Do this season's big screen teachers measure up?

Dedicated teachers are a staple of the film (and the Oscar). Robin Williams, from “Dead Poets Society”; Edward James Olmos, from “Stand and Deliver”; Anne Bancroft, from “The Miracle Worker”; “Sir, The Works of Richard Dreyfuss’ Holland; Meryl Streep of “Music of the Heart”…these and other past efforts on the big screen give us idealistic teachers who inspire and reach difficult students through their passion and determination. And the academy voters have dutifully expressed their gratitude.

Sure, there was occasionally a bad apple nominated (Richard Burton’s wife-fighting, alcoholic professor in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”) or even crowned (Maggie Smith’s Miss Jean Brodie, who would have been super cool if she weren’t for his unfortunate fascist sympathies). But they were exceptions in an honorable film school that taught viewers to large tent that diem.

However, in the 21st century things changed. Academics lost their minds (“A Beautiful Mind,” “Still Alice”) or acted like criminals (“Half Nelson,” “The Lost Daughter”). Oscar agreed, which may explain why this year’s class of teacher movies is more concerned with individuals’ flaws than their abilities to impart knowledge. It could also be a reflection of the post-COVID attacks on academia that are roiling culture and politics. Or perhaps the filmmakers simply want to offer multifaceted characters instead of placing them on idealized pedestals.

Here are some current contenders that show (and tell) teachers in a different light.

Jeffrey Wright, right with Adam Brody, discovers he must play the gangster to support the book he wrote out of frustration.

(Orion Images)

‘American fiction’

Jeffrey Wright’s teacher, Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, is placed on leave for angering both students and fellow teachers with his confrontational and dismissive attitude. Returning to his home in Massachusetts, the author of poorly sold historical novels faces multiple crises in his comfortable family and professional life with more intellect than emotional intelligence. Tired of books like “We’s Lives in Da Ghetto” doing better than his finely crafted reworking of Aeschylus’ “The Persians,” Ellison decides to make a literary joke: he writes under his pseudonym the most clichéd and pathological portrait of African-American life. he can dream.

To Ellison’s dismay and bewilderment, the clueless white publishers love it and give the book a huge promotional push, forcing the erudite author to pretend he’s a wanted gangsta.

Writer-director Cord Jefferson’s adaptation of the novel “Erasure” by real-life USC English professor Percival Everett gives Emmy winner Wright endless opportunities to highlight the intelligence he always brings to his work, as well as to be silly. . The piece’s cultural satire and its complex critique of racial stereotypes take a backseat to the actor’s naturalistic, well-rounded portrayal of what could have been just another cranky teacher. Wright offers us the rarest portrait of a consummate academic: someone who is still able to learn from his mistakes.

‘The remnants’

Paul Hunham is a disaster. He was expelled from Harvard, and the only job he’s had since is as an adjunct professor of classical languages at a New England prep school in the 1970s. Students and administrators alike hate him, and the feeling is mutual; The terms Hunham describes to his privileged charges range from “genuine troglodytes” to “grumpy Visigoths.” Plus, he smells bad.

It’s a perfect role for curmudgeonly stuntman Paul Giamatti, if not the pure pleasure of a loser he previously played for director Alexander Payne in “Sideways.” But Giamatti sets Hunham on a carefully trodden path to heroic humanity when he is forced to babysit his most troublesome student, Angus Tully, newcomer Dominic Sessa, on the depopulated campus over Christmas break. Both actors keep the audience guessing if their frosty relationship will permanently thaw. And Giamatti proves a generous scene partner to Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s Mary Lamb, the school’s grieving cook and holdover companion.

Hunham may not be as funny as the wine aficionado “Sideways” was. However, when he makes an inevitable sacrifice, Giamatti has turned the grumpy educator into a guy worth being around. Even if sometimes you have to hold your nose.

‘Dream scenario’

Although he enjoys a happy family life, middle-aged biology professor Paul Matthews is frustrated at not being able to publish. When he inexplicably starts appearing in random people’s dreams, the resulting celebrity threatens to turn his head. But when those dreams turn into nightmares, can he face the cruel realities of cancel culture?

In his most subtle, challenging and best performance since his Oscar-nominated double role in “Adaptation.” (2003), “Leaving Las Vegas”-winning lead actor Nicolas Cage brings out all of Matthews’s little resentments and longings while hanging by the nails of the character’s moral compass (his resistance to Dylan’s attempted seduction Gelula may be the funniest embarrassing scene of the year). Not that Cage’s trademark outbursts of madness aren’t welcome wherever he makes them, but Matthews’ manic moments seem particularly well-earned, because actor-writer-director Kristoffer Borgli builds his surreal scenario out of believable behaviors and motivations. .

And what could be more realistic than, after falling out of cultural favor in the United States, trying to make it big in France? “Dream Scenario” knows more than it lets on.

‘The teachers’ room’

In the Oscar-nominated German film, Leonie Benesch plays Carla Nowak, a new high school teacher who is highly regarded by her students and colleagues. Initially, she anyway. Concerned about the school’s pseudo-fascist investigation (in Germany; go figure!) into a series of robberies, Nowak, the daughter of Polish immigrants, sets a trap to find the real culprit in the titular rest area. The evidence provided is not exactly irrefutable and concerns again focus on violation of privacy. Soon ostracized by everyone around her, Ella Nowak struggles to balance compassion for all those affected with the certainty that her dubious methods have revealed the truth.

Writer-director Ilker Çatak wants to present the school as a microcosm of society’s ills, to the point that we learn little or nothing about Nowak’s private life. However, Benesch, who won the German Film Award (called Lola) for her performance, is so involved in the character’s work issues that we feel like we know the teacher completely. Benesch accesses a fundamental decency that almost makes Nowak’s cunning almost forgivable.

Although no one else in the film thinks so. And they’re probably right.

‘Radical’

“Radical,” the most traditional inspirational educator story of 2023, features a characteristically wisecracking Eugenio Derbez as Sergio Juárez Correa, the unconventional new sixth-grade teacher in Matamoros, the worst elementary school in Mexico. How bad is the underfunded border town institution? The kids are fine, but the bullet-riddled corpses they pass on their way to campus would scare away the toughest instructors of “Blackboard Jungle,” “Dangerous Minds” or “Lean on Me.”

Based on a true story, this Sundance audience-winning feature film shows Sergio’s quixotic determination to let his students learn what they want instead of routine curricula (the mechanics of floating is a hot topic), fight corruption administrative and do everything possible to help students achieve their goals. its maximum potential. Taking advantage of his stimulating music teacher in the best picture winner “CODA,” Derbez strikes an observable balance between his usual comedic chops and Sergio’s desperation to do good. It borders on sentimental overload, but director Christopher Zalla also wisely follows three disciplined young actors (Jennifer Trejo, Danilo Guardiola and Mia Fernanda Solís) who embody the joy of learning true value.

‘Oppenheimer’

Really smart kids from Berkeley, Princeton, and other big universities figure out a way to win World War II and kill thousands of people. Understanding the human, political, and moral implications of their research is not so easy, although their leader, J. Robert Oppenheimer (at least played by Cillian Murphy), gets some hints from Christopher Nolan’s intimate atomic bomb epic.

“We were worried about starting a chain reaction that would destroy the entire world,” Murphy’s Oppie reminds Tom Conti’s Albert Einstein at the end. “I think we did.”

If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, a lot of knowledge is, well, anything beyond dangerous.