By Mr Hull's Movie Guides
Watch the Trailer
What's Inside the Guide
This is a 14-page classroom-ready resource.
Two sets of differentiated questions covering the movie in chronological order. Answer keys are included for both sets.
- 25 question set requiring full sentence answers.
- 25 multiple choice question set with three possible answers, suitable for ESL and ELL students or for differentiation.
Six critical thinking questions for class discussion, with teacher-guided example answers included.
- A 9-scene storyboard of the most important events in the movie, with a brief description for each scene.
- A synopsis of the movie, written using their completed storyboard as a guide.
Three character profiles covering Maria, Manolo, and Joaquin. Students draw a profile picture, describe the character's features and personality, and write what they like and dislike about the character. Can be divided across a group of three if completing all three individually is too much.
This part covers two activities.
- A word search featuring 17 words from the movie.
- A calavera outline ready to be designed and coloured.
“This is an excellent resource for any high school class. I highly recommended for fellow teachers looking for a practical or classroom tool.”
— Joaquin M.
“This was a wonderful incentive activity. Students were able to watch a movie during Hispanic Heritage Month. They were also able to learn about the culture of the Day of the Dead and how important it is. They were engaged in the activity.”
— Gloria D.
Why Watch This Movie With Your Students
Here's what your students naturally take away from the movie, whether through themes, values, ideas, or perspectives.
💀 A genuine window into Day of the Dead traditions. The movie is rooted in Mexican cultural practices around Día de los Muertos, from the visual iconography of calaveras to the idea that the dead live on as long as they are remembered. Students come away with a real sense of the tradition rather than a surface-level impression.
🎸 A central conflict students recognise. Manolo's struggle between his family's expectations and his own values is a tension that resonates across age groups. The movie frames it clearly and honestly, making it a straightforward starting point for conversations about identity, belonging, and what it means to choose your own path.
🌺 Visually inventive animation. The world of the film is designed to look like it is made from wooden figures and folk art, which gives it a look unlike most animated movies students will have seen. The visual creativity is a talking point in itself and something students tend to notice and respond to.
⚖️ Clear themes of integrity and courage. When Manolo refuses to kill the bull in the ring, it costs him. The movie is straightforward about the fact that doing the right thing is sometimes uncomfortable, and that integrity matters even when it goes against what everyone else expects. It is an accessible but not simplistic moral lesson.
👨👩👧 Family and remembrance at the heart of the story. The idea that those who have died remain present as long as they are remembered runs through the entire movie. It gives younger students a gentle and culturally specific way to think about loss, legacy, and what families mean to each other across generations.
Age Suitability and Content
This movie is rated PG.
⚠️ Things to be aware of:
- Violence and scary imagery: The movie features skeletons and underworld imagery throughout, including a character whose head is separated from his body and is carried around. The villain Xibalba is visually intimidating and makes loud, frightening movements. There are bullfighting scenes, a battle sequence with punching and sword fighting, and a large demonic bull surrounded by fire near the end. Some jump scares occur throughout. Younger or more sensitive students may find certain scenes unsettling.
- Language: Mild insults including 'kick his butt' and 'lazy bum'. Some children are referred to as 'detention kids'.
- Romance: Two boys are in love with the same girl. There are several attempts at kissing and one kiss occurs. Characters sing pop songs as part of a courtship.
- Drinking: Adults are shown drinking, though what they are consuming is not specified.
- No sexual content beyond the above.
📋 A free editable parent permission slip is available for this movie. It explains the educational benefits of watching movies in class and includes a space for parental consent. → Download Free Permission Slip on TpT (Free resource)
Note for educators: Movie details and age ratings in this post are sourced from IMDb, Common Sense Media, and Wikipedia to help ensure accuracy.
How My Movie Guide Helps You Teach It
Click your subject below to see how this guide supports it:
📚 English Language Arts Teachers
🗣️ ESL and ELL Teachers
🌐 Social Studies Teachers
🎬 Substitute Teachers and Cover Lessons
🏠 Homeschool Parents
💙 SEL Teachers
🌟 Supporting All Learners A movie gives students a story to follow, and the guide gives them questions to work through as they watch. For students with autism, learning difficulties, and mild to severe disabilities, that combination provides a clear focus for the lesson and a concrete way to show understanding. The format can be useful in special education and learning support classrooms, where teachers need activities that give students a defined task during viewing. Find out more about why movies work for diverse learners.
How These Guides Work: From Movie to Lesson
Watching a movie is not a break from learning. It reaches students through sight, sound, and story at once, engaging the brain in ways text alone does not, and the structured work around it is what turns the viewing into a genuine lesson. You can read the research behind this on the Why Movies Work page.
- A Teacher Notes and General Directions page opens the guide with a brief overview of everything inside: what the movie is about, then each part of the guide in order with a short description of what it entails. You know what to expect from the whole resource before you hand out a single page, so you can pick up the guide cold and teach it the same day.
- Answer keys are included for the comprehension question sets, so grading is quick and you are not rewatching the movie to check answers. Some guides also include example answers for the creative and written activities.
- Print and go: classroom ready, with no additional preparation needed. Print one the morning you need it and the lesson is ready.
- Substitute and first-timer friendly. A guide can be handed to a substitute or picked up by a teacher covering the topic for the first time. Nobody running the session needs to have seen the movie.
- Differentiated comprehension sets. Most guides include two or three question sets at different difficulty levels, and most include a multiple-choice option that works well for ESL and ELL students. One class set covers your strongest readers, your strugglers, and your language learners without separate prep.
- Activities that go beyond recall. Each guide includes structured activities that ask students to engage with the movie, not just watch it, ranging from creative and written tasks to discussion and critical thinking questions depending on the guide. That variety matters in a mixed classroom: a student who freezes on a written question set may show real understanding through a drawing or a creative task, and a confident writer gets room to go beyond recall. For the teacher, it turns a movie session into work you can grade: comprehension questions show whether students followed the plot, and the activities beyond them show whether they understood it.
