Backdrop fallback

The First Grader

The First Grader

Share

The First Grader

"It's never too late to dream."

2010

1h 43m

7.2(101 votes)

Drama

History

Romance

Overview

The true story of an 84 year-old Kenyan villager and ex Mau Mau freedom fighter who fights for his right to go to school for the first time to get the education he could never afford.

Links & Resources

Website IMDbView

Social & External

Production Companies

BBC Film

UK Film Council

Lipsync Productions

ARTE

Origin Pictures

The people behind it

Cast & crew

6 featured cast members

Starring

Naomie Harris

Naomie Harris

Jane Obinchu

Tony Kgoroge

Tony Kgoroge

Charles Obinchu

Nick Reding

Officer Johnson

Oliver Litondo

Kimani N'gan'ga Maruge

Alfred Munyua

Kamau Mbaya

Kamau Chege

Creative team

Directed by: Justin Chadwick
Written by: Ann Peacock
Produced by: Sam Feuer
Richard Harding

Similar Movies

Heavenly Creatures

Heavenly Creatures

Precocious teenager Juliet moves to New Zealand with her family and soon befriends the quiet, brooding Pauline through their shared love of fantasy and literature. This friendship gradually develops into an intense and obsessive bond.

The Inheritors

The Inheritors

In a small farming valley in Austria in the beginning of the 20th century a tyrannical farmer is found dead, and all the farmhands are relieved to be free of their tyrant. But the farmer was childless, so suddenly they all inherit the farm together. Now conflicts begin, as nobody is the boss and nobody has to obey.

Sommersby

Sommersby

Set in the South just after the US Civil War, Laurel Sommersby is just managing to work the farm without her husband, believed killed in battle. By all accounts, Jack Sommersby was not a pleasant man, thus when he suddenly returns, Laurel has mixed emotions. It appears that Jack has changed a great deal, leading some people to believe that this is not actually Jack but an imposter. Laurel herself is unsure, but willing to take the man into her home, and perhaps later into her heart.

Black Cat, White Cat

Black Cat, White Cat

A small-time hustler makes a deal with a notorious gangster to whom he owes money: marry his teenage son to the latter's daughter. However, the young lovers are not as agreeable.

In My Father's Den

In My Father's Den

War journalist Paul Prior returns to his New Zealand hometown after his father’s death, rekindling strained relationships with his brother and memories of a troubled past. He befriends Celia, a curious and aspiring writer, who shares a fascination with his world. When Celia mysteriously disappears, Paul becomes the prime suspect, forcing him to confront buried secrets and uncover the dark truths of his family and community.

The Miracle Worker

The Miracle Worker

The true story of the frightening, lonely world of silence and darkness of 7-year-old Helen Keller who, since infancy, has never seen the sky, heard her mother's voice or expressed her innermost feelings. Then Annie Sullivan, a 20-year-old teacher from Boston, arrives. Having just recently regained her own sight, the no-nonsense Annie reaches out to Helen through the power of touch, the only tool they have in common, and leads her bold pupil on a miraculous journey from fear and isolation to happiness and light.

The Miracle Worker

The Miracle Worker

Devoted teacher Anne Sullivan leads deaf, blind and mute Helen Keller out of solitude and helps integrate her into the world.

The Queen

The Queen

The Queen is an intimate behind the scenes glimpse at the interaction between HM Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Tony Blair during their struggle, following the death of Diana, to reach a compromise between what was a private tragedy for the Royal family and the public's demand for an overt display of mourning.

Letters from Iwo Jima

Letters from Iwo Jima

The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.

Notes on a Scandal

Notes on a Scandal

A veteran high school teacher befriends a younger art teacher, who is having an affair with one of her 15-year-old students. However, her intentions with this new "friend" also go well beyond platonic friendship.

Bridge to Terabithia

Bridge to Terabithia

Jesse Aarons trained all summer to become the fastest runner in school. So he's very upset when newcomer Leslie Burke outruns him and everyone else. Despite this and other differences including that she's rich, he's poor, she's a city girl, and he's a country boy the two become fast friends. Together they create Terabithia, a land of monsters, trolls, ogres, and giants where they rule as king and queen.

Me and You and Everyone We Know

Me and You and Everyone We Know

Single dad Richard meets Christine, a starving artist who moonlights as a cabbie. They awkwardly attempt to start a romance, but Richard’s divorce has left him emotionally damaged. Meanwhile, Richard’s sons—one a teenager, the other 6-years-old—take part in clumsy experiments with the opposite sex.

The Pursuit of Happyness

The Pursuit of Happyness

A struggling salesman takes custody of his son as he's poised to begin a life-changing professional career.

M. Butterfly

M. Butterfly

In 1960s China, French diplomat Rene Gallimard falls in love with opera singer Song Liling – but Song is not at all who Gallimard thinks.

Thumbsucker

Thumbsucker

Justin Cobb, a teenager in suburban Oregon, copes with his thumb-sucking problem, romance, and his diagnosis with ADHD and subsequent experience using Ritalin.

Games of Love and Chance

Games of Love and Chance

A group of teenagers living in a housing project in the outskirts of Paris rehearse a scene from Marivaux's play of the same name. Krimo is determined not to take part, but after developing feelings for Lydia, he quickly assumes the main role and love interest in the play.

The Spanish Apartment

The Spanish Apartment

A strait-laced French student moves into an apartment in Barcelona with a cast of six other characters from all over Europe. Together, they speak the international language of love and friendship.

23

The movie's plot is based on the true story of a group of young computer hackers from Hannover, Germany. In the late 1980s the orphaned Karl Koch invests his heritage in a flat and a home computer. At first he dials up to bulletin boards to discuss conspiracy theories inspired by his favorite novel, R.A. Wilson's "Illuminatus", but soon he and his friend David start breaking into government and military computers. Pepe, one of Karl's rather criminal acquaintances senses that there is money in computer cracking - he travels to east Berlin and tries to contact the KGB.

Mouchette

Mouchette

A young girl living in the French countryside suffers constant indignities at the hand of alcoholism and her fellow man.

Apocalypto

Apocalypto

Set in the Mayan civilization, when a man's idyllic presence is brutally disrupted by a violent invading force, he is taken on a perilous journey to a world ruled by fear and oppression where a harrowing end awaits him. Through a twist of fate and spurred by the power of his love for his woman and his family he will make a desperate break to return home and to ultimately save his way of life.

Recommended Movies

An Officer and a Gentleman

An Officer and a Gentleman

Zack Mayo is an aloof, taciturn man who aspires to be a navy pilot. Once he arrives at training camp for his 13-week officer's course, Mayo runs afoul of abrasive, no-nonsense drill Sergeant Emil Foley. Mayo is an excellent cadet, but a little cold around the heart, so Foley rides him mercilessly, sensing that the young man would be prime officer material if he weren't so self-involved. Zack's affair with a working girl is likewise compromised by his unwillingness to give of himself.

White Mischief

White Mischief

A millionaire past his prime and his young wife arrive in Kenya circa 1940 to find that the other affluent British expatriates are living large as the homefront gears up for war. They are busy swapping partners, doing drugs, and attending lavish parties and horse races. She begins a torrid affair with one of the bon vivants, and her husband finds out and confronts them. The husband and wife decide to break up peacefully, but the bon vivant is murdered and all the evidence points to the husband.

The Invisible Woman

The Invisible Woman

In 1857, at the height of his fame and fortune, novelist and social critic Charles Dickens meets and falls in love with teenage stage actress Nelly Ternan. As she becomes the focus of his heart and mind, as well as his muse, painful secrecy is the price both must pay.

Shooting Dogs

Shooting Dogs

Two westerners, a priest and a teacher find themselves in the middle of the Rwandan genocide and face a moral dilemna. Do they place themselves in danger and protect the refugees, or escape the country with their lives? Based on a true story.

Lady Chatterley's Lover

Lady Chatterley's Lover

An early-20th-century tale of love across class boundaries which tells the legendary and romantic story of Lady Chatterley’s affair with her gamekeeper. Jed Mercurio’s adaptation of DH Lawrence’s classic.

The Edge of Love

The Edge of Love

When the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and his flirtatious wife Caitlin sweep into war-torn London, the last thing they expect is to bump into Dylan's childhood sweetheart Vera. Despite her joy at seeing Dylan after so many years, Vera is swept off her feet by a dashing officer, William Killick, and finds herself torn between the open adoration of her new found beau and the wily charms of the exotic Welshman.

Rachel, Rachel

Rachel, Rachel

Rachel is a 35-year-old school teacher who has no man in her life and lives with her mother. When a man from the big city returns and asks her out, she begins to have to make decisions about her life and where she wants it to go.

Time Is Up

Time Is Up

Vivien, an accomplished student with a passion for physics, and Roy, a troubled young man, are involved in an accident that forces them to reclaim their lives one minute at the time.

Escape from Pretoria

Escape from Pretoria

South Africa, 1978. Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee, two white political activists from the African National Congress imprisoned by the apartheid regime, put a plan in motion to escape from the infamous Pretoria Prison.

Maria's Lovers

Maria's Lovers

A World War II prisoner returns home to his childhood sweetheart. However, back home, he discovers that he has to compete to win her love.

Your Fault: London

Your Fault: London

Nick and Noah are both embarking on life-changing adventures that are threatening to pull them apart—Nick in business with his father and Noah starting a fresh chapter at Oxford University. Now living separate lives, and meeting new people, they find themselves entangled in temptations, rivalries, and betrayals and their bond is tested like never before. As secrets unravel and temptation rises, they must fight to hold onto each other—or risk losing everything.

12 Mighty Orphans

12 Mighty Orphans

Haunted by his mysterious past, a devoted high school football coach leads a scrawny team of orphans to the state championship during the Great Depression and inspires a broken nation along the way.

Sylvie's Love

Sylvie's Love

When a young woman meets an aspiring saxophonist in her father’s record shop in 1950s Harlem, their love ignites a sweeping romance that transcends changing times, geography, and professional success.

A Journal for Jordan

A Journal for Jordan

Based on the true story of First Sergeant Charles Monroe King, a soldier deployed to Iraq begins to keep a journal of love and advice for his infant son. Back at home, senior New York Times editor Dana Canedy revisits the story of her unlikely, life-altering relationship with King and his enduring devotion to her and their child.

The Woman King

The Woman King

The story of the Agojie, the all-female unit of warriors who protected the African Kingdom of Dahomey in the 1800s with skills and a fierceness unlike anything the world has ever seen, and General Nanisca as she trains the next generation of recruits and readies them for battle against an enemy determined to destroy their way of life.

Fire with Fire

Fire with Fire

A tough, street-smart kid serving a sentence in a state youth reformatory meets a beautiful, innocent girl studying at a nearby convent. When forbidden love blossoms between them, they must fight the prison authorities, their parents and the law.

Firebrand

Firebrand

Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of King Henry VIII, is named regent while the tyrant battles abroad. When the king returns, increasingly ill and paranoid, Katherine finds herself fighting for her own survival.

Antwone Fisher

Antwone Fisher

A sailor prone to violent outbursts is sent to a naval psychiatrist for help. Refusing at first to open up, the young man eventually breaks down and reveals a horrific childhood. Through the guidance of his doctor, he confronts his painful past and begins a quest to find the family he never knew.

Outlaws - For Greater Glory

Outlaws - For Greater Glory

A chronicle of the Cristeros War (1926-1929), which was touched off by a rebellion against the Mexican government's attempt to secularize the country.

Vita & Virginia

Vita & Virginia

Socialite Vita Sackville-West and literary icon Virginia Woolf run in different circles in 1920s London. Despite the odds, the two forge an unconventional affair, set against the backdrop of their own strikingly contemporary marriages.