Bringemovies
← Browse Movies
Sylvia
TITLE DETAILS

Sylvia

1986-01-01 · 100 min · ★ 7.2

Drama

New Zealand chronicle of the life of noted writer and teacher, Sylvia Ashton-Warner. An interesting look at the unusual teaching methods she used while working with the children from the indigenous Maon.

Open detail page

Trailers are previews, not full movies.

No authorized playback source configured. Use the legal watch options below.

Production details

Directors
Michael Firth
Production companies
Cinepro, Southern Light Pictures
Countries
New Zealand
Status
Released
Budget
USD 1,700,000

Top Cast

Eleanor DavidEleanor DavidSylvia
Nigel TerryNigel TerryAden
Tom WilkinsonTom WilkinsonKeith
Mary ReganOpal
Martyn SandersonMartyn SandersonInspector Gulland
Terence CooperTerence CooperInspector Bletcher
David LetchDavid LetchInspector Scragg
Sarah PeirceVivian Wallop
James CrossMechanic

Title information and images are supplied by TMDb. Explore our discovery guide for advice on comparing metadata and legal viewing options.

Where to watch

Availability provided by JustWatch via TMDb. Offers can change. Provider links are listed on TMDb; full playback requires a separately authorized source.

Availability not listed for this country.

Recommendations

The Ron Clark Story
★ 7.6
The Ron Clark Story2006Drama

Passionate and innovative teacher Ron Clark leaves his small hometown to teach in one of Harlem's toughest schools. But to break through to the students, he must use unconventional methods, including his ground-breaking classroom rules, to help them reach their potential. Based on a true story.

Only the Strong
★ 6.9
Only the Strong1993Drama

Former Green Beret Louis Stevens returns to his hometown of Miami after completing military service in Brazil, only to learn that his old high school has become a haven for gangs and drug dealers. After Stevens uses his capoeira skills to kick several drug dealers off of the school property, Kerrigan, one of Stevens' old teachers, sees the impact that Stevens has on the students. Kerrigan gives him the task of teaching Capoeira to a handful of the worst at-risk students at the school.

The Nest
★ 6.1
The Nest2020Drama

Rory is an ambitious entrepreneur who brings his American wife and kids to his native country, England, to explore new business opportunities. After abandoning the sanctuary of their safe American suburban surroundings, the family is plunged into the despair of an archaic '80s Britain and their unaffordable new life in an English manor house threatens to destroy the family.

Hounddog
★ 6.5
Hounddog2008Drama

A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.

Won't Back Down
★ 6.2
Won't Back Down2012Drama

Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.

Skin
★ 6.4
Skin2009Drama

Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.

The Convert
★ 6.2
The Convert2024Drama

Munro, a soldier turned lay preacher, comes to New Zealand to minister to the first British colonists, but he is converted by the powerful chief Maianui to serve a different purpose.

Last Ride
★ 6.4
Last Ride2009Drama

A young boy travels across Australia with his father, who's wanted by the law.

Goodbye June
★ 6.5
Goodbye June2025Drama

Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.

The Color of Friendship
★ 6.7
The Color of Friendship2000Drama

Mahree Bok lives on a farm in South Africa. Her father is a policeman who cannot hide his joy when activist Steve Biko is caught by the South African authorities. Piper Dellums is the daughter of a US congressman from California and who lives in a nice home in Washington DC. When Mahree is chosen to spend a semester at the Dellums' house, she doesn't expect that her host family would be black. Nor do her hosts suspect that she is not a black South African.

All Day and a Night
★ 6.3
All Day and a Night2020Drama

While serving life in prison, a young man looks back at the people, the circumstances and the system that set him on the path toward his crime.

A Dry White Season
★ 6.7
A Dry White Season1989Drama

During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.

Bastard Out of Carolina
★ 7.1
Bastard Out of Carolina1996Drama

A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.

Dangerous Minds
★ 7.0
Dangerous Minds1995Drama

Former Marine Louanne Johnson lands a gig teaching in a pilot program for bright but underachieving teens at a notorious inner-city high school. After having a terrible first day, she decides she must throw decorum to the wind. When Johnson returns to the classroom, she does so armed with a no-nonsense attitude informed by her military training and a fearless determination to better the lives of her students -- no matter what the cost.

Sergio
★ 6.5
Sergio2020Drama

A sweeping drama set in the chaotic aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, where the life of top UN diplomat Brazilian Sérgio Vieira de Mello hangs in the balance during the most treacherous mission of his career.

The Miracle Worker
★ 7.3
The Miracle Worker2000Drama

Devoted teacher Anne Sullivan leads deaf, blind and mute Helen Keller out of solitude and helps integrate her into the world.

The Girl in the Book
★ 5.8
The Girl in the Book2015Drama

The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.

Detachment
★ 7.6
Detachment2011Drama

A chronicle of three weeks in the lives of several high school teachers, administrators and students through the eyes of substitute teacher Henry Barthes. Henry roams from school to school, imparting modes of knowledge, but never staying long enough to form any semblance of sentient attachment.

Strange Weather
★ 5.9
Strange Weather2016Drama

Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.

Steve
★ 6.3
Steve2025Drama

Over one intense day, the devoted head teacher of a last-chance reform school strives to keep his students in line while facing pressures of his own.

Similar titles

Crooklyn
★ 6.8
Crooklyn1994Drama

From Spike Lee comes this vibrant semi-autobiographical portrait of a school-teacher, her stubborn jazz-musician husband and their five kids living in '70s Brooklyn.

Poster unavailable
★ 8.0
Hide and Seek2013Drama

A school girl visits a house to take a koto lesson. She meets her teacher and her son and they seem to be playing "HIDE and SEEK" in the house. Koto lesson starts but the girl soon realizes that there's something very odd about the teacher.

Normal
★ 5.2
Normal2007Drama

A deadly car accident brings together a group of previously unrelated people, each of whom is forced to deal with the emotional fallout.

Some Came Running
★ 6.9
Some Came Running1958Drama

A former novelist returns to his small Midwest town after serving in the Army during WWII, to the chagrin of his social-climbing brother, and becomes close with an easy-going professional gambler and torn between two very different women.

Boy
★ 7.3
Boy2010Drama

Boy, an 11-year-old child and devout Michael Jackson fan who lives on the east coast of New Zealand in 1984, gets a chance to know his absentee criminal father, who has returned to find a bag of money he buried years ago.

How Many Years, How Many Winters!
★ 8.0
How Many Years, How Many Winters!1966Drama

Crisálida
★ 6.0
Crisálida2016Drama

Ernesto, a biologist who lives with his mother, spends his days teaching at the university and waiting for his chrysalis to grow. One day everything is different, something suddenly changes.

Kandahar
★ 6.2
Kandahar2001Drama

After an Afghanistan-born woman who lives in Canada receives a letter from her suicidal sister, she takes a perilous journey through Afghanistan to try to find her.

XIIa
★ 5.6
XIIa2017Drama

The movie XIIa is the sequel of the super successful XIa. In XIIa the journey continues. After two years break, Lina is back to school to teach a new class - a new class, new problems. At home, the situation is also not better. Lina is separated with her cheating husband and her dominating mother is constantly bullying her, Lina's son is maltreated by classmates - at times the tension reaches extreme limits and Lina is about to collapse. Fortunately, she finds support in the sports teacher, a former boxer. The school director is also on her side, so are some of the students. Though the problems with the new class, especially with the beautiful and difficult Megan and between Lina and one of her colleague teachers deepen more and more. The prom is getting closer, the situation is about to escalate

A Tale of Springtime
★ 6.8
A Tale of Springtime1990Drama

The story of an introverted young girl just reaching adulthood who takes a liking to an older woman she meets at a party and determines to match her off with her father, despite the latter's already having a lover of his own.

Carried Away
★ 5.8
Carried Away1996Drama

Based on Jim Harrison's book, "Farmer". 47-year-old Joseph Svenden lives on the family farm with his dying mother and teaches at a two room schoolhouse with Rosealee, his lover and his best friend's widow. Joseph, who lacks a college degree, learns that he will lose his teaching job at the end of the year when the school district expands into his town. Meanwhile, he is seduced by 17-year-old Catherine, a new student in his class. His affair with Catherine and losing his teaching job forces Joseph to take a look at his previously dull life and to decide how he wants to live the rest of it.

Mademoiselle
★ 7.0
Mademoiselle1966Drama

A sexually repressed school teacher releases her pent up passions in a series of shocking crimes.

Perverted Adolescence
★ 4.9
Perverted Adolescence1974Drama

Professor Mirella Buzzati, recovering from a failed relationship that ended with a divorce from her husband, travels to Perugia where she has obtained a mathematics teaching position at a high school. Her hatred of men, evident during the train ride and in her interactions with male colleagues who quickly flock to her, quickly yields to the attractiveness of Alain, a student nicknamed "the dark and handsome" by the high school girls. He already has a relationship with Giorgina, a fellow student of the same age and a fanatical militant of "Lotta Continua." In an effort to win over her idol, Mirella becomes unscrupulous in her teaching, preaches political and sexual revolution; she earns the headmaster's rebukes, and heaps scathing criticism on her rival Giorgina. After a stint in Paris with a lesbian colleague, the professor resumes her attack and obtains Alain's physical performance, but not her love: the boy understands her well and deeply despises her.

The United States of Leland
★ 6.5
The United States of Leland2003Drama

A withdrawn young man, Leland Fitzgerald is imprisoned for the murder of a mentally disabled boy, who also happened to be the brother of his girlfriend, Becky. As the community struggles to deal with the killing, Pearl Madison, a teacher at the prison, decides to write about Leland's case. Meanwhile, others affected by the murder, including Becky and her sister, Julie, must contend with their own problems.

October Sky
★ 7.7
October Sky1999Drama

The true story of Homer Hickam, a coal miner's son who was inspired by the first Sputnik launch to take up rocketry against his father's wishes.

What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?
★ 6.6
What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?1999Drama

Five years have passed and Jake has turned his back on his family. He's still up to his usual tricks in McClutchy's Bar, unaware, as he downs his latest opponent, that his eldest son, Nig, has died in a gang fight. The uncomfortable family reunion at Nig's funeral sparks a confrontation with second son, Sonny, and sets Jake and Sonny on a downward spiral.

A Teacher's Crime
★ 4.7
A Teacher's Crime2008Drama

Carrie is an attractive high school history teacher who one day decides to help a troubled student, taking an special interest for him, unaware of the ruthless and perverse scheme masterminded for her.

Öğretmen Zeynep
★ 10.0
Öğretmen Zeynep1989Drama

Zeynep, a young and idealistic teacher, has economic problems. Zeynep enters a world she doesn't want when she starts giving private lessons to a mafia boss's child.

Crooked Earth
★ 7.5
Crooked Earth2001Drama

Will Bastion returns home from the army after an absence of 20 years to bury his father, the former chief of thee Maori tribe, Ngati Kaipuku. The eldest son, he is reluctant to inherit his fathers role, so it is taken more willingly by his younger brother, Kahu. Kahu is the leader of a band of drug dealers and trouble-makers who ride horses through the middle of town, wrecking peoples gardens. Under the guise of refusal of a land settlement, Kahu makes a large marijuana deal with some murdering city folk. Will must choose between loyalty for his brother and his father, Maori tradition, and contemporary financial issues.

Maroa
★ 6.5
Maroa2005Drama

Eleven-year-old petty criminal Maroa lives with her violent grandmother Brigida in Caracas. After her boyfriend Carlos is involved in a shooting, Maroa is arrested and sent to a school where Joaquin conducts the youth orchestra, and he asks the naturally talented Maroa to join. Days now revolve around the classes that Joaquin, the shy and unconventional teacher, gives her. He is immediately interested in this talented young girl, who lacks all notion of discipline. Joaquin, the only person to offer hope in the midst of her rejection, finds that through Maroa, his world has also changed forever.

Your favorites

Recently viewed

Watch

Choose an authorized server.

Full video from an operator-configured authorized source. Official trailers use a separate player. If a server fails, retry or select another authorized server.

Legal watch options

Official trailer

Trailer preview only. Press Play to start.

Privacy choices

Favorites stay in your browser. Movie images load from TMDb. YouTube trailers contact YouTube only after you allow external media and choose a trailer. Advertising consent, if ads are enabled, is managed separately by the operator’s certified CMP.

Privacy policy

After allowing external media, choose the trailer button to load its player.