The 15 worst teachers in the movies

At School Gate, we always endeavour to be fair. So, to counter our post on the 15 most inspiring teachers in the movies, here are the 15 worst. These are the teachers no one would enjoy being taught by - and hot on the heels of all that Olympic glory, two Brits take the first two places.

1) Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton) in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
She may be a vision in pink, but Professor Umbridge is not just cruel, she's downright evil.

2) Agatha Trunchbull (Pam Ferris) in Matilda
Now this is the kind of teacher who really would give children nightmares. Like many of the others, she's a real meanie, but she's also incredibly strong, so throwing children out of the window is one of her ways of dealing with problems.. Pam Ferris is fantastic in this role, and a perfect contrast to the wonderful Miss Honey.
See Miss Trunchbull in the classroom.

3) Richard Fenton (Johnathon Schaech) in Prom Night (2008 version)
Teachers who are mass murderers - especially those who escape from incarceration - are never a good bet when it comes to the classroom (or indeed, prom night).
Get ready to be scared with this extended trailer.

4) The teachers in The Faculty
Teachers who turn into pupil destroying aliens are also not to be recommended. Herrington High boasts a whole roster - including Famke Janssen, Jon Stewart (yes, that Jon Stewart) Salma Hayek and Piper Laurie.
Watch the film set to music - and with the perfect song.

5) Mr Sugden (Brian Glover) in Kes
Amazingly, Brian Glover was actually a teacher before he became an actor.  Let's hope he wasn't anything like Mr Sugden, the overbearing bully of a gym teacher he portrays so brilliantly.
Watch him pretending to be Bobby Charlton, whilst also refereeing a school football match in this classic scene.

6) Mrs Tingle (Helen Mirren) in Teaching Mrs Tingle
I admit it, Katie Holmes can be annoying, but I'm not sure that excuses the sadistic Mrs Tingle and her behaviour.
Some movies are better without dialogue - watch this tribute to Helen Mirren in Teaching Mrs Tingle. It pretty much gives you the whole film!

7) Barbara Covett (Judi Dench) in Notes on a Scandal
Disenchanted, mean and simply not interested in teaching - Miss Covett is not the kind of teacher you want to encounter in a classroom. And the luminous Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett) is not the kind of teacher you would want your son to encounter...
Watch Barbara confront Sheba.

8) Michel Delassalle (Paul Meurisse) in Les Diaboliques
A sadistic, unpleasant boarding school headmaster, who seems to come to a watery end in this excellent, suspense-packed film.
Watch the 1955 trailer (although it's more helpful if you can speak French!)

9) The teachers in Teachers
This is not a place to go to be educated, as these teachers are one of the worst groups you're likely to come across. The possible stand-out is Ditto (Royal Dano), who gives his class an exam every day so that he can have a kip at the back.
Watch Nick Nolte in Teachers trying to keep control in the classroom.

10) Crocker-Harris (Michael Redgrave) in The Browning Version
He's disillusioned with life (his nickname is Himmler), love and especially teaching. And the pupils' lives are miserable - until he learns better...
Watch Crocker-Harris's moving valedictory address, where he asks for forgiveness. "I have degraded the noblest calling a man can follow," he announces.

11) Edward R Rooney (Jeffrey Jones) in Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Poor Ed Rooney. He knows Ferris is up to something, but is humiliated at every turn. Rather strangely, Rooney is every teenager's idea of an awful teacher, but as you get older, he somehow becomes more understandable.
Watch the brilliant phone call between Rooney and "George Peterson".

12) Loretta Creswood (Annie Ross) in Pump up the Volume
I loved this teen film, where Christian Slater plays a renegade DJ! Annie Ross is great as the school principal who gets rid of her, er, more difficult pupils so the school looks better in the league tables (totally unbelievable, isn't it?)
Watch Christian Slater as Hard Harry making a broadcast.

13) Mr Strickland (James Tolkan) in Back to the Future
He's unpleasant, uninspiring and very strict, with no idea how to motivate his students.
Watch Mr Strickland tell Marty that "No McFly ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley!" (and ignore the strange ending to the clip!)

14) Principal Vernon (Paul Gleason) in the Breakfast Club
He gives detention on Saturdays? There has to be something wrong with that.
Watch The Breakfast Club in four minutes.

15) Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) in Election
I hesitated to put this one in, because I loved this film, and my sympathies were actually with Broderick (Reese Witherspoon's Tracy Flick was so briliantly and annoyingly perfect). However, I have to admit that fixing a school election just because you don't like a pupil is not really what you want from a teacher.
Watch the trailer.

Read our posts on:

The best TV shows set in schools

20 movies which make you wish you'd gone to uni

The 8 best high school musicals

The 15 best characters in Grange Hill

The 25 best boarding school books

The most embarrassing recipients on honorary degrees

Comments

[robsdad]

I would have included Professor Severus Snape (Alan Rickman). He has to be the worst teacher ever.

[NYN New York]

I would certainly nominate Miss Jean Brodie for this dubious honor.

[Personalo]

Miss Birdwood from the 1989 movie George's Island not only needs to be on this list but was apparently based on a real teacher that needs to be on a list of the world's worst real teachers.

[Lily]

Snape?

Nuh uh. If I was teaching I would totally run a class like that.

[Richard Scotney]

I actually love Snape - he always seems to be a master of his field. The worst has to be Professor Sybil Trelawney - she can neither deliver nor control a lesson.
How about Ms Krabappel (sp?) from The Simpsons? She's pretty shocking.

[Sandy]

I hated Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society. His performance was just a little over the top and a bit phoney.

[James Brown]

Where would my former pupils have placed me?
I may be a swine but I am a just swine. Yes sir, came the reply, just a swine The swine and the whole class collapsed

[Robert Lewis]

How about the absurd EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher portrayed by Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam. His performance is nauseating in the extreme, especially when he humiliates the Vietnamese students for wanting to learn how to buy food in shops. Far more useful to teach them "You have pissed me off" and other American slang. Yes that is how to teach - ridicule, humiliate and then short-change them with language they do not want to use.

[David Null]

How about Hector in The History Boys? Fondling the genitals of working-class schoolboys in his care must be considered unprofessional, even in England.

[Bellringers]

I have to agree on the top slot going to Dolores Umbridge…

One note-- I know lots of movies seem to have teachers like Mr.Strickland in Back to the Future who tell kids that they will never amount to anything and it always seems like teacher professional development classes talk about such teachers,but I have never, ever met such a teacher in the 24 years I've been teaching. This is not to say that they don't exist; they must.

And because they must exist, I think that type of teacher needs to be moved up to the top by Dolores as they would be just as damaging--and evil.

[ms_teacher]

Even though I understood the reason that Trevor Garfield, played by Samuel L Jackson in the movie 187 did what he did at the end of the movie, I still believe he qualifies to be on this list.

[Pizza Andy]

I believe that Qui-Gon Jinn, Jedi Master and instructor at the Jedi Academy on Coruscant, may deserve a spot on this list, or at least in the top twenty. His lack of judgement and respect for his superiors was near the core of the ethnic cleansing of an entire galaxy.
And as far as the list of BEST teachers goes, Yoda would be my obvious pick for No. 1.

[Mr Teacher]

Great post! I agree that both Mr Strickland and the staff from the show Teachers must be included. And although it looked fun, Jack Black's character in School of Rock could perhaps be added for lots of reasons.

One movie teacher I would have had no problems with, however, is Michelle Pfeiffer's character in Dangerous Minds. I would turn up every day and be happy to sit at the front!

[jwoll]

What about Ray Walston, as Mr. Hand in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Even though he was cool enough to pass Spiccoli at the end with an oral exam.

[Travis]

The teachers from the movie "Teachers" really are a loser lot. I saw clips of that movie as a youth and, even then, I knew that it was terrible teaching. Now that I am a teacher, I cringe when that movie is brought up. I understand that there was a human story to be had and the venue could have been anything it just happened to be teaching, but does teaching need any more rubbish tossed upon it? Nope. Great post. I will now venture over to the 15 Best Teachers in the Movies. Great idea.

[Cassandra]

Why does LILY think of Snape as a good teacher? Pupils are scared of him.

The goal of an teacher should not only be discipline but also to be an inspiration for the pupils he or she is teaching.

I am asking myself if LILY really thinks she learned more from scary teachers than from inspiring teachers?

[Anthony]

How about Kitty Farmer from Donnie Darko? Played by Beth Grant. Horrible teacher... Also a supporter of a man with child pornography.

[Matt]

Frankly, Katie Holmes deserves EVERYTHING done to her--I would have ended TEACHING MRS TINGLE with the title character not only triumphing, but finding a way to grind it into her nemesis' snot-nosed little face.

[Allison]

Also I would add Rupert Cadell from Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope."

[Adam]

Hector from the History Boys?

[Meg:)]

1!Dolores Umbridge!

Deserved place first.
She is terrible!!It is obscene pink in my opinion and definitively too sweet. It lid of bad nature. This
camouflage!She is cruel and false!

[leila]

See what can happen when you give people power? I hate 'em all!

[xxx]

Lily, Snape isn’t that kind of teachers. You really should to read Harry Potter)

[~LV~]

I've been a substitute teacher for 30 years and know that being Severus Snape is the only way to survive.

[Alyn Vincent]

The teachers in "If". Cold showers, beatings etc. At least they got "the bullet" in the end!

[Alana]

What happened to Snape he should be on the list. But Umbridge deserved NO.1

[Leslie E. Webb]

Richard Dreyfuss in 'Mr Holland's Opus'. He's a thwarted high school teacher- composer who goes deaf. Real subtle. The movie also includes excerpts from his magnum opus. Devastating.

[Gregory]

Caligula, played by Stig Järrel, in 'Torment' ('Hets') (written by a 20-something Ingmar Bergman).

[Gregory]

'Hets' (1944) a.k.a. 'Frenzy' in the UK

[TERRY]

My high school had "Saturday School", I think it was called. It was the step up from detention and before suspension. 4 hours long.

[Gavin]

Takeshi Kitano in Battle Royale.

Any teacher who brings his former class to an island to fight until last man standing must surely be up there!

[James]

I have always hated (and been saddened by*) Professor Kantorek in All Quiet on the Western Front, especially when he makes that speech which shames Paul and his fellow pupils into enlisting.

*Saddened because I imagine that were teachers like him all over Europe in 1914-18, willing to sacrifice their pupils on the altar of patriotism.

[Allison]

I just remembered another: Miss Branding (played by Louise Lewis) from the so-bad-it's-great 1957 B-movie extraordinaire entitled "Blood of Dracula." Branding was nuts, using her students as guinea pigs in some highly questionable experiments. Great bad movie - try to find a copy.

[Kate Rooney]

Teacher leave those kids alone!! That horrible, horrible man in Pink Floyds "The Wall" passing his personal misery on to his students. Henpecked mean and evil.

[Alex Palmer]

Arnie In Kindergarten Cop. EVERBODY SHUT UP

[Michael]

The new teachers in CLASS OF 1999. Harsh, but kind of funny in their humiliation of hardened gang members--until their combat programming re-emerges and they start killing their students in rather graphic ways.

But they did teach their surviving gang students to stop fighting each other fight them instead. I suppose that counts for something . . .

[Josh M]

How about Dumbledore?

The last thing he seems to be interested in is actually running a school. He cancelled exams once as a reward to his students!

[Michael]

The teachers in the Channel 4 program 'Teachers'.

Just like the crowd at my school - 90% were simply second rate and looking for an easy life. My goodness it must take real skill to humiliate and demotivate a 14 year old boy.

Respect to my History Master who was the only one who seemed to make an effort and who gave me a life long love of the subject.

Life began when I walked out the front door of that place for the last time after managing to scrape into a good University. I then began to enjoy 'education' for the first time.

[Janet]

What about the teacher from Starship Troopers? Jean Rasczak played by Michael Ironside? Mental, that one. Or Chris Doyle's turn as the English Teacher in Peter Chan's Comrades, Almost a Love Story. It's the funniest thing watching a world famous cinematographer teaching his students English using cowboy films.

[SPimpernel]

Dean Wormer of Animal House might handily be included...

[JP]

I always thought Ed Rooney was an administrator. Since he doesn't actually teach anything in FPDO, I'm not quite sure he should qualify as one of the worst teachers in film. Besides, he was a pretty conscientious administrator, if very oafish.

[Rachel]

I thought Ed Rooney was the Principal.

[AK]

Mr Garrison from South Park? Caught trying to molest Cartman!

[Derek]

Best 15 or Worst 15 - opinions will probably vary?

In the film The Long Kiss Goodnight - Samantha Caine / Charly Baltimore (played by Geena Davis) has been a small town teacher.

[Charly jumps over a fence with a rifle in her hand and surprises Raymond, an obnoxious pupil from her school, smoking in secret.]

Charly: Good morning, Raymond.
Raymond: Good morning, Miss Caine.
Charly: What have we learned about the dangers of smoking? Give it here. Thanks. Tell anyone you saw me... I'll blow your f***ing head off.

[Charly hands the cigarette back and goes on her way, Raymond wets himself.]

[Janelle]

Gregory:
Richard Dreyfuss's character in Mr. Holland's Opus was NOT deaf, his son was deaf. He was devastated when he discovered his son couldn't hear. Mr. Holland was a music teacher but all he wanted to do was write music. He took the crappy teaching job with delinquent students to support his family. He was miserable, but good to his students. He even went to the one guy's funeral after he was killed in the war. At the end, he finally connected with his son by playing the "opus" with lights so that his son could "hear" the music. This character is NOT an example of a bad teacher. Apparently you didn't watch the film at all.

[Greta in Ohio]

What about the Bromwell High teachers!? =D Someone said Ed Rooney wasn’t a teacher, which is correct, although if he were a real person, he likely would be a former teacher. I expected to find Ben Stein’s character from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the Economics Teacher, in his place.

[Greta in Ohio]

Sorry, Bromwell High isn’t a movie. Dang. Well it should be—and it should be on in the states more than never—and it’d have teachers vying with Umbridge. Trunchbull reminded me of a certain elementary school principal I had, who wasn’t giant and strong, but did about as much yelling, hitting, and dark, solitary confinement, with a good deal of force-feeding of soap. >: (

[mr.president sir.]

Excuse me robsdad? would you like me to fish your spleen out manually? Or dice your liver?

[stinkymcgee]

The teacher in Tea and Sympathy, and Mrs. Peggy Hill.

[Karachi Hotel]

Great achievement sarah. you shared a great information about 15 worst teacher.

[Jim Thompson]

How about Samuel L Jackson in the movie 187. OK he started a good teacher, but by the end he was a little twisted!

[Rob]

Miss Jean Brodie, perhaps? Quite apart from her haughty attitude to the children, the obsession with fascism has to go down as a rather large mark against her.