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History Boys, The
Fox Searchlight Pictures


5.8

based on 32 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 43 votes
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Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for language and sexual content

Starring Richard Griffiths, Frances de la Tour, Stephen Campbell Moore, Clive Merrison, Samuel Barnett, Dominic Cooper, Samuel Anderson, and James Corden

The History Boys tells the story of an unruly class of bright, funny history students in pursuit of an undergraduate place at Oxford or Cambridge. (Fox Searchlight)

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Alan Bennett (also play)
DIRECTED BY:	Nicholas Hytner
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: April 17, 2007 Theatrical: November 21, 2006
RUNNING TIME:	109 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	UK

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

In The History Boys, as in all of Bennett's work, irony is what the characters live and breathe - and I mean irony in its truest sense, of using language to present opposite and often sly alternatives to accepted wisdom.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

History Boys boasts a dazzling verbal cleverness--the gleeful rat-a-tat of snappy banter expertly executed--that doesn't keep it from also being deeply, exquisitely sad.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

If the literacy of The History Boys is deemed uncinematic, then give me uncinema anytime.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

A shrewdly acted, bittersweet comedy.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Vibrates with exuberance and erudition.

Washington Post Peter Marks

Wildean panache of this caliber is not the norm in movie dialogue, so on this score alone, The History Boys is a blessing. The top-drawer work of a fine ensemble is another.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The screen, like the stage, can barely contain this marvelous play of intelligence.

Village Voice Scott Foundas

The film version of The History Boys is a lesser thing, more fixed in space and time and rendered almost unbearably "cinematic" in patches by Hytner's gymnastic camerawork. Yet the ideas and feelings of the piece remain so rich that it almost doesn't matter.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

The movie is brilliant and infectious, much like Bennett's voice: English-deadpan but never snide, and generous to a fault.

The New Yorker David Denby

Revved by the stage performances, the cast courses through the material with disciplined exuberance--especially the eight young actors at the center of the drama, many of whom have never appeared in a film before.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

The current of intellectual energy snapping through the ferociously engaging screen adaptation of Alan Bennett’s Tony Award-winning play feels like electrical brain stimulation.

Austin Chronicle Toddy Burton

Clearly, the filmmakers did manage to capture some measure of lightning in a bottle.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

As you can reliably expect of a work by Alan Bennett, The History Boys is bubbly, witty, sneaky-smart entertainment with the additional virtues of heart and cunning.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Though all but two students look too old, their interpretations are unanimously fine.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The History Boys is as much about the meaning and value of reading and learning as it is about the ho-humness of genital fondling by sir with love.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The film can't hide its stage origins, and in cutting almost an hour on the journey from stage to screen some resonance is lost. But Bennett's dialogue sparkles and skewers with killer wit. Dig in.

USA Today Claudia Puig

The History Boys is an erudite, sharply written film with consummate performances, but its origins on the stage are all too obvious.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

This is a piece engineered to run on the high octane of clever dialogue. It's chatty, it's wordy, but a passion for the well-written word lies at the thematic heart of the thing, and cinematic flourishes would only clog the arteries. Purists can rest assured -- there's no clogging.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The film is worth seeing, if you have any fondness for the writer who co-created "Beyond the Fringe" and who is second only to Stoppard in his sprightly but mellow wit.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

There's no one today writing English dialogue as sharp as Bennett's, and hearing it delivered expertly is a pleasure worth sitting through some dodgy montages for.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

A lively and entertaining disquisition on the purpose and uses of knowledge in a world that cares less about scholarship than quantifiable results.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

If you liked the play and the compelling ideas Bennett kicks around, the movie makes for an intellectually invigorating couple of hours.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

The material has crackle, but its vibrancy feels far off and muted, like a fireworks display going off in a neighboring town.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

An excellent British drama adapted by Alan Bennett (The Madness of King George) from his celebrated play.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

At the last, despite the modern touches in Bennett's screenplay, The History Boys fills the traditional bill. Wellington would probably not be too upset by it. Eventually it tells us that Waterloo is still in pretty good hands.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

A funny thing happened to The History Boys on the way to the screen. The players are the same, the dialogue is pretty much identical, but the vibrancy of the play -- its exhilarating immediacy -- has been muted.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The play's most acclaimed performance - rotund Richard Griffiths as the closeted teacher Hector - is great in the movie, too.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Now seen for the first time in close-up, these "boys" are well past adolescence, which makes Bennett's sympathy for poor Hector a bit easier to take.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Though it preserves the terrific lead performance of Richard Griffiths - best known to film audiences as Harry Potter's evil stepfather - The History Boys is essentially filmed theater, with minimal, and usually clumsy, attempts to take the action out of the classroom.

Variety Leslie Felperin

Audiences coming cold to this largely faithful adaptation of Alan Bennett's clever but contrived classroom comedy won't be so wowed, given picture's irrevocably stagy feel. Nicholas Hytner's flat-footed direction doesn't help, nor do picture's younger cast members' over-rehearsed performances, although the seasoned thesps shine.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Somewhere in the translation from stage to screen, The History Boys has become an intelligent misfire. What's left is a literate but listless film.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

With the original stage cast, the film is doggedly faithful to the play but has failed to translate it into much of a film.

The average user rating for this movie is 5.8 (out of 10) based on 43 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Shannon P. gave it a7:
The dialog is entertaining, and not overly literary as some reviews suggest. The main flaw in the film is that the actors are too old to be playing even the oldest high school students, and the things they do and say are likewise more what you would expect from young men in their 20's. I suspect this was largely based on the writer(s)' college experience, grafted onto a high school setting. It almost works, and is worth watching despite this flaw. While this is hardly a "pro-homosexual" or "pro-pedophile" movie, it addresses these issues in a more complete and realistic context than is usually the case.

N K gave it a9:
Just saw same on video and just felt some of the criticisms of the film need correcting. first, the film does not state that the teacher's rather pathetic gropings are ok. neither is everyone ok with it. indeed, the teacher's best friend, the woman teacher is rather saddened to learn of it. and he is about to be fired for same. that said, the boys are 18 not 17 as the voice-over in the extra features makes clear. this extra term in preparing for university was abolished in the early 80s, and it was set before then. the boys find it all rather boring; they have bigger concerns. if one can look beyond the sex and longing and sadness, this is a fascinating discussion about what makes for the best teaching: facts, argument, or interest. but, as the comments suggest, few look past the sex. great acting, too.

D H. gave it a0:
This film was a severe disappointment. Critics raved, and I sat through what was perhaps the worst movie of all time. The first thing that bothered me was that the film was not even funny, nor was it witty (after trying so hard to be). The second thing that made this movie intolerable was the pederastric relationships between a male teacher and his boy students. This fat instructor was praised for his teaching even though he thought it was acceptable to fondle his boy students. And the worst thing about it was everyone in the school knew about it and turned the cheek. Also, there was another male teacher who had a seemingly pleasing relationship with a boy student. Take this movie off the shelves, it is not worth the space.

Andy G. gave it a2:
Technically, well done, hence the 2 points. The movie itself is terrible though. The oh-so-thought-provoking aspect of it is that some (supposedly) 17-year-old students (the youngest actor actually was born in 1984, the rest between 1978-1981, and it shows) get really really inspired by their pederast teacher who can't keep his stubby fingers to himself. Do me a favor and imagine the same story, but replace the boys with girls: A fat old guy groping girls when he gives them a lift home on his moped.. The dialogue may be witty, but with guys in their mid-20's posing as adolescents, it all seems awfully constructed and lame. I especially despised the ending scene where all the students are told their future. It is so incredibly melodramatic that it makes you wonder how they could pull it off. This movie stinks and will bore you to pieces. Please do yourself a favor and don't waste 109 minutes of your life on this.

Bill I. gave it a9:
An excellent adaptation of the smash play from London. You may hear that's its about a pederast teacher, but it's really about how education has detiorated in quality in the modern day (and the pederast is the best educator of all the story's teaching characters). Sweet, sad, touching, funny and thought provoking.

Ju H. gave it a0:
A homosexual propaganda film which infers that its ok for a male teacher to have sex with 17 year old boys and to molest them on a regular basis.

Christopher W. gave it a5:
Good performances from a likable cast and some rich dialogue can't offset the gregariously obvious stage origins of this film. This somewhat stodgy film translation may please most those that are familiar with the play, but even they might be left wanting as the film version is a noticeably truncated version of its stage predessor. Not bad! ...but, I wouldn't recommend it!

History Boys, The Fox Searchlight Pictures

History Boys, The
Fox Searchlight Pictures