The Class
Metascore
92 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 31 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 30 out of 31
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 31
  3. Negative: 0 out of 31
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  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    100
    The movie is bursting with life, energy, fears, frustrations and the quick laughter of a classroom hungry for relief.
  2. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    100
    This is one of the screen's most rewarding explorations of the teacher/student relationship in any language.
  3. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    100
    I was much more disheartened leaving the movie the first time I saw it than I was the second. Its richness resides in its apparent objectivity. Without sacrificing a sense of hope, Cantet suggests that the school system is just like a certain vexing grammatical tense: imperfect but still fighting against irrelevance.
  4. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    100
    The Class ranks with the very best films ever made about teaching, and it's unlike any English or American film about teaching ever made.
  5. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    100
    In a class by itself.
  6. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Sean Axmaker
    100
    The young cast, all nonactors who developed their characters with Cantet and Bégaudeau, brings the weight of full lives to each of the students.
  7. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    100
    Cantet's real-time classroom scenes are revelations: They make you understand that teaching is moment to moment, an endless series of negotiations that hang on intangibles—on imagination and empathy and the struggle to stay centered. This is a remarkable movie.
  8. Slate
    Reviewed by: Dana Stevens
    100
    This unassuming movie will nail you to your seat.
  9. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Schickel
    100
    It is hard to think of another film more tightly autobiographical than this one. It's even harder to think of other films that build so gripping a narrative out of a string of comparatively minor and disparate incidents.
  10. Variety
    Reviewed by: Justin Chang
    100
    Talky in the best sense, the film exhilarates with its lively, authentic classroom banter while its emotional undercurrents build steadily but almost imperceptibly over a swift 129 minutes. One of the most substantive and purely entertaining movies in competition at Cannes this year.
  11. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    100
    The Class is clearly a microcosm of contemporary France, beset by social and economic tensions. More than that, though, it's a saga of education's struggles in many parts of the modern world. If only the film were pure fiction.
  12. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: John Anderson
    100
    The Class is not just the best film released thus far this year. It may be the most gripping.
  13. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: David Denby
    100
    I would be surprised if this brilliant and touching film didn't become required viewing for teachers all over the United States. Everyone else should see it as well--it's a wonderful movie.
  14. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    100
    Wherever you were schooled, in public schools or private, in the slums or in the suburbs, you will recognize yourself in this film and laugh and beam and cower.
  15. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    91
    The beauty of The Class is that it puts the lie to the one-teacher-can-make-a-difference myth propagated by so many other films.
  16. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    90
    The Class is a lovely, exhilarating work about the ways in which failure and frustration can open the pathways through which we make sense out of life.
  17. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    90
    For anyone who loves language, this cut-and-thrust is a heady delight, so rich and free-flowing in its rhythms that it's hard to decide whether what we're seeing is a vérité-style documentary or a realist drama.
  18. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    90
    The reality of François' classroom is so intense that it holds our interest even while the film's dramatic focus is building so quietly under the surface that we don't notice it at first.
  19. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    90
    Here Mr. Cantet -- whose earlier features include "Human Resources" and "Time Out," two other dramas about systems of power -- has done that rarest of things in movies about children: He has allowed them to talk.
  20. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    89
    The keen observations of The Class ultimately become a remedial education in themselves.
  21. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    88
    Fierce, funny and moving, The Class graduates with honors. It's unmissable.
  22. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    88
    French movies are not so neatly resolved. In fact, the point of many French movies, such as this provocative one from director Laurent Cantet, is that some problems don't have satisfying solutions - or resolutions.
  23. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    88
    The Class is a deeply moving film about the challenges of educating children in a complex and often turbulent world.
  24. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    88
    Considering the strength of performances given by the 25-or-so teenage actors portraying the students, it's amazing that none of them have previous experience.
  25. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    83
    A modestly scaled, sharply observed film.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
7.3 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 73 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 21 out of 31
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 31
  3. Negative: 7 out of 31
  1. ryancarroll88
    10
    A fresh dose of authenticity makes all of the situations and struggles found in "The Class" all the more compelling. In an age when the education system is overcome with scrutiny and pessimism against both teachers and students, the movie shows that we have to give it more than hope for it to survive - we have to give it constant dedication. I'd definitely recommend the movie to anyone who's a teacher or planning to teach.… Full Review »
  2. JamesG
    5
    Some interesting scenes and a lot of comic value from the terrible dubbing.

    But above all this movie shows why classroom instruction is a t    errible way to educate kids. It provides the illusion of education but no learning. The social context takes over and the material is an obstacle to be avoided. It isn't about learning, its about students and teachers making each other miserable. Real learning comes from books, experience, videos, tutoring, or tests. If I were teaching the class in the movie, I would devote all class time to testing, quizzes, worksheet, etc. It's the only way to get the kids to shut up and learn.

    The movie also illustrates the comical unwillingness of educators to face reality. There is a teacher talking about what books to assign the kids, "I was thinking of starting them on Voltaire".    … Full Review »
  3. trashcan
    8
    Unique, different, and something you haven't seen before? Yes. A great must see movie? No.
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