Discover movies worth showing in your classroom, with practical insights on the themes, learning opportunities, and educational value of each one.
Wonder follows Auggie Pullman, a boy with a facial difference who enters a mainstream school for the first time in fifth grade. It is a story told from multiple perspectives, which means students do not just follow Auggie through the year but also see how the people around him experience it. Few movies ask students to step into someone else's shoes quite as deliberately as this one.
A Beautiful Mind follows John Nash, a mathematical genius whose groundbreaking work on game theory brought him to the edge of international acclaim before schizophrenia began to unravel everything he had built. It is a story about brilliance, crisis, and the people who refuse to give up on someone even when that person has lost the ability to distinguish what is real. For older students, it is the kind of movie that stays with them.
Ratatouille follows Remy, a rat with an extraordinary sense of taste and smell, as he pursues his dream of becoming a chef in one of Paris's most celebrated restaurants. It is a movie about ambition, identity, and what happens when someone refuses to accept the limits others place on them. Students who think they have nothing to say about food, creativity, or following a dream tend to find out otherwise.
A quietly devastating drama that tells the story of the Holocaust through the eyes of a German officer's young son who befriends a Jewish boy on the other side of a concentration camp fence. Sensitively made and deeply affecting, it is serious classroom material for older students.
A warm and adventurous Disney musical about a Polynesian chief's daughter who sets sail across the ocean to save her people, guided by the demigod Maui. Culturally rich, beautifully animated, and full of material that works across multiple year groups.
A brilliantly inventive Pixar movie that takes students inside the mind of an 11-year-old navigating a major life change, with her five emotions, Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust, as the main characters. Funny, moving, and genuinely useful for any classroom conversation about feelings.
