Fresh
Kevin Kline perfectly cast to play this.
Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper
The Emperor's Club
In everyone's life there's that one person who makes all the difference.
2002 · 1h 48m · PG-13
Drama
Directed by
Michael Hoffman
Overview
William Hundert is a passionate and principled Classics professor who finds his tightly-controlled world shaken and inexorably altered when a new student, Sedgewick Bell, walks into his classroom. What begins as a fierce battle of wills gives way to a close student-teacher relationship, but results in a life lesson for Hundert that will still haunt him a quarter of a century later.
Director and cast
- Michael Hoffman Director
- Kevin Kline as William Hundert
- Emile Hirsch as Sedgewick Bell
- Embeth Davidtz as Elizabeth
- Rob Morrow as James Ellerby
- Purva Bedi as Anna Mehta
- Edward Herrmann as Headmaster Woodbridge
- Helen Carey as Miss Johnston
- Jesse Eisenberg as Louis Masoudi
- Paul Dano as Martin Blythe
- Katherine O'Sullivan Cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
50%
Tomatometer
Fresh
This isn't a stand up and cheer flick; it's a sit down and ponder affair. And thanks to Kline's superbly nuanced performance, that pondering is highly pleasurable.
Desson Thomson, Washington Post
Rotten
It's a simpering, ineffective ersatz-drama, so simple-minded and unrealistic and so full of fussy stupidity, it exiles you.
Stephen Hunter, Washington Post
Fresh
You don't have to be an especially tough grader to give a charitable B-minus to The Emperor's Club.
Mike Clark, USA Today
Fresh
The movie may not be worthy of an Oscar, but Kline's highly nuanced performance is certainly worthy of our attention.
Peter Howell, Toronto Star
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Drama · PG
At an elite, old-fashioned boarding school in New England, a passionate English teacher inspires his students to rebel against convention and seize the potential of every day, courting the disdain of the stern headmaster.
- Runtime
- 2h 9m
- Director
- Peter Weir
- Cast
- Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke
IMDb
8.1
Rotten Tomatoes
85%
Metacritic
79
Comments
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