Top 10 movies about university life

The 2026 Academy Awards don’t include any movies about universities, but academic life has been a favourite setting for Hollywood over the years. This year’s absence partly reflects a current anti-education bias in certain quarters of North America, and also implicitly acknowledges the fact that the new go-to protagonists of film — superheroes — can begin their exploits immediately, without a long and annoying (and expensive!) college education. 

Still, the classroom has provided a lot of drama and humour in the past. Here, alphabetically, are 10 of the best movies set on campus:

A Beautiful Mind (2001) 

Russell Crowe stars as real-life mathematician John Nash, a troubled genius whose breakthrough comes as a student at Princeton University, where he develops a theory of dynamics (true story!) that posits that the best way for men to approach women at a bar is co-operatively. You’d think that would be enough for one lifetime, but Nash moves on to teach at MIT and Harvard, his brilliant insights concealing the fact that he is in fact mentally ill and that his best friend is a hallucination. Nevertheless, approaching women at a bar co-operatively turns out to be a sound strategy. 

A Serious Man (2009) 

This Coen Brothers satire on academic life stars Michael Stuhlbarg as Larry Gopnik, a professor of physics whose life is a complicated tangle of betrayals, misunderstandings, bad luck, and — perhaps most serious of all — threats to his application for tenure. His main problem is that a student has offered him a bribe to raise his mark and then threatened him with a lawsuit if he does, or doesn’t, comply. Actually, by the end, the only good thing that happens to Larry Gopnik is making it onto this prestigious list.

Footnote (2011) 

In this Israeli film, a stodgy old-school professor of Talmudic studies at the University of Jerusalem is in competition with his more progressive and popular son, who also teaches the subject. When it is announced that the son has won the important Israel Prize, the father mistakenly thinks he has won, even though, as a member of the award committee says, his only claim to fame was to have been mentioned in a footnote by a more successful scholar. The message: op. cit.’s don’t always attract. 

Good Will Hunting (1997)  

Another troubled math wunderkind — movies about happy math wunderkinder represent a minuscule sub-genre — Will Hunting (Matt Damon) is a rebellious genius who works as a janitor at MIT. Despite his lowly station, he is the only person who can solve a complicated formula with which the professor has challenged his class. Will has emotional problems that are tackled by psychologist Sean Maguire (Robin Williams), and he eventually decides to end his rebel ways, but mostly because he has fallen for Skylar (Minnie Driver), whom he met at a bar in the co-operative company of his friends (op. cit.) 

National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)  

This raucous comedy, set at fictional Faber College, centres on a fun-loving, disobedient fraternity, the Deltas, and their battles to keep their accreditation despite various sexual and gastronomic shenanigans and the fact that they’re all failing their classes. A box-office blockbuster, it popularized John Belushi, the fraternity toga party, and the notion of a university president — played by Canada’s Own (™) John Vernon — as an angry, hypocritical enforcer, rather than the true-life version, the kindly and toga party-loving libertine. 

The Decline of the American Empire / Le déclin de l’empire américain (1986) 

This comedy of manners from Quebec director Denys Arcand concerns a group of friends from the Université de Montréal history department who throw a dinner party where they discuss their sex lives and affairs, which are prodigious. Their self-indulgence in the erotic life proves the theory of one of them, who has written a book about the decline of civilization. It also might be responsible for a flurry of applications to join the Universitéde Montréal history department. 

The Paper Chase (1973) 

This romantic drama stars John Houseman as Prof. Charles Kingsfield, who teaches contract law at Harvard Law School and influences the lives of several of his students. They fall in and out of love, but the real conflict concerns the demanding Kingsfield, who alternatively bullies, terrifies and finally educates his students and never softens his stern demeanour. The film remains a valuable warning to those who feel they might be able to fake their way through Harvard Law School. 

The Social Network  

This is the story of how Facebook began as a dating site for Harvard University students, started by student Mark Zuckerberg after he’s dumped by his girlfriend and by several colleagues who also claim credit for the idea. It eventually expands to something called The Facebook, designed to link Ivy League students, and thence to what it is today: a venue for cat videos and a news site for senior citizens who missed last night’s talkshow monologues because they’re on too late. The message: university can be a laboratory of ideas, and also that you’d better keep your hand on your wallet during the process. 

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)  

The Edward Albee play was adapted into an excoriating drama about campus life in which professor George (Richard Burton) and his wife Martha (Elizabeth Taylor), the college president’s daughter, torment an attractive new professor and his wife during a night of drinking, verbal abuse, grievance and many of the other elements of the campus cocktail party. In vino veritas, and also Oscars (13 nominations, five wins.) 

Wonder Boys (2000)  

There are yet more shenanigans on campus when creative writing teacher Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) — a novelist suffering a colossal case of writer’s block —is having an affair with the chancellor and is also involved with a student who has accidentally shot the chancellor’s dog, which the professor hides in the trunk of his car. One thing leads to another, as it will during the spring term, and by the end the professor has enough material to finally finish his book. The message: thank goodness for summer break.