By Mr Hull's Movie Guides
Watch the Trailer
What's Inside the Guide
This is a 15-page classroom-ready resource.
Two differentiated question sets covering the full movie in chronological order. Answer keys are included for both sets.
- 32 question set requiring full sentence answers.
- 32 multiple-choice question set with three options each.
This part covers two activities.
- A visual personality map for a chosen character, identifying core traits, relationships with other animals in Zootopia, and their role in the story.
- Eight guided questions helping students analyse character motivation, strengths, and flaws.
- A 9-scene storyboard illustrating and summarizing key events in chronological order.
- A structured plot synopsis, written using the completed storyboard as a scaffold.
This part covers three activities.
- Character profiles for three animals from the movie, including Judy Hopps, drawing a profile image and writing about their background, personality, and role.
- An employment application for the Zootopia Police Force, imagining they are an animal applying for one of three positions.
- A first-assignment police report (recount) investigating the missing predator cases.
“We sang "Try Everything" for our spring concert and students watched this movie to help better understand and reinforce the meaning behind the song and how it relates to the characters in the film.”
— Ally C.
“Many thanks for this resource, Our pupils are enjoying learning via movies and this was a great addition.”
— Pauline P.
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 protagonist students can genuinely root for. Judy Hopps wants to prove that a bunny can be a great police officer in a world that has already decided she cannot. Her determination is compelling not because it is sentimental, but because the obstacles she faces are real and the story does not let her off the hook easily.
🦊 A villain reveal that rewards careful viewers. Zootopia is structured as a mystery, and the story earns its twist. Students who pay attention to character motivation and early clues will find that the ending makes complete sense in retrospect, making it a strong movie for discussing narrative construction and foreshadowing.
🏙️ A world built with genuine craft. Zootopia is divided into climate districts, each designed around the animals that live there. The detail in the world-building rewards attention and gives students plenty to discuss in terms of how setting reinforces theme.
🤝 A friendship that develops with honesty. Judy and Nick start as adversaries and build trust slowly, with genuine setbacks along the way. Their dynamic models what it looks like when two very different people choose to work together despite their differences and the assumptions they carry.
⚖️ A story about prejudice that does not simplify it. The movie takes on stereotyping, institutional bias, and the way even good intentions can cause harm. It does not always land every point cleanly, but those imperfections make it more interesting to discuss, not less.
😄 Genuinely funny across age groups. The comedy works on multiple levels, from physical gags that younger students will enjoy to sharper jokes aimed at adults. The DMV sloth sequence in particular tends to land regardless of the audience.
Age Suitability and Content
This movie is rated PG.
⚠️ Things to be aware of:
- Action and peril: several chase sequences, including a prolonged and intense one involving a jaguar that has 'gone savage'. Jump-scare moments, dark investigative settings, and an explosion/crash scene. A crime boss threatens to drown two main characters, though no one is seriously harmed.
- Mild bullying: a young fox is shoved and scratched by bullies; in a separate scene, he is rejected by those he thought were friends. Both scenes are emotionally affecting.
- Language: mild insults used fairly regularly, including 'dumb', 'jerk', 'stupid', 'moron', and 'shut up'.
- Mild suggestive content: pop star Gazelle wears revealing outfits and dances with tiger performers. A 'naturalist' club features animals without clothes, though this is played for gentle humour.
- No sexual content, no substance use.
📋 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
🎬 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.
