The First GraderMovies like The First Grader
- Key Features:
- Biographical, Overcoming adversity, Education, Social justice, Historical drama, Redemption, Perseverance, Cultural identity, Ageism, Africa, Colonialism, Inspiration, Underdog
- Tone:
- serious, earnest, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Inspirational movie fans, Drama enthusiasts, Social justice advocates, International cinema viewers
- Emotional Arc:
- Hope → Struggle → Triumph
The First Grader

The true story of an 84 year-old Kenyan villager and ex Mau Mau freedom fighter who fights for his right to go to school for the first time to get the education he could never afford.
The First Grader
A chronicle of Nelson Mandela's life journey from his childhood in a rural village through to his inauguration as the first democratically elected president of South Africa.

PK, an English orphan terrorized for his family's political beliefs in Africa, turns to his only friend, a kindly world-wise prisoner, Geel Piet. Geel teaches him how to box with the motto “fight with your fists and lead with your heart”. As he grows to manhood, PK uses these words to take on the system and the injustices he sees around him - and finds that one person really can make a difference.

At Léon Blum High School in Créteil, France, a history teacher decides to have her weakest 10th grade class participate in a national history competition.

This historical drama is an account of the early life of British politician Winston Churchill, including his childhood years, his time as a war correspondent in Africa, and culminating with his first election to Parliament.

Over one intense day, the devoted head teacher of a last-chance reform school strives to keep his students in line while facing pressures of his own.

Gabriel, aged 10, lives in a comfortable ex-pat neighborhood in Burundi, his ‘small country’. Gabriel is a normal kid, happy, carefree and having adventures with his friends and little sister. Then in 1993, tensions in neighboring Rwanda spill over, threatening his family and his innocence.

Florence is a school teacher devoted to her students. When she encounters young Sacha, a child with problems, she will do everything she can to help him, even to the point of neglecting her own children, her own life, and of questioning her vocation. Little by little Florence realizes that learning has no age limit.

A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school.

Against all the odds, a thirteen year old boy in Malawi invents an unconventional way to save his family and village from famine.

After thirty years teaching in London, Mark Thackeray retires and returns to Chicago. There, however, the challenge of teaching kids in an inner city school proves to be too much to resist.

Eddie lands his first teaching gig at an inner city middle school and finds his highly pubescent pupils are receiving no form of sexual education. Eddie isn't really equipped to teach them...he's not exactly experienced romantically.

Newly elected President Nelson Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's rugby union team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.

A young girl overcomes her disadvantaged upbringing in the slums of Uganda to become a Chess master.

A British Guianese engineer starts a job as a high school teacher in London’s East End, where his uninterested and delinquent pupils are in desperate need of attention and care.

Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, battles through one of his career-defining cases.

A look at the events leading up to the Taliban's attack on the young Pakistani school girl, Malala Yousafzai, for speaking out on girls' education and the aftermath, including her speech to the United Nations.

When he suddenly finds himself without his long-standing blue-collar job, Larry Crowne enrolls at his local college to start over. There, he becomes part of an eclectic community of students and develops a crush on his teacher.

Andrew Crocker-Harris is an embittered and disliked teacher of Greek and Latin at a British prep school. After nearly 20 years of service, he is being forced to retire for 'health reasons', and perhaps may not even be given a pension. The boys regard him as a Hitler, with some justification. His unfaithful wife Laura tries to hurt him in any way she can. Andrew must come to terms with his failed life and at least regain his own self-esteem.

In one of the poorest areas of Paris, a school counselor devotes herself to working with disadvantaged students, while facing challenges of her own.

70-year-old widower Ben Whittaker has discovered that retirement isn't all it's cracked up to be. Seizing an opportunity to get back in the game, he becomes a senior intern at an online fashion site, founded and run by Jules Ostin.

Teacher in the most prestigious highschool in the country, François enjoys the life he’s always known, in the intellectual and bourgeois society of Paris. Trapped in a situation where he’s forced to accept a job in a school of a tough underprivileged suburb, he finds himself confronted to his own limits and to the upheaval of his values and certainties.

A high school girl, Sayaka Kudō was the bottom of the class. After a year, she improved her deviation value from 30 to 70, then passed Keio University that is considered one of the most difficult to enter in Japan.

A coming-of-age story that follows 12-year-old Andy Nichol, a bright student who, like most kids his age, will do anything to avoid conflict for fear of suffering overwhelming ridicule and punishment from his junior high school peers.

When a high school diploma becomes the key to unlocking his inheritance, a spoiled teen gets an invaluable lesson in life and love in a rural village.

Abu, 14, is his father's pride. Unlike his three brothers, he is the "top of his class". Well, that's what he would have you believe. In truth, Abu is, above all, the king of lies and fake school grades. When the first meeting of parents and teachers arrives, he is going to stage the biggest lie of his life: he is looking for false teachers among his acquaintances in the neighborhood to meet his real father, while his real teachers will meet a false father.

Fifteen-year-old country girl Suzume Yosano has to move to Tokyo to live with her uncle due to her father's transfer. She bumps into a mysterious man who ends up taking her to her uncle's place after she gets lost. Turns out, Suzume will be seeing him a lot more often once she starts school because... he's her homeroom teacher?!

Passionate and innovative teacher Ron Clark leaves his small hometown to teach in one of Harlem's toughest schools. But to break through to the students, he must use unconventional methods, including his ground-breaking classroom rules, to help them reach their potential. Based on a true story.

Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.

Richard Clark has just left the well-known Wellington Academy to teach at Marion Barry High School. Now, he will try to inspire the D-average students into making good grades and try to woo a fellow teacher.

Because he wanted to protect his little brother, Teddy, a young man without a history, is accused of the murder of his father and sent to a closed educational center, waiting for his trial for parricide. He then plunges into a brutal universe of which he does not know the rules.

A young Barack Obama forges his identity while dealing with race, divergent cultures and ordinary life as a New York City college student.

An eight-year-old boy is willing to do whatever it takes to end World War II so he can bring his father home. The story reveals the indescribable love a father has for his little boy and the love a son has for his father.

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.

After retiring to the beautiful Mexican town of Guanajuato, a 70 year old decides to follow his dreams and enroll at the university where he stumbles upon a new generation and they are bound together by the novel Don Quijote de la Mancha.

The true story of Gabby Douglas who becomes the first African American to be named Individual All-Around Champion in artistic gymnastics at the Olympic Games.

A down-and-out schoolteacher receives the calling to become the real life personification of an old television superhero, Zebraman.

In a mining town which has been blighted by economic downturns, an elementary school headmaster struggles to obtain social services on behalf of his students.

Fleeing from the Russian secret police, a young Estonian fencer is forced to return to his homeland, where he becomes a physical education teacher at a local school. The past however catches up and puts him in front of a difficult choice.

During a harsh Montréal winter, an elementary-school class is left reeling after its teacher commits suicide. Bachir Lazhar, a charismatic Algerian immigrant, steps in as the substitute teacher for the classroom of traumatized children. All the while, he must keep his personal life tucked away: the fact that he is seeking political refuge in Québec – and that he, like the children, has suffered an appalling loss.

Benjamin is meant to be a great doctor, he’s certain of it. But his first experience as a junior doctor in the hospital ward where his father works doesn’t turn out the way he hoped it would. Responsibility is overwhelming, his father is all but present, and his co-junior partner, a foreign doctor, is far more experimented than he is. This internship will force Benjamin to confront his limits… and start his way to adulthood.

Coach Jim Ellis shocks the community and changes lives when, aided by a local janitor, he sets out to form Philadelphia's first black swim team. But the odds are against them as they battle rigid rules, racism and more.

Set in 1900, Lili d’Alengy, a Parisian cocotte at the height of her fame, flees Paris to hide her “idiot” daughter. There she meets Maria Montessori, who is pioneering a teaching method that may help the child.

11-year-old Akeelah Anderson has a way with words. After winning her schoolwide spelling bee, she decides to enter the competition, despite her classmates' derision and the antipathy of her mother Tanya. Thanks to the efforts of her teacher Dr. Larabee, she reaches the finals. As she gets to know her fellow competitors, Akeelah realizes that coming first isn't everything in life.

Follows the life of Native Canadian Saul Indian Horse as he survives residential school and life amongst the racism of the 1970s. A talented hockey player, Saul must find his own path as he battles stereotypes and alcoholism.

Rudy grew up in a steel mill town where most people ended up working, but wanted to play football at Notre Dame instead. There were only a couple of problems. His grades were a little low, his athletic skills were poor, and he was only half the size of the other players. But he had the drive and the spirit of 5 people and has set his sights upon joining the team.

Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.

Set in the People's Republic of China during the 1990s, the film centers on a 13-year-old substitute teacher, Wei Minzhi, in the Chinese countryside. Called in to substitute for a village teacher for one month, Wei is told not to lose any students.

The story of Maria Montessori the most famous pedagogue of the world. She spent all her life to make her "metodo" (method) accepted in the archaic Italian school system, while the rest of the world immediately understand the importance of her theories. She was the first Italian Doctor, a famous feminist, a scientist. Her private life was hit by having an illegitimate son and by the Fascism that didn't want to accept completely her theories.

A boy with Tourette's syndrome overcomes criticism and discrimination to achieve his dream of becoming a teacher.

A villager, Gurukant Desai, arrives in Bombay in 1958, and rises from its streets to become the biggest tycoon in India.

Between her roles as mayor and teacher in the small village of Kerguen, Alice's days are very full. When an unexpected new student, 60-year-old Emile, finally decides to learn to read and write, her daily life threatens to become unmanageable. Especially since Alice will also have to save her village and her school...

Based on a true story, in which Richmond High School head basketball coach Ken Carter made headlines in 1999 for benching his undefeated team due to poor academic results.

The true story of a brilliant but politically radical debate team coach who uses the power of words to transform a group of underdog African-American college students into a historical powerhouse that took on the Harvard elite.

Four undying warriors who've secretly protected humanity for centuries become targeted for their mysterious powers just as they discover a new immortal.

The We and the I is the heartfelt and comical story of the final bus ride home for a group of young high school students and graduates.

A young South African boy from the Johannesburg ghetto named Tsotsi, meaning Gangster, leaves home as a child to get away from his helpless parents. Now a teenage thug, Tsotsi finds a baby in the back seat of a car he's just stolen. He decides that it is his responsibility to care for the infant and in the process learns that maybe the criminal life isn’t the best way.

Surrounded by the eccentric faculty of Truman High School, Mitch Carter wins the California Teacher of the Year award and immediately receives a tempting offer that may force him to leave his job.

Barry Goldwater Elementary is on the brink of collapse: the lowest test scores in the state, teachers who are either drunk or having sex on school grounds, and a principal who extorts money from parents. It's up to Tom, the down-on-his-luck vice-principal, to rally the lazy teachers, expose the principal's corruption, and turn the school around before an end of the day board decision.

Stach is a wayward teen living in squalor on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Guided by an avuncular Communist organizer, he is introduced to the underground resistance—and to the beautiful Dorota. Soon he is engaged in dangerous efforts to fight oppression and indignity, maturing as he assumes responsibility for others’ lives. A coming-of-age story of survival and shattering loss, A Generation delivers a brutal portrait of the human cost of war.

Chronicles the powerful friendship between two young Black teenagers navigating the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida.

A destitute young man, raised by racist skinheads and notorious among white supremacists, turns his back on hatred and violence to transform his life, with the help of a black activist and the woman he loves.

The true story of one man's mission to give inner city kids of Washington DC something he never had - a future. After being incarcerated for eighteen years, Eugene Brown established the Big Chair Chess Club to get kids off the streets and working towards lives they never believed they were capable of. This is his inspirational story.

Shirley Chisholm makes a trailblazing run for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination after becoming the first Black woman elected to Congress.

Izi's close to escaping The Kitchen, one of London's last remaining housing estates. But when young Benji enters his life, he faces some hard decisions.

Teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself as he negotiates a year with his racially mixed students from a tough Parisian neighborhood.

After going through a series of tragic events in his life, martial arts master Huo Yuanjia returns to Tianjin and must fight four international soldiers, in order to safeguard his nation's pride.

The time is 1945-46. 10 year old Eda and his friend Tonda live in a small village outside Prague. In school, their class is so wild and indisciplined that their teacher quits and is replaced by the militant Igor Hnidzo. He is very strict – but also very fair. His weakness though, is his interest in young women.

Jaime Escalante is a mathematics teacher in a school in a hispanic neighbourhood. Convinced that his students have potential, he adopts unconventional teaching methods to try and turn gang members and no-hopers into some of the country's top algebra and calculus students.

Love and unity in a school torn by racism and hate in the 1970s. A gifted high school football player must learn to embrace his talent and his faith as he battles racial tensions on and off the field.

A young man’s difficult entry into adulthood, who experiences the highs and lows of his first love, while dealing with the familial fallout spurred by the financial crisis of 2008.

A bright student in Nigeria takes on the academic establishment when she reports a popular professor who tried to rape her. Based on real events.

Billy Madison is the 27 year-old son of Bryan Madison, a very rich man who has made his living in the hotel industry. Billy stands to inherit his father's empire, but only if he can make it through all 12 grades, 2 weeks per grade, to prove that he has what it takes to run the family business.

After surviving a stabbing by a student, teacher Trevor Garfield moves from New York to Los Angeles. There, he resumes teaching as a substitute teacher. The education system, where violent bullies control the classrooms and the administration is afraid of lawsuits, slowly drives Garfield mad. He then moves to California to be a sub for a predominantly Native Hispanic/Latin-American high school in Los Angeles. He is tormented by members of a Native Hispanic/Latino-American tag crew named K.O.S. (Kappin’ off Suckaz).

Follow the inspirational life of college football hero Ernie Davis, the first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy.

Petit Spirou, like all his family before him, has a career destiny all traced. When his mother announces that he will integrate the grooms school at the beginning of the new school year, Petit Spirou, with the help of his friends, will take advantage of his last days of class to declare his love to Suzette. And no matter how. They decide to live an extraordinary adventure.

At Fallbrook Middle School, the annual student-elected Teacher of the Year award is held. And every year for the last 43 years Norman Warner or most fondly called Stormin' Norman Warner has won the award. Now that he has died, the burden of carrying the legacy falls into the hands of Matt Warner, the son of the late Norman Warner who has always lived in the shadow of his father.

Burglary. Drugs. Assault. Rape. The students at Brandel High are more than new Principal Rick Latimer bargained for. Gangs fight to control the school using knives - even guns - when they have to. When Latimer and the head of security try to clean up the school and stop the narcotics trade, they run up against a teenage mafia. A violent confrontation on the campus leads to a deadly showdown with the drug dealer's gang, and one last chance for Latimer to save his career... and his life.

In a Mexican border town plagued by neglect, corruption, and violence, a frustrated teacher tries an unorthodox new method to break through his students’ apathy and unlock their curiosity, their potential... and perhaps even their genius.

A spark of attraction smolders, then ignites, between two teens from different high schools who meet by chance at a party.

Professor Lipari teaches in a public school and is in a full-on existential crisis. He has no faith in himself and in the possibility of changing the world for the better. At school, a former student of his who is also a teacher will change his attitude.

After his career fails to take off, a gifted cricketer in his mid-thirties decides that he’s not ready to give up quite yet.

The story of the Agojie, the all-female unit of warriors who protected the African Kingdom of Dahomey in the 1800s with skills and a fierceness unlike anything the world has ever seen, and General Nanisca as she trains the next generation of recruits and readies them for battle against an enemy determined to destroy their way of life.

Elementary school teacher Michele Cortese is about to start a whole new life. After 40 years of teaching in the metropolitan Roman jungle, he had to move to a village in Central Italy, to teach in a tiny school with just a few children aged 7-10. Struggling to overcome his urban inadequacy, he finds a friendly face in vice-principal Agnese and gradually manages to fit in, thanks to her and their spirited pupils. As everything seems to be falling into place, unwelcome news comes through: the school has failed to meet its student quota for the next year and will soon be shut for good.

Despite her sheltered upbringing, Jenny is a teen with a bright future; she's smart, pretty, and has aspirations of attending Oxford University. When David, a charming but much older suitor, motors into her life in a shiny automobile, Jenny gets a taste of adult life that she won't soon forget.

A bank robber becomes a teacher after being released from prison and finds himself at the center of a number of crazy adventures.

When an aspiring young artist is forced to join her high school track team, she uses it as an opportunity to pursue the girl she's been harboring a long-time crush on. But she soon finds herself falling for an unexpected teammate and discovers what real love feels like.

"Selma," as in Alabama, the place where segregation in the South was at its worst, leading to a march that ended in violence, forcing a famous statement by President Lyndon B. Johnson that ultimately led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act.

Rich knows a lot about accidents. So much so, he is scared to do anything that might endanger him, like riding his bike, or climbing into his treehouse. While in an old library, he is mystically transported into the unknown world of books, and he has to try and get home again.

College student Charlie Banks has to face old problems when the bully he had an unpleasant encounter with back in high school shows up on his campus.

A young Belgian is incited by his imam to view a teacher as an apostate and assassinate her; after he fails, he is sent to juvenile reform.

Andrew Crocker-Harris has been forced from his position as the classics master at an English public school due to poor health. As he winds up his final term, he discovers not only that his wife, Millie, has been unfaithful to him with one of his fellow schoolmasters, but that the school's students and faculty have long disdained him. However, an unexpected act of kindness causes Crocker-Harris to re-evaluate his life's work.

Senapathy, an ex-freedom fighter, is angry. He is angry against the rampant corruption at every level of the bureaucracy. He will clean it up at any cost.

A superintendent of a school district works for the betterment of the student’s education when an embezzlement scheme is discovered, threatening to destroy everything.

A union pensioner and his wife are robbed, but find that merely getting the assailants brought to justice is not enough for their consciences.

After having lost his job for having saved a child accused of shop lifting, Frédéric Barbier decides to become a school teacher with some funny results.The great comedy actor Coluche is excellent as a simple school teacher.

Former high school musical star, Marc Pease, finds himself still living in the past, eight years after graduating.

A grumpy old woman befriends a young civil servant and learns English from him. She then reveals to him her shocking past.

Frustrated by the hypocrisy they see in their parents, teachers, and the entire school board, an unlikely trio set out to find a common truth and make their voices heard as they revive a defunct school club and take on the world.

