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A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
01
Why this pick
Like The Emperor’s Club, it finds moral awakening and quiet rebellion within an elite boys’ school, balancing inspiring classroom ideals with the lasting costs of institutional pressure.
02
Why this pick
A sharply observed boarding-school drama in which an exacting classics teacher gradually forms an unlikely bond with a difficult student, mixing wintry melancholy, dry humor, and earned compassion.
03
Why this pick
Its prep-school world tests whether merit and decency can survive privilege, prejudice, and competitive social rituals, with the same serious interest in character under institutional pressure.
04
Why this pick
This period campus drama shares the appeal of an idealistic teacher challenging a tradition-bound elite school, focusing on mentorship, conscience, and the limits of education’s power.
05
Why this pick
A charismatic educator’s influence over her pupils becomes increasingly morally complicated, offering the same fascination with mentorship, authority, and the consequences of shaping young lives.
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01 / THE STORY
William Hundert works at a boarding school for boys called Saint Benedict's in 1971. He is a passionate teacher of Classics who finds his tightly-controlled world shaken when a new student, Sedgewick Bell, walks into his classroom. Sedgewick Bell is the cocky son of a U.S. Senator who possesses none of Hundert's principles. After a dressing down from his father, Bell develops a close relationship with Hundert. After Hundert intentionally raises Bell's class rank by one place, Bell finishes in the top 3 in Hundert's class and qualifies for the traditional end of the year Mr. Julius Caesar contest. However, Hundert reconsiders his actions when he sees Martin Blythe, the rightful third place contestant, despondently withdrawn under a tree. The Mr. Julius Caesar competition is an event in front of the whole school, which is a series of questions about classics. However, when Hundert sees Bell using crib notes, the headmaster orders Hundert to ignore it. Hundert then asks a question on Hamilcar Barca which was not covered in class, but is answered by another contestant, Deepak Mehta, who knew due to his personal interest in military science, and Mehta is crowned Mr. Julius Caesar. The cheating is never publicized, but the trust Bell and Hundert had in each other is broken. Bell returns to his class clown ways and barely graduates in 1976, with Hundert remarking he had a sense of deep disappointment handing Bell the diploma.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
Elizabeth
James Ellerby
Louis Masoudi
Sedgewick Bell
Headmaster Woodbridge
Miss Johnston
Martin Blythe
William Hundert
