Film

The Kindergarten Teacher

Name: The Kindergarten Teacher
Genre: Drama
Released: 2018
Cast: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Parker Sevak, Gael García Bernal, Michael Chernus, Rosa Salazar

Drama

Maggie Gyllenhaal gives a fearless, uncomfortable performance as a suburban teacher whose admiration for a gifted kindergartener curdles into obsession. It's a slow-burn psychological thriller about the gap between devotion and possession, the desire to save a child and the need to own their potential. Difficult, precise, and deeply unsettling.

TMDb rating

3.3

If you liked this

The Squid and the Whale2005

A portrait of parental love that metastasizes into damage, told with unflinching honesty and dark humour. Like *Kindergarten Teacher*, it traces how good intentions become a kind of corruption.

But Bleak family dynamics are relentless, and the film offers no comfort or redemption. It's exhausting by design.

We Need to Talk About Kevin2011

Another mother's obsessive, destabilizing relationship with a child—but here the stakes are darker. It asks what you see when you look at a child, and what you project onto them.

But Punishingly grim, with a non-linear structure that can feel frustrating. Some find it overwrought.

Hereditary2018

Like *Kindergarten Teacher*, it's a film about a woman's relationship to a child that spirals into something psychologically dangerous. The same sense of domestic space becoming a trap.

But Genuinely disturbing and graphic in places. Horror fans will get it; others may find it pretentious.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Kindergarten Teacher

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Son2022

Both are about the architecture of possession within families: how parents see their children as vessels for unmet needs, and what happens when that projection hardens into obsession.

Florian Zeller (from *The Father*) adapts Zeller's own play about a father, his ex-wife, and their troubled teenage son. Like *Kindergarten Teacher*, it's about parental obsession and the child caught in the middle—but it's also about what it's like to be the parent who loses control.

But Stagebound and claustrophobic; people expecting naturalistic cinema will find it mannered and airless.

A Ghost Story2017

A meditation on obsession, memory, and what we leave behind. Slow, poetic, and profoundly strange—it shares the film's willingness to sit in discomfort.

But Deliberately paced to the point of stasis. Some will find it boring; others will find it hypnotic.

The Florida Project2017

A film about childhood, but from the child's perspective—capturing the wonder and precarity of a five-year-old's world. It reframes how you see young children entirely.

But Meandering and plotless. If you want narrative momentum, you won't find it here.

First Reformed2018

A woman consumed by a spiritual and moral obsession that destroys everything around her. Paul Schrader's portrait of someone whose passion has become pathological.

But Slow, verbose, and theologically dense. It demands patience and philosophical engagement.

You Can Count on Me2000

Explores how parental figures shape children, and how those shapes crack under pressure. Tender and devastating by turns.

But Quiet and understated to the point of invisibility for some viewers.

Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire2009

A brutal look at how adults project their needs onto children, and how children absorb that damage. A teacher appears here too—with very different intentions.

But Extremely graphic sexual and physical abuse. This is trauma cinema, not comfort.

Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire poster

A Simple Favor2018

Another thriller about a woman's obsessive friendship that masks something darker. Stylish and fun where *Kindergarten Teacher* is grim—same psychological machinery, different register.

But Leans heavily into camp and twists that some find silly. A tonal departure that doesn't work for everyone.

Petite Maman2021

Both films ask: what happens when the boundary between adult and child becomes blurred? But Sciamma finds tenderness where Gyllenhaal finds corruption.

Céline Sciamma's magical-realist fable about a girl meeting her mother as a child. It's the inverse of *Kindergarten Teacher*—a girl seeing an adult with clear eyes, understanding her as a person rather than as a role.

But Deliberately gentle and slow. Its dreamlike logic won't satisfy anyone looking for plot or explanation.

Annette2021

Both follow a parent's transformation of a child into an object of adult desire and ambition—but Carax presents it as grand opera, not quiet psychological horror.

Leos Carax's operatic, unhinged film about a comedian and his wife, centered on their infant daughter who becomes a show-business commodity. A baroque, almost absurdist take on the same pathology of parental ownership.

But Deliberately excessive and hallucinatory. If you want subtlety or restraint, you've come to the wrong place.