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The History Boys | 2006 | R | - 6.3.7

An English preparatory school is graduating a new class of brilliant young men, who are getting ready for exams and interviews hoping to be accepted by the prestigious Oxford and Cambridge universities. But when the headmaster decides to bring in a new teacher in order to provide the students with a different perspective, the senior staff is upset. With Richard Griffiths, Clive Merrison, Frances De La Tour, Stephen Campbell Moore and Dominic Cooper. Directed by Nicholas Hytner, Nicholas Hytner & Nick Starr. [1:44]

SEX/NUDITY 6 - A young man and a young woman kiss deeply while lying, clothed, on a bed; the young man caresses the young woman's clothed breast and moves his hand down toward her thigh, she stops him and the young man asks her what he "should do with this" (suggesting an erection).
 A young man asks a man (his teacher) to gratify him sexually, the man declines, but they make a date to meet at another time.
 A male teacher on a motorcycle reaches behind him and touches the crotch of a young man seated on the motorcycle behind him (the young man tells him to stop, and a crossing guard sees this and reports it to the man's headmaster). A much older man pinches the buttock of a young woman and she flinches (it is implied that he gropes her regularly).
 A woman wears a low-cut top that reveals cleavage in several scenes. Young men are shown bare-chested in a couple of locker room scenes when they are changing or after showers, with towels wrapped around their waists. Two young men act out a scene where one of them is a prostitute, and he drops his pants and lies back on a table (we see him in his jockey shorts).
 A young man hugs another young man (one of them is in love with the other, who does not return the feeling).
 A young man, who tells a teacher that he is gay, sings a romantic song to another young man and talks later about being in love with him. People discuss whether a man is homosexual even though he is married to a woman, and that he puts his hand on young men's knees. A young man talks about riding home on a motorcycle with a teacher and that he thought the teacher might have thought he was aroused when his briefcase pressed against his back. A young man confronts a man about inappropriate sexual advances toward a young woman. A young man watches a young woman pass in a hallway and says, "I got mine last night," implying sex. Two young men talk about whether they would have sex with a man. Several young men talk about foreskin and whether or not they have any.

VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - We hear tires squeal and see a crumpled motorcycle after an accident that leaves one man dead and another with a broken leg.
 A teacher taps a young man on the head with a rolled up paper, in several scenes.
 A man yells at another man for his inappropriate sexual behavior. A man yells at a classroom of young men. A young man confronts a man about inappropriate sexual advances toward a young woman and the man becomes angry and yells.
 We hear that a young man died in a war.

LANGUAGE 7 - 27 F-words, 3 obscene British hand gestures, 10 sexual references, 20 scatological terms, 10 anatomical terms, 1 mild obscenity, 1 derogatory term for homosexuals, name-calling (twerp), 3 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - Young men smoke in several scenes, and a man and a woman smoke in a couple of scenes. A young man says "I take drugs on the weekend."

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Academic success, intelligence, thinking outside the box, challenge, competition, heartbreak, randomness, love, scandal, humiliation, homosexuality, conforming, playing the game, recklessness, racism, lack of recognition of women in history.

MESSAGE - Where we go to school does not predict who or what we will become.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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