Film

The Principal

A 1987 action-thriller where a new principal arrives at a violence-plagued high school and decides to fight back against drug dealers and gang violence with his security chief. It's earnest, sweaty, and committed to its premise: a mid-level drama that swings for action-movie stakes. Built for viewers who love that specific eighties tone where good guys are just good guys and the problem is criminal and structural.

TMDb rating3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like scrappy 1980s crime pictures where a battered institution becomes the battlefield, and you enjoy a lead who blunders and bruises his way toward doing the right thing.

Skip it if you want a subtle school drama, since this one leans on blunt action, rough violence and heavy-handed sermonizing about drugs and gangs that may feel crude by today's standards.

What it asks of you: It runs about an hour and forty-five minutes and moves in lurches, with long stretches of talk broken by sudden bursts of brutal confrontation, so it asks you to tolerate its bluntness.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Lean On Me1989

Morgan Freeman as a no-nonsense principal reclaiming his school through force of personality and uncompromising standards. It's the idealistic version of the same impulse: one man can change an institution from inside.

But Heavily focused on education and discipline rather than action; the conflict is more philosophical than physical, which softens the immediate stakes.

Lean On Me poster

Class of 19841982

A music teacher faces down a gang of violent students and becomes judge, jury, and executioner. It's rawer and more pulpy than The Principal, with real menace and no institutional restraint holding the protagonist back.

But Aged badly in places; the violence occasionally feels gratuitous, and the film occasionally seems to celebrate brutality rather than examine it.

Class of 1984 poster

Top Gun1986

Released the year before, it has that same glossy eighties action confidence: good men, clear stakes, expertly staged sequences. If you love the action component of Principal, this is the blueprint executed at blockbuster scale.

But Zero dramatic weight and almost no character development. It's pure surface, which is exactly the point—but some find that empty.

Top Gun poster

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Gomorrah2008

Both films are about institutional violence and crime in spaces that should be protected—schools and neighborhoods. The Principal believes the problem can be fought; Gomorrah shows you what institutional violence looks like when that belief dies.

This Matteo Garrone film shows actual Neapolitan gang violence with documentary-level detail and moral seriousness. Where The Principal punches back, Gomorrah shows what happens when you can't—when institutions fold and everyone is already drowning.

But Slow, methodical, and entirely without heroics. It's a system consuming people, not a story about one man beating it. No catharsis, no principal who saves the day.

Gomorrah poster
More like this (6)

An Officer and a Gentleman1982

Richard Gere and Louis Gossett Jr. (yes, the same actor from The Principal) in a film about a tough mentor forcing a cocky recruit into shape. Similar dynamic, higher budget, more romantic subplot.

But Heavily weighted toward the love story, which for action fans can feel like a detour. Also fundamentally more sentimental about its resolution.

An Officer and a Gentleman poster

Stand and Deliver1988

Edward James Olmos as a math teacher at an East LA high school who refuses to let low expectations win. It's about institutional change through persistence and belief in your students, not through confrontation.

But Slower-paced and entirely unarmed—if you came for action beats, you're getting a drama about calculus and character instead.

Stand and Deliver poster

The Breakfast Club1985

John Hughes' masterpiece about five students forced into detention together. It captures the same era and setting as The Principal but with empathy for the kids rather than fear of them.

But It's a teen drama, not an action film—conflict is emotional and internal. The authority figures are the antagonists, not allies, which inverts The Principal's entire moral framework.

The Breakfast Club poster

Missing in Action1984

Chuck Norris storming through a Vietnam-set action film with mechanical efficiency. Pure action, no pretense—the seventies action movie formula refined to its skeleton.

But Thin narrative and flat dialogue. Norris is not a charismatic screen presence, and the film knows it; everything leans on his action scenes to carry it.

Missing in Action poster

Kes1970

Both are about young people in institutions that fail them. The Principal imagines a hero arriving to fix it; Kes shows what happens when no hero comes, and how one small thing—a hawk, a moment of grace—becomes everything.

Ken Loach's British masterpiece about a working-class boy finding grace through a trained hawk while everything around him—school, family, class—grinds him down. It's filmed like documentary, acted like life, and breaks your heart quietly.

But No action, no heroics, no resolution. The boy's life is trapped by forces too large and too indifferent for his individual will to change. Deeply sad in a way that refuses sentiment.

Kes poster

if....1968

Both films are about power struggles inside schools, but they're on opposite sides: The Principal trusts authority and institutional structure; If.... stages a revolution against it. Watching them back-to-back is watching two completely different moral universes collide.

Lindsay Anderson's surreal, furious allegory about rebellion in a British boarding school. It starts realistic and gradually becomes dreamlike and violent, as if the film itself is radicalized by what it witnesses. Stylish, shocking, utterly confident in its contempt for authority.

But Increasingly abstract and symbolic rather than narrative. The violence is surreal rather than visceral. You need to work to understand what you're watching, and the film doesn't care if you do.

if.... poster

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