By Mr Hull's Movie Guides
Watch the Trailer
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 visual companion to Dickens' own retelling. The movie is loosely based on Charles Dickens' The Life of Our Lord, a retelling of Jesus' life that Dickens originally wrote for his own children. Students get a visual companion to that story, framed through a fictional version of Dickens telling it to his son.
👨👦 A skeptical audience built into the story itself. Walter only agrees to listen on the condition that he can stop if he gets bored, and his questions and pushback shape how the story unfolds. Students see a model for engaging with unfamiliar material critically rather than being expected to accept it passively.
❤️ Compassion and sacrifice as the throughline. The movie centers repeatedly on Jesus showing compassion for people pushed to the margins, and frames his death as an act of sacrifice made out of love. Students see these values demonstrated through specific, concrete events rather than presented as abstract lessons.
🏛️ Historical context alongside the narrative. The story is set against the backdrop of Roman occupation of Judea and the religious tensions of the period, giving students real historical grounding alongside the central narrative. This context helps place a widely referenced story within a specific time and place.
👪 A father and son working through hard questions together. Walter struggles to accept the injustice of Jesus' death, and his father responds with age-appropriate honesty rather than avoiding the difficulty. Students see an adult modeling how to sit with a child's hard questions instead of deflecting them.
🐱 A framing device that keeps young viewers anchored. Walter and his cat Willa imagine themselves inside the story as it's told, giving younger viewers a relatable point of entry into events that happened long ago. Students follow the narrative through a character closer to their own age and reactions.
Age Suitability and Content
This movie is rated PG.
📋 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)
⚠️ Things to be aware of:
- References Herod's decree to kill male infants in Bethlehem, though the act itself is not shown on screen.
- Includes Jesus' flogging and crucifixion, shown largely off screen without graphic detail.
- Includes a scene of a Roman soldier's ear being cut off, which Jesus then heals.
- References an accusation of adultery against a woman, without explaining or depicting the accusation.
- Includes a brief illustrated depiction of Adam and Eve unclothed, with private areas covered by shading.
- Contains no language, drug, alcohol, or smoking content.
How My Movie Guide Helps You Teach It
📚 English Language Arts Teachers. The King of Kings gives an ELA class a well known narrative delivered through a distinct framing device, a father telling his son a story the boy keeps interrupting with questions. The guide is built for ELA with differentiated comprehension questions at multiple difficulty levels and writing tasks that push beyond simple recall.
🗣️ ESL and ELL Teachers. The movie's clear visual storytelling and its framing through a child's own imagination make an old, dense narrative easier to follow, since so much of the story is carried through action and expression alongside the dialogue. The multiple choice question set works well with ESL and ELL students, giving them a structured way to track the story alongside their classmates.
🌐 Social Studies Teachers. The King of Kings gives a Social Studies class real historical grounding in Roman-occupied Judea alongside the founding narrative of one of the world's major religions. The guide does not include dedicated Social Studies activities, but the comprehension questions give students a structured task and keep them accountable during the viewing.
🎬 Substitute Teachers and Cover Lessons. Everything a substitute needs is self-contained and organized, with three sets of differentiated comprehension questions, a storyboard and synopsis task, and character and faith reflection activities. Answer keys are included for the comprehension question sets, so a substitute can run the full session without having seen the movie.
🏠 Homeschool Parents. With three levels of comprehension questions, a storyboard and synopsis task, and a character and faith reflection activity, the guide gives a homeschool parent a ready-made structure for a single student to work through independently around Easter or any time of year. The faith reflection and character pages work especially well as a starting point for a parent and student to discuss the material together.
💙 SEL Teachers. The King of Kings centers a father working through his son's hard, honest questions about injustice and loss rather than deflecting them, modeling what real emotional support looks like in practice. The guide does not include dedicated SEL activities, but the comprehension questions give students a structured task and keep them accountable during the viewing.
🌟 Supporting All Learners Movie guides can be a wonderfully calm fit for students with autism, learning difficulties, and mild to severe disabilities. The structured format gives every student a clear purpose during viewing, easing uncertainty and allowing them to engage at their own pace. If you teach in a special education or learning support setting, you may find this guide a gentle and practical resource. Find out more about why movies work for diverse learners.
The Social Studies callout reflects the movie's historical setting and its portrayal of a major world religion's founding narrative; the guide itself does not include dedicated Social Studies activities.
What's Inside the Guide
This is a 18-page classroom-ready resource.
Part 1: Comprehension Questions
Three sets of differentiated comprehension questions in chronological order, including 45 questions requiring full sentence answers, a second set of 30 full sentence questions (15 removed from the 45 question set for differentiation), and 30 multiple choice questions with 3 possible answers each. The multiple choice questions may also work well with ESL and ELL students. Answer keys are included.
Part 2: Storyboard and Synopsis
Students create a 9 scene storyboard illustrating pivotal events from the movie, with a short description explaining the main idea each scene represents, using the movie questions to help with sequencing. Using their storyboards as a guide, students then write a synopsis of the movie.
Part 3: Character and Faith Reflection
Students complete a faith reflection page exploring what Jesus' life, sacrifice, and resurrection reveal and how these lessons apply to their own lives, then complete a character reflection focused on Jesus, identifying his qualities, reflecting on a meaningful moment, and drawing him. Students also reflect on what it means to be a disciple by considering moments of faith and struggle in the movie and creating a symbolic drawing to represent following Jesus.
Part 4: Word Search
Students unscramble 10 words and answer 5 clues to find a total of 15 words or connected words in a word search. Answers are included.
“Perfect and easy to use resource to use after we watched the movie. Thanks!”
— Bolton's Boutique (TPT Seller)
How These Guides Work: From Movie to Lesson
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 that can actually be assessed: comprehension questions show whether students followed the plot, and the activities beyond them show whether they understood it.
