The Class

The Class (Entre les murs, 2008) is Laurent Cantet's French drama, and you can watch online on iFILM. Almost the entire film stays inside one ordinary Parisian classroom, and out of that cramped room comes one of the most honest school movies ever made.

François teaches French at a middle school in a rough eastern district of Paris. His students come from immigrant families across Africa, the Maghreb and Asia, each with a temper and a grievance of their own. He doesn't rule by authority or try to be liked; he argues with the teenagers as equals, and that bluntness eventually backfires when a careless remark sets off a conflict that spills well past the lesson. François Bégaudeau, a former teacher whose memoir inspired the film, plays a version of himself, and nearly every kid on screen is a real student rather than a trained actor.

Cantet built the whole thing from semi-documentary improvisation, so the dialogue sounds overheard instead of scripted. It won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2008, the festival's top prize. If you're tired of glossy inspirational-teacher stories, this clear-eyed version will hit a lot harder. Stream The Class (2008) online on iFILM.