The History Boys (2006)
Average Rating: 6.4/10
Reviews Counted: 105
Fresh: 68 | Rotten: 37
While not quite having the impact of its original stage version, The History Boys nevertheless is a witty and involving school drama.
Average Rating: 6.4/10
Critic Reviews: 40
Fresh: 24 | Rotten: 16
While not quite having the impact of its original stage version, The History Boys nevertheless is a witty and involving school drama.
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Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 34,970
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Movie Info
An unruly collection of clever but crass Thatcher-era English high-school students seek to earn the scores needed to enroll in Oxford and Cambridge in director Nicholas Hytner and screenwriter Alan Bennett's screen adaptation of Bennett's Tony-winning play. The History Boys focuses on a group of eight students, all of them deemed by their overeager headmaster (Clive Merrison) to be the best and the brightest. Though they've been coddled by their humanities-loving instructor, Hector (Richard
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Cast
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Clive Merrison
Headmaster -
Frances De La Tour
Dorothy Lintott -
Stephen Campbell Moore
Irwin -
Dominic Cooper
Dakin -
Samuel Barnett
Posner -
James Corden
Timms -
Jamie Parker
Scripps -
Russell Tovey
Rudge -
Samuel Anderson
Crowther -
Sacha Dhawan
Akthar -
Andrew Knott
Lockwood -
Penelope Wilton
Mrs. Bibby -
Adrian Scarborough
Wilkes -
-
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All Critics (116) | Top Critics (42) | Fresh (72) | Rotten (38) | DVD (13)
Taking a production pretty much intact from stage to screen robs it of its surprises. The cast seems to know what's coming, and so do we. There's not a single moment where you sense 'discovery' taking place.
Top CriticA funny thing happened to The History Boys on the way to the screen. The players are the same, the dialogue is pretty much identical, but the vibrancy of the play -- its exhilarating immediacy -- has been muted.
The film becomes a sermonette on tolerance. But with its one-sidedness, it fails to practice what it preaches.
The History Boys is a movie that asks questions like 'What is education really for anyway?' and asks them in an altogether witty, brainy way. It turns history into what it really is, the story of our lives.
Full of energy, ideas and fine acting.
...It's a rare pleasure to see a film that assumes literacy on the part of its audience.
The play's the thing -- the only thing -- here
In attempting to absolve the perverse actions of a teacher on the basis of his apparent tutoring skills, Alan Bennett has created a dubious work of fiction that is beyond empathy or humor.
The History Boys is much less about lighting and composition than it is about Bennett's sharp, insightful script.
Play-turned-movie grapples with sexuality, life.
The transfer from stage to film doesn't always go smoothly, as it's hard to shake the film's theater roots.
Movies, unlike plays, tend to be just about a very few things, or they feel rushed and overly sweeping, as this one occasionally did. Plays can linger and chew on their themes and keep the audience engaged much more easily.
With the writing way above board and insights fueling the story forward with heart and bawdy comedy, "The History Boys" is amiably off-center, sure, but it finds its core and leaves its mark.
A hugely enjoyable outing of subtle humour, witty words and a keen insight into human nature and the art of learning.
(A) lively and witty contemplation of history, culture, learning, and the meaning of history...
[History Boys] is most potently about the love of teaching, and how the best teachers can help give meaning to existence; and if not meaning in the grand sense, at least an appreciation of what it means to be human.
Ala Robin Williams' charismatic 'Carpe Diem!' character in Dead Poets Society, Richard Griffiths shines as another idealistic iconoclast though in service of a homoerotic adventure. Less 'Seize the day!' than 'Seize the gay!'
What lifts this film above the average is the extremely clever, erudite and witty dialogue.
.. gentle and sweet, ..all the more charming for its faith in its presumptive audience. It's heartening to come across a popular entertainment ...not pitched at the dull normal demographic.
Audience Reviews for The History Boys
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Rudge: It's [history] just one fucking thing after another.
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