The Kindergarten Teacher

Lisa Spinelli teaches kindergarten on Staten Island and writes poetry in her spare time, attending an evening workshop in Lower Manhattan where neither her teacher nor her classmates regard her as especially gifted. Her routine life with her husband and daughters shifts when she notices that one of her five-year-old pupils, Jimmy, speaks lines of verse that seem far beyond his years. Convinced he is a prodigy, she becomes increasingly absorbed in his talent and in the idea that she is the one who can protect and cultivate it. Her efforts to nurture him draw her away from her family and her professional judgment, and she ends up putting her marriage, her job and her freedom at risk.

The film is directed by Sara Colangelo, who wrote the screenplay with Nadav Lapid; it is a remake of Lapid's Israeli film and stands as Colangelo's first feature, followed by Worth in 2021. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Lisa and also produced, alongside Celine Rattray and Trudie Styler. Parker Sevak plays Jimmy, with Gael García Bernal as Simon, Michael Chernus as Lisa's husband Grant, Rosa Salazar as Becca and Ajay Naidu among a credited cast of 28.

Released in September 2018 and running 96 minutes, it is a drama from companies based in the United Kingdom, Israel, Canada and the United States. It holds a 6.7 rating on IMDb from around 19,000 votes and a 6.5 on TMDB from roughly 400 votes, while the critics' score of 7.5 from 102 reviews is higher than both audience figures.