The Class

(Sony Pictures Classics)

Starring: François Bégaudeau

Last week, Laurent Cantet’s The Class nabbed an Academy Award nomination in the Foreign Language Film category, and deservedly so: This is a moving and compelling look at a schoolteacher who works among multiracial students in a tough neighborhood in Paris. Based on a memoir by Bégaudeau — who stars in the film as a fictionalized version of himself — this movie may be in French (with subtitles), but its themes are definitely universal.