The Good Teacher

Julien, a young literature teacher, is accused of harassment by a girl in his class. The accusation spreads through the school and online, and what he really runs into while trying to prove his innocence is that nobody wants to make waves. The film is not interested in whether the accusation is true. It is interested in the reflex of the institution: management and colleagues alike work to quieten the incident rather than resolve it, and the teacher is left alone in the middle. The form has the rhythm of a thriller. Corridors, the noise of break time and phone screens push it closer to a chase than to a school drama. The source is what happened to the director. In 2020 Teddy Lussi-Modeste was teaching French at a middle school in Aubervilliers when a pupil accused him falsely of harassment; he wrote the screenplay with Audrey Diwan. The film premiered at the Ramdam Festival in Belgium on 18 January 2024 and opened in France on 27 March 2024. François Civil plays Julien. Who it is for: viewers who like school and institutional drama and follow the current social tensions of French cinema. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a balanced argument. The film stands with the teacher from the first minute and barely enters the inner life of the pupil who accuses him.