Film

To Be and to Have

Name: To Be and to Have
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2002
Cast: Georges Lopez, Johan, Alizé, Guillaume, Létitia

To Be and to Have follows a single school year in a one-room rural French primary school, where teacher Georges Lopez guides children aged four to twelve through arithmetic, quarrels and small triumphs with unusual patience. Shot with a still, unhurried camera, it's less about lessons than about attention itself — what it feels like to be truly seen. Quiet and warm, for anyone who trusts small moments over big ones.

TMDb rating

7.3

If you liked this

The Class2008

Same country, same devotion to teaching, but scaled up to a Paris classroom of teenagers where every lesson is a negotiation. It shows what Lopez's patience looks like under real strain.

But More argument than warmth; the raised voices and classroom politics are the opposite of the quiet you came for.

Spellbound2002

Same year, same trick of watching real kids under real pressure and letting their faces do the talking, except the stakes here are a spelling bee instead of long division.

But American and competitive rather than French and communal — it's about winning, not belonging.

Dead Poets Society1989

The polished, big-studio version of "one teacher can change everything" — Robin Williams instead of Lopez, but the same faith in an adult who actually pays attention.

But Swaps quiet observation for swelling music and speeches; it wants you to cry, whereas this film just lets you.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The 400 Blows1959

Both are French and both fix their camera on a child navigating a rigid institution, but Truffaut shows what happens when nobody is as patient as Lopez.

Truffaut's debut is the origin point for French cinema's tenderness toward difficult childhoods — restless, unloved, magnetic. It's the angrier, more famous cousin of the patience Lopez practises decades later.

But Bleaker and more claustrophobic; the adults here fail the boy instead of saving him, so there's little of the warmth you just spent two hours in.

School of Babel2014no page yet

Another French classroom filmed with the same unhurried camera, but here the children are newly arrived immigrants learning the language before anything else. Same tenderness, higher stakes.

But Busier and more crowded than the one-room stillness you just watched; less pastoral, more urgent.

Hoop Dreams1994

A longer, tougher lesson in what patient, years-long observation can do — following two Chicago teenagers chasing basketball out of poverty. The commitment to just watching is the same.

But Nearly three hours, and the world it shows is angrier and more precarious than a quiet Auvergne schoolroom.

Please Vote for Me2007no page yet

Kids running a classroom election turns out to reveal everything about ambition, fairness and manipulation — funny, then suddenly not. A sharp, playful cousin to Lopez's gentler classroom.

But More pointed and satirical than sweet; it's interested in power, not patience.

Boyhood2014

Linklater's twelve-year experiment shares the same faith that watching a child grow, without forcing drama, is enough — just stretched across a whole childhood instead of one year.

But Nearly three hours of a single fictional life; some will find its lack of plot a virtue, others a slog.

Babies2010

No teacher, no classroom, no dialogue at all — just four infants across four countries, filmed with the same patient, non-judgmental camera that made Lopez's kids feel so real.

But So light on structure it can feel like watching home videos; charming rather than moving.

Waiting for "Superman"2010no page yet

The angrier American answer to the same question — what happens to children when the adults around them get it right or wrong — told through failing schools and desperate parents.

But Polemical and data-heavy where this film is patient and specific; it argues instead of observing.

Old Enough!2022

Same conviction that children caught off-guard by a camera are more truthful and more moving than any actor — just delivered as episodic reality TV instead of a patient feature film.

A Japanese reality show that sends toddlers out alone on small errands, filmed with hidden cameras — the same fascination with unscripted, unselfconscious children, just sliced into ten-minute bursts of charm and anxiety.

But Deliberately cute and bingeable where this film is slow and contemplative; it's comfort television, not cinema.

Whiplash2014

Both are studies of a single teacher's outsized influence on a single student, one built on patience and respect, the other on fear — the same question, answered in reverse.

The nightmare inversion of Lopez — a jazz-band mentor who believes cruelty, not patience, produces greatness. It's the same question about what a devoted teacher does to a student, pushed until it draws blood.

But Aggressive, punishing, and scored like a thriller; if you loved Lopez's gentleness, this will feel like the opposite film on purpose.