To Sir, with LoveMovies like To Sir, with Love
- Key Features:
- Teacher-student relationship, Social commentary, Coming-of-age, Classroom setting, Cultural divide, Character growth, Inspiration, Mentorship, British cinema, 1960s, Soundtrack-driven
- Tone:
- earnest, serious, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Educators, Baby Boomers, Drama enthusiasts, Socially conscious viewers
- Emotional Arc:
- Disconnection → Connection
To Sir, with Love

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.
To Sir, with Love
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.

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.

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.

A snobbish phonetics professor agrees to a wager that he can take a flower girl and make her presentable in high society.

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.

Hapless Henry Palfrey is patronised by his self-important chief clerk at work, ignored by restaurant waiters, conned by shady second-hand car salesmen, and, worst of all, endlessly wrong-footed by unspeakably rotten cad Raymond Delauney who has set his cap at April, new love of Palfrey's life. In desperation Henry enrolls at the College of Lifemanship to learn how to best such bounders and win the girl.

In the school-set re-working of Cyrano, an awkward but imaginative pupil helps the handsome but spectacularly dim school-hero pursue the fiery daughter of a visiting French teacher.

High school senior Bobby Chrystal fails his French class, which will block him from entering Yale. His rich, authoritarian father hires an attractive 29-year-old to tutor Bobby over the summer and help him pass a make-up exam. While Bobby's friends lead him away into strange excursions aimed at losing their virginity, Bobby finds all the extracurricular activities he needs with his new tutor.

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.

An art instructor and an English teacher form a rivalry that ends up with a competition at their school in which students decide whether words or pictures are more important.

Richard Dadier is a teacher at North Manual High School, an inner-city school where many of the pupils frequently engage in anti-social behavior. Dadier makes various attempts to engage the students' interest in education, challenging both the school staff and the pupils. He is subjected to violence as well as duplicitous schemes.

Zack Mayo is an aloof, taciturn man who aspires to be a navy pilot. Once he arrives at training camp for his 13-week officer's course, Mayo runs afoul of abrasive, no-nonsense drill Sergeant Emil Foley. Mayo is an excellent cadet, but a little cold around the heart, so Foley rides him mercilessly, sensing that the young man would be prime officer material if he weren't so self-involved. Zack's affair with a working girl is likewise compromised by his unwillingness to give of himself.

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

After his lover rejects him, Maurice attempts to come to terms with his sexuality within the restrictiveness of Edwardian society.

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.

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.

Primo is an ordinary middle-class youngster studying for his baccalaureate, who gets side-tracked when he falls in love with a rich girl. They soon learn they have to deal with her condescending friends who look down upon this upstart.

A headstrong young teacher in a private school in 1930s Edinburgh ignores the curriculum and influences her impressionable 12-year-old charges with her over-romanticized worldview.

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!

The story of an unruly class of bright, funny history students at a Yorkshire grammar school in pursuit of an undergraduate place at Oxford or Cambridge. Bounced between their maverick English master, a young and shrewd teacher hired to up their test scores, a grossly out-numbered history teacher, and a headmaster obsessed with results, the boys attempt to pass.

William Hundert is a passionate and principled Classics professor who finds his tightly-controlled world shaken and inexorably altered when a new student, Sedgewick Bell, walks into his classroom. What begins as a fierce battle of wills gives way to a close student-teacher relationship, but results in a life lesson for Hundert that will still haunt him a quarter of a century later.

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.

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.

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.

Starting his new job as an instructor at a New England school for the deaf, James Leeds meets Sarah Norman, a young deaf woman who works at the school as a member of the custodial staff. In spite of Sarah's withdrawn emotional state, a romance slowly develops between the pair.

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.

At an elite, old-fashioned boarding school in New England, a passionate English teacher inspires his students to rebel against convention and seize the potential of every day, courting the disdain of the stern headmaster.

An ambitious teaching student's finals studies are interrupted by a passionate affair with a jazz musician.

At Phoenix Progressive School, students take notes lying on parlor couches and are encouraged to explore their gifts through electives like break-dancing and graphic-novel writing. In the midst of all this liberal pedagogy and budding talent, Molly Maxwell feels unexceptional, until she falls for her attractive English teacher, Ben.

In 1965, passionate musician Glenn Holland takes a day job as a high school music teacher, convinced it's just a small obstacle on the road to his true calling: writing a historic opus. As the decades roll by with the composition unwritten but generations of students inspired through his teaching, Holland must redefine his life's purpose.

As Vic Brown vacillates between infatuation and disinterest for his co-worker Ingrid Rothwell, she finds out that she is pregnant and Vic has to reconcile how he thought his life would go with what life actually has in store for him.

In Santiago, Chile, the schoolteacher Luisa proposes a debate about sex with the parents of her students with the intention of giving classes about sex education to the youngsters.

Drifting through his gap year with its internships and travel plans, Jack has always suspected there was more to life than this. A chance encounter with the beautiful and ethereal Evelyn swerves his life radically off course.

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 sensitive young man recalls his time in boarding school when the only person who seemed compassionate towards him was his housemaster's wife.

A widowed professor living in Paris develops a special relationship with a younger French woman.

Stuck at a crossroads in her personal life, it falls on high school English teacher Miss Stevens to chaperone three of her students — Billy, Margot and Sam — on a weekend trip to a drama competition.

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 tale of the tender relationship between a twelve-year-old boy and the fourteen-year-old upperclassman who is the object of his desire, all set within the rigid atmosphere of a Jesuit-run school.

An ambitious young accountant schemes to wed a wealthy factory owner's daughter, despite falling in love with a married older woman.

A prosperous young Indian man falls in love with his servant, a widow with the dream of becoming a fashion designer.

Emma Woodhouse is a congenial young lady who delights in meddling in other people’s affairs. She is perpetually trying to unite men and women who are utterly wrong for each other. Despite her interest in romance, Emma is clueless about her own feelings, and her relationship with gentle Mr. Knightley.

Despite his dedication to the junior-high students who fill his classroom, idealistic teacher Dan Dunne leads a secret life of addiction that the majority of his students will never know. But things change when a troubled student Drey makes a startling discovery of his secret life, causing a tenuous bond between the two that could either end disastrously or provide a catalyst of hope.

Elisabeth and John John are raised in the same city, yet they live light years apart, separated economically, socially and culturally. That is until the day they start in the same high school class.

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.

After an incident, a brilliant professor known for his outbursts is forced to mentor the student he wronged for a speech contest.

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.

There's a new girl in school, Angela, the Headmaster's neice. Every male will try to seduce her, even her uncle. Meanwhile she will drive the philosophy's teacher mad and her best friend Irma will have a good time with the classmates. Will they get the grades?

Giada is a overachieving student who works to pay for college. Riccardo is a spoiled brat who answers her tutoring ad in order to improve his abysmal grades. She's shy and homely. He's handsome and brazen. As they say, opposites attract.

A group of close friends who attend a private school all have a debilitating crush on the sunny star pupil, Shen Chia-yi. The only member of the group who claims not to is Ko Ching-teng, but he ends up loving her as well.

Spain, 1966. An English teacher who travels to Almería when he hears that John Lennon is making a film there befriends with a 16-year-old boy who has run away from home and a young girl who also seems to be running away from something.

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

A former professional dancer volunteers to teach dance in the New York public school system and, while his background first clashes with his students' tastes, together they create a completely new style of dance. Based on the story of ballroom dancer, Pierre Dulane.

George, a lonely and fatalistic teen who's made it all the way to his senior year without ever having done a real day of work, is befriended by Sally, a popular but complicated girl who recognizes in him a kindred spirit.

A disillusioned college graduate finds himself torn between his older lover and her daughter.

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.

It's graduation day at Huntington Hills High, and you know what that means - time to party. And not just any party, either. This one will be a night to remember, as the nerds become studs, the jocks are humiliated, and freshman crushes blossom into grown-up romance.

A look at a few chapters in the life of Poppy, a cheery, colorful, North London schoolteacher whose optimism tends to exasperate those around her.

A divorced high school PE teacher falls in love with a single mom before learning that her daughter is a student who's been hitting on him between classes.

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

A man and a woman meet by accident on a Sunday evening at their childrens' boarding school. Slowly, they reveal themselves to each other, finding that they have something deeply in common.

After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meet the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Mr. Rochester. Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Mr. Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?

Eddie and Amber decide to stage a relationship in order to stop everyone speculating about their sexuality. Eddie is keen to follow his dad into the military, while Amber dreams of moving to the liberal hub of London. The plan seems solid, but as their arrangement begins to fall apart, Eddie’s denial gets deeper as Amber realizes that a perilous future awaits her best friend unless she intervenes.

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.

A bureaucratic snafu sends Marco Tullio Sperelli, a portly, middle-aged northern Italian, to teach third grade in a poor town outside Naples

Chris, a former tennis pro, takes a job as an instructor and befriends his wealthy young student, Tom. After being introduced to his family, Chris is soon engaged to Tom's sister, Chloe. Despite the professional and financial advantages that this relationship affords him, Chris becomes obsessed with Tom's fiancee, American actress Nola.

In the racially divided town of Anderson, South Carolina in 1976, football coach Harold Jones spots a mentally disabled African-American young man nicknamed Radio near his practice field and is inspired to befriend him. Soon, Radio is Jones' loyal assistant, and he becomes a student at T.L. Hanna High School. But things start to sour when Coach Jones begins taking guff from parents and fans who feel that his devotion to Radio is getting in the way of the team's quest for a championship.

In 1976, as Argentina descends into violence and chaos, a world-weary English teacher regains his compassion for others thanks to an unlikely friendship with a penguin.

A chronicle of three weeks in the lives of several high school teachers, administrators and students through the eyes of substitute teacher, Henry Barthes. Henry roams from school to school, imparting modes of knowledge, but never staying long enough to form any semblance of sentient attachment.

A wealthy young man pursues a young woman of modest means, but circumstances often separate them as the years pass.

Diana Watts, a high school teacher in Austin, Texas, is in the midst of an affair with one of her students, Eric Tull. As the reality of their situation forces itself upon them, Diana puts the relationship on hold. It’s only a matter of time before she gives in again to her desire; this time even more recklessly than before.

Tim and John fell in love while teenagers at their all-boys high school. John was captain of the football team, Tim an aspiring actor playing a minor part in Romeo and Juliet. Their romance endured for 15 years in the face of everything life threw at it – the separations, the discrimination, the temptations, the jealousies and the losses – until the only problem that love can't solve tried to destroy them.

After a crippling injury leaves her husband impotent, Lady Chatterly is torn between her love for her husband and her physical desires. With her husband's consent, she seeks out other means of fulfilling her needs.

Two freethinking teenagers - a boy and a girl - confront with authoritarian teachers in their boarding schools. The other students treat this differently.

Ayuha Samaru is a high school student. She is honest and works hard at everything, no matter what. One day, she has trouble at a gyudon restaurant due to money. A man at the restaurant, Yoshitaka Hiromitsu, helps her out. The next day, she finds that Yoshitaka Hiromitsu has come to her school as a substitute teacher for her ill homeroom teacher. Ayuha Samaru now believes that Yoshitaka Hiromitsu is her fate in love. She keeps expressing her feelings to him.

Naive Midwestern prep student Jonathan bonds with his more worldly roommate, Skip, who takes the small-town boy under his wing. At Skip's urging, the inexperienced Jonathan is emboldened to seek out older women in the cocktail lounges of nearby Chicago, where he meets and beds the alluring Ellen, who unfortunately turns out to be Skip's mother. The division between the friends is further deepened when a cheating scandal engulfs the school.

Rita, a witty 26-year-old hairdresser, wants to 'discover' herself, so she joins the Open University where she meets the disillusioned professor of literature, Dr. Frank Bryant. His marriage has failed, his new girlfriend is having an affair with his best friend and he can't get through the day without downing a bottle or two of whisky. What Frank needs is a challenge... and along comes Rita.

Rachel is a 35-year-old school teacher who has no man in her life and lives with her mother. When a man from the big city returns and asks her out, she begins to have to make decisions about her life and where she wants it to go.

The story of the romance between the King of Siam (now Thailand) and the widowed British school teacher Anna Leonowens during the 1860s. Anna teaches the children and becomes romanced by the King. She convinces him that a man can be loved by just one woman.

In a high school in the outskirts of Rome, it's the last day before the summer holidays. A literature teacher reminisces the past year and wonders what will become of the students he cared for as if they were his children.

Small-town Pennsylvania schoolteacher Linda Sinclair balances her staid home life with an incredible passion for her subject. Then a former star pupil reenters her life after failing as a playwright in New York City. Seeing in his script the inspiration that she has always longed to instill in her students, this dyed-in-the-wool romantic enlists the help of long-suffering drama teacher Carl to mount the work as the high school’s next and riskiest production.

Gus Van Sant tells the story of a young African American man named Jamal who confronts his talents while living on the streets of the Bronx. He accidentally runs into an old writer named Forrester who discovers his passion for writing. With help from his new mentor Jamal receives a scholarship to a private school.

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...

A London aristocrat (Rupert Everett) rents out rooms in his posh estate to a pair of Italians who are wooing two wealthy British gals (Elle Macpherson, Judith Godrèche).

In 1960, a hardy group of prep school students boards an old-fashioned sailing ship. With Capt. Christopher Sheldon at the helm, the oceangoing voyage is intended to teach the boys fortitude and discipline. But the youthful crew are about to get some unexpected instruction in survival when they get caught in the clutches of a white squall storm.

A shy bank employee unexpectedly invites a young woman to a café, leading to a one-night stand. When he shares this with his disillusioned friend, the writer helps him navigate a dazzling social ascent.

Camille, a naïve schoolgirl, meets an intriguing influence in Joelle, a slightly older and much more experienced spirit. Camille follows her new friend through the discovery of sex and the darker side of life. As the film progresses, Camille discovers AIDS and the fear that she may have picked up the disease in her early encounters.

Unable to see, hear, or speak after a childhood illness, a young woman grows up prone to violent outbursts until an eccentric tutor changes her life.

Tom, 16, is a sensitive teenager who is about to enter a new high school after being expelled. He intends to find his place, make friends and seduce the girl he loves. Tom needs the support of his older brother, Leo, a true mentor, who is working to make him a “cool kid”. However, Leo's fraternal benevolence hides a destructive temperament... Will Tom be able to grow up finding his own path?

Benjamin is a PhD student without scholarship support. Under the pressure of his parents, and in need of money, he becomes a substitute teacher in a middle school. Without training nor experience, and facing a declining public educational system, he discovers how tough this job can be. Hopefully, his supportive and committed colleagues will lead him to take a fresh look at the profession.

A young man upsets his Punjabi family when he falls in love with an Irish schoolteacher.

Clement, a young philosophy teacher, is sent to Arras for a year. He meets Jennifer, a pretty hair stylist, and the two freely share their hearts and bodies as they try to overcome the cultural and social divide between them.

Shallow, rich and socially successful Cher is at the top of her Beverly Hills high school's pecking scale. Seeing herself as a matchmaker, Cher first coaxes two teachers into dating each other. Emboldened by her success, she decides to give hopelessly klutzy new student Tai a makeover. When Tai becomes more popular than she is, Cher realizes that her disapproving ex-stepbrother was right about how misguided she was -- and falls for him.

Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American. But after the death of the Earl's remaining son, he decides to accept Cedric as his heir.

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.

The life of a melancholy professor is turned upside down when he discovers that a rebellious teenager he is tutoring is actually his son.



