked why she has a few bruises. Is it child abuse or real immune deficiency? The doubt is growing in the mind of those who meet the child. Worried, Céline notes every injury until the day the family moves without telling anyone.

A veteran high school teacher befriends a younger art teacher, who is having an affair with one of her 15-year-old students. However, her intentions with this new "friend" also go well beyond platonic friendship.

A middle-aged woman, traumatized from the death of her adulterous lover, moves into a room at a New Orleans boarding house where the blind landlord becomes suspicious to her activities of continuing her affair with her dead lover.

When a young woman unexpectedly arrives at an older man's workplace, looking for answers, the secrets of the past threaten to unravel his new life.

An aspiring avant-garde composer rapes a fashion model. When she takes him to court, she's slut-shamed by the defense and the man is exonerated. But justice will be served.

The only son of wealthy widow Violet Venable dies while on vacation with his cousin Catherine. What the girl saw was so horrible that she went insane; now Mrs. Venable wants Catherine lobotomized to cover up the truth.

While being interrogated by a police psychiatrist, the near-catatonic Tabitha tries to explain why she and two of her childhood friends are being hunted by a serial killer. The truth that's dying to come out weaves together three tragic secrets from their past. Two of the girls' boyfriends become unwitting targets in their deadly game.

During the events of May 1968 in France, different worldviews of conflicting relatives collide in their family estate.

A web of blackmail and murder attracts the attention of a barrister with a seemingly idyllic life, threatening to derail his career on the path of success.

Early 20th century England: while toasting his daughter Catherine's engagement, Arthur Winslow learns the royal naval academy expelled his 14-year-old son, Ronnie, for stealing five shillings. Father asks son if it is true; when the lad denies it, Arthur risks fortune, health, domestic peace, and Catherine's prospects to pursue justice.

Harvard Law student Oliver Barrett IV and music student Jennifer Cavilleri share a chemistry they cannot deny - and a love they cannot ignore. Despite their opposite backgrounds, the young couple put their hearts on the line for each other. When they marry, Oliver's wealthy father threatens to disown him. Jenny tries to reconcile the Barrett men, but to no avail.

After starting at an upmarket boarding school, a teenage girl forms close friendships with her two older roommates. However, when she discovers that her new friends are lovers she finds herself caught in a complicated situation.

A mysterious virus hits an isolated elementary school, transforming the kids into a feral swarm of mass savages. An unlikely hero must lead a motley band of teachers in the fight of their lives.

An ambitious young FBI agent is assigned to investigate iconic actress Jean Seberg when she becomes embroiled in the tumultuous civil rights movement in late 1960s Los Angeles.

Two hoodlum brothers are brought into a hospital for gunshot wounds, and when one of them dies the other accuses their black doctor of murder.

An investigation into one woman’s memory as she‘s forced to re-examine her first sexual relationship and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive.

Alice is a withdrawn 12-year-old who lives with her mother and her younger sister, Karen, who gets most of the attention from her mother, leaving Alice out of the spotlight. When Karen is found brutally murdered in a church, suspicions start to turn toward Alice. But could a 12-year-old girl really be capable of such savagery?

The wife and mistress of a cruel school master collaborate in a carefully planned and executed scheme to murder him. The plan goes well until the body, which has been strategically dumped, disappears. The psychological strain starts to weigh on the two women when a retired police investigator begins looking into the man's disappearance on a whim.

Sophie is far from being the model little girl one would like her to be, unlike her friends Camille and Madeleine. She always insists on having her own way, often getting into trouble, to the despair of one and all. But her mother is unbending and otherwise inclined. She will not let her get away with anything, and poor Sophie will often have to live with the consequences of her bad behaviour and learn her lesson.

Two business executives--one an avowed misogynist, the other recently emotionally wounded by his love interest--set out to exact revenge on the female gender by seeking out the most innocent, uncorrupted girl they can find and ruining her life.

A group of former high school classmates meets for a reunion 15 years after graduation, only to discover that any innocence or friendship is long lost.

Carol, a college student, comes to John's office, her professor, to discuss the grade she has received for one of her papers.

Boy meets girl; boy falls in love (and had wild, non-stop sex) with girl; boy loses girl... when they discover they are brother and sister! But when he learns that he's the victim of the ultimate case of mistaken identity, the lovesick young man -- whom everyone still thinks is after some taboo thrills -- must race across the country to stop her from marrying another man.

Taking place in real time, elementary school teacher Emily organizes a mixer of like-minded women, but an altercation between a woman from Emily’s past and the group leads to a volatile chain of events.

Beautiful Noriko Miki works at a cosmetic company. One day, Noriko is murdered. People begin to suspect her co-worker Miki Shirono might have killed her. Television begins to cover her story. A TV show interviews Miki Shirono's colleagues, family, people from her hometown. Rumors turn into fear. Is she a wicked a woman?

An American writer living in exile in London, Philip listens to women. His English mistress, who visits him regularly in the studio that serves as their refuge. A student he loved in another life. A former lover confined to a hospital in New York.

Mary and her friend, Rachel, are new students at St. Francis Academy, a boarding school run by the iron fist of Mother Superior. The immature teens grow bored and begin playing pranks on both the unsuspecting nuns and their unpleasant classmates, becoming a constant thorn in Mother Superior's side. However, as the years pass, Mary and Rachel slowly mature and begin to see the nuns in a different light.

The innocent Célène might be falling in love with popular surfer Tristan at her new school. But she has no idea that, in actuality, she’s the object of a cruel bet between Tristan and Instagram influencer Vanessa.

A young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted by ghosts and that the children are being possessed.

A murderer is brought to court and only Miss Marple is unconvinced of his innocence. Once again she begins her own investigation.

When a well-loved headmaster decides to retire, his scheming pupils have other ideas. The cunning boys unleash a campaign of practical jokes, armed with gin, itching power, and bombs!

A group of teachers must defend themselves from a gang of murderous kids when their school comes under siege after hours.

A trio of interweaved transgressive tales, telling a bizarre stories of suburban patricide and a miraculous flight from justice, a mad sex experiment which unleashes a disfiguring plague, and the obsessive sexual relationship between two prison inmates.

Cassie, a 13 year old Gothic girl, is trying to fit in at her new school. To entertain herself, she plays a series of pranks on the popular kids and her younger brother, Max. When she goes to a Halloween store looking for new tricks, she finds a little book called "The Evil Thing"

A sickly girl Ju-ran transfers to a new sanitorium boarding school to regain health. But she discovers that students are disappearing and notices abnormal changes happening to her body. She suspects the school for what's happening and tries to discover what secret is hidden.

A teacher reconnects with an old student who is now an attorney representing a family who is suing the school for graduating their son who still cannot read or write. Amid the daily chaos of teaching in an inner city school, Alex Jurel tries to decide if he will lie at his deposition to protect the school or tell the truth and risk throwing away his career.

In 1996 Scotland, a group of Catholic schoolgirls get an opportunity to go into Edinburgh for a choir competition, but they're more interested in drinking, partying and hooking up than winning the competition.

Devastated at the death of her four-year-old daughter, a grieving middle school teacher is horrified to discover that her students aren't as innocent as she thinks.

Six children are found spread through out the world that not only have enormous intelligence, but identical intelligence and have a strange bond to each other.

The lives of two lovelorn spouses from separate marriages, a registered sex offender, and a disgraced ex-police officer intersect as they struggle to resist their vulnerabilities and temptations.

A manipulative childhood acquaintance worms her way into a teenager's circle of friends at an all-girls boarding school.

Something terrible is happening in class 3A at Calmecatl Junior High. No one can leave the classroom until the guilty party is found. This is the device that gives us a glimpse of the ethics, games, esthetics and eroticism of these girl-women. It is not easy to say what the subject is, there are so many: the discovery of sexuality, discrimination, chance, drugs, maternity, traditions, betrayals, power, love. A mural of a complex reality from the point of view of twenty-something women in the skin of 14 to 15 year old girls.

Based on actual events that took place at Gwangju Inhwa School for the hearing-impaired, where young deaf students were the victims of repeated sexual assaults by faculty members over a period of five years in the early 2000s.

New York's Odyssey Detective Agency is hired by two different clients to follow two women suspected of infidelity. Ladies' man John Russo trails Angela Niotes, the elegant wife of a wealthy Italian industrialist, while Charles Rutledge and Arthur Brodsky follow Dolores Martin, the beautiful young wife of a jealous husband. Their respective cases are complicated when John falls for Angela, and Charles falls for Dolores.

Two millennial entrepreneurs stage elaborate fake exorcisms on social media until one of their girlfriends becomes possessed by a demon.

When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.

Olive, an average high school student, sees her below-the-radar existence turn around overnight once she decides to use the school's gossip grapevine to advance her social standing. Now her classmates are turning against her and the school board is becoming concerned, including her favorite teacher and the distracted guidance counselor. With the support of her hilariously idiosyncratic parents and a little help from a long-time crush, Olive attempts to take on her notorious new identity and crush the rumor mill once and for all.
