Film

Zero for Conduct

Name: Zero for Conduct
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Released: 1933
Cast: Jean Dasté, Robert le Flon, Du Verron, Delphin, Léon Larive

Coming-of-age

Jean Vigo's 45-minute miniature of institutional revolt turned four dorm-room rebels into cinema's patron saints of anarchy. Shot with dreamlike slow-motion and genuine anger at authority, it's less a story than a mood — mischievous, tender, and finally explosive. Banned in France for over a decade, it's short, strange, and still feels dangerous in its joy.

TMDb rating

3.4

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love anarchic school-yard mischief filmed with a poet's eye, where a sly joke about authority lands harder than any speech and the camera itself seems to be sneaking out of class with the boys.

Skip it if you want a tidy plot with steady momentum; this is loose, episodic and sometimes rough-edged, its 1933 sound and picture showing their age and its rebellion more mood than mechanism.

What it asks of you: Only forty-eight minutes, so it moves quickly and sprawls in bursts, asking you to surrender to its rhythm and its wry, sometimes dreamlike shifts rather than follow a neat through-line.

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

If you liked this

if....1968

Lindsay Anderson's boarding-school revolt is Vigo's spiritual heir, right down to the surreal tonal shifts and the final eruption into open rebellion. Malcolm McDowell's screen debut, and it still shocks.

But The tonal whiplash between deadpan satire and sudden violence can feel jarring rather than exhilarating on first watch.

The 400 Blows1959

Truffaut idolized Vigo, and it shows: a boy crushed by institutions who won't yield an inch of himself. Gentler than Zero for Conduct but just as furious underneath.

But It's melancholy rather than mischievous — if you wanted more anarchic pillow-fight energy, this is quieter and sadder.

Au Revoir les Enfants1987

Louis Malle's own boarding-school memory, exquisitely restrained, where childhood rules and rituals curdle against a horror the boys don't yet understand.

But Almost entirely without comedy — a solemn, historically weighted film rather than a romp.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Zero for Conduct

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Kid1921

A full decade earlier, Chaplin was already fusing comedy and rage at institutions that treat children as problems to be processed — the same collision of tenderness and defiance Vigo perfected.

Chaplin's silent masterpiece pairs slapstick with genuine fury at officials who'd tear a child from the person who loves him. Funny, then suddenly not.

But Silent and sentimental in a way modern viewers sometimes find slow to adjust to.

Dead Poets Society1989

The crowd-pleasing American cousin: repressive school, charismatic troublemaking, and a swelling sense that conformity must be resisted. Robin Williams at his most galvanizing.

But Sentimental where Vigo is anarchic — it wants to move you, not unsettle you.

Kes1970

Ken Loach's portrait of a boy failed by every institution around him, shot with the same unsparing eye for how adults grind down children who don't fit the mold.

But Bleak and unresolved by design — there's no cathartic rebellion here, just quiet devastation.

The Class2008

A modern, documentary-textured classroom drama where authority and rebellion play out in real time, scene by scene, with astonishing naturalism.

But Talky and observational rather than stylized or poetic — a very different rhythm from Vigo's dreamlike bursts.

Les Choristes: Le making of2004

A softer, more sentimental boarding-school tale where music becomes the boys' quiet rebellion against a brutal headmaster. Crowd-pleasing and unabashedly warm.

But Where Vigo bites, this one hugs — it resolves its cruelty into uplift rather than leaving it raw.

School Ties1992

A 1990s prep-school drama about conformity, prejudice, and the cost of belonging, with a young ensemble cast including Brendan Fraser and Matt Damon.

But More earnest social drama than anarchic spirit — it plays it straight where Vigo plays it strange.

The Browning Version1951

A classic, buttoned-up British boarding-school drama about a broken, unloved teacher — the institutional stiffness Vigo was rebelling against, seen from the other side of the desk.

But Stagey and dialogue-driven, a world away from Vigo's visual anarchy and youthful chaos.

Titicut Follies1967

Vigo satirizes institutional cruelty through poetic exaggeration; Wiseman documents the real thing with no exaggeration needed. Watch them together and the satire suddenly looks less like fantasy.

Frederick Wiseman's banned documentary inside a Massachusetts asylum shows institutional dehumanization with no fictional distance at all — just the camera, watching.

But Genuinely disturbing, unscored, and unresolved — this is not entertainment, it's an indictment.

Wet Hot American Summer2001

Same core joke as Vigo's teachers — adults entrusted with children who are ridiculous, incompetent, or both — but cranked into full slapstick anarchy instead of lyrical rebellion.

A gloriously stupid parody of camp counselors as feckless, self-absorbed authority figures, with anarchic non-sequiturs piling up until the whole institution collapses into farce.

But Broad, silly, and deliberately dumb — if you want Vigo's poetry, this trades it for pure absurdist comedy.