Laurent Cantet's account of a year in the life of a teacher at a tough Paris school was the first French film to win the Palme d'Or since 1987. The film stars real-life teacher François Bégaudeau and is based on his own semi-autobiographical novel Entre les Murs. Although Bégaudeau is basically playing himself, the kids were recruited from a real junior high school and improvised their roles around pupils Bégaudeau had taught. The Class's undeniable power comes from the film's sly observations of the complex relationship between a (good) teacher and a classroom full of challenging pupils from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. It's subtle, moving and undeniably great cinema, as well as being a bracing corrective to those syrupy Hollywood movies about "inspirational" educators, such as Dangerous Minds and Dead Poets Society.

Teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself as he negotiates a year with his racially mixed students from a tough Parisian neighborhood.