Critic Reviews

• Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News

  This heartbreaking and essential look into the lives of those who put so much into educating other people's children ought to be seen by anyone concerned about the fate of the public school system, and the nation as a whole.

• Neil Genzlinger, New York Times

  A heartfelt, bittersweet portrait of several teachers as they make the difficult decision of whether to stick with the profession.

• Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

  As we watch the individuals in "American Teacher" struggle with the burdens the system places on them, it's hard not to feel like crying, both for them specifically and for our national culture.

• Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter

  Featuring a tedious procession of statistics, graphs and talking heads, American Teacher undercuts the forcefulness of its arguments with its underwhelming presentation.

• Ernest Hardy, Village Voice

  What's made powerfully clear is that we've reached a dire point of crisis that, while largely rooted in economics, is about so much more than dollars and cents.

• Sarah Boslaugh, Playback:stl

  Vanessa Roth's documentary American Teacher positions itself as a rebuttal to those who make political points maligning American teachers.

• Nora Lee Mandel, Film-Forward.com

  [S]upplements lots of stats with teachers' true tales. . . [E]ffective portraits poignantly personalize the multitude of charts and testimony from many education experts.

• S. Jhoanna Robledo, Common Sense Media

  Convincing docu highlights underappreciated teachers.

• David Noh, Film Journal International

  Terrific, uplifting and heartbreaking study of what it's like to teach in America today should inspire intense admiration and even more intense anger over what is revealed.

• Brent Simon, Shockya.com

  An inoffensive but hardly essential piece of occupational boosterism.

• Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice

  A provocative documentary that sheds light on the reasons why teachers deserve higher salaries so they can flourish in the classroom doing what they love to do best.

• Alison Willmore, AV Club

  The film is relentlessly one-sided enough to become tiring, but it's impossible not to feel for the main characters, who all love what they do while continually being forced to question how feasible it is.

• Joseph Jon Lanthier, Slant Magazine

  In the sense that it perpetuates a compartmentalized view of education, American Teacher does more harm than good.

• Harvey S. Karten, Compuserve

  A staid documentary about teaching below the college level marred by incessant, unnecessary music in the soundtrack and by conventional direction.

• Ray Greene, Boxoffice Magazine

  There is a passionate, combative and riveting documentary to be made about the plight of the American schoolteacher, but unfortunately the well-meaning, unfailingly decent and overly slack American Teacher isn't it.

Read all 15 critic reviews