If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

best movie i've ever seen.

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

I not only consider this to be the best film that Jon Voight (Midnight Cowboy, Coming Home) has ever done, but a real tribute to teachers.Despite incredible odds, Pat Conroy (Voight) managed to reach a group of students and bring them from nowhere to a basic literacy and awareness of the world. His methods made be criticized by bureaucratic dinosaurs like Mr. Skeffington (Hume Cronyn), but teachers like Conroy will always be winners. Voight really showed that he had a love for teaching and that it was a natural high for him. He didn't overplay the role, and I found him to be totally believable. Voight is Conrack. Besides a love of teaching, we also see another important point in this film. No matter how good you are at your job, if you rock the boat, the bureaucrats will get you.

Martin Ritt seems to be a director who was always interested in social issues (as the son of immigrants, he had every incentive to be so, especially since he was blacklisted in the '50s). "Conrack" is based on Pat Conroy's novel "The Water is Wide", about his own experience in 1969 teaching a school of impoverished black children about the outside world, much to the chagrin of the right-wing superintendent (Hume Cronyn). What added to the movie's strength was the cultural and historical context: Conroy (Jon Voight) frustratedly tells another teacher how many of the children don't know about Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier, the Vietnam War, or even where Vietnam is. He proceeds to enlighten them about all these factors.Somewhere, I read a complaint that when Conroy played music for the children, he only played white music. The truth is, you can't blame the movie for that; it was based on Conroy's real experience. Either way, the movie's a real gem.

In my last year of University, a friend said she was going to see a film showing on campus. Since that day, and, indeed, until my retirement from Teaching, I showed this film to ALL of my classes under the pretext that this film would give the viewer a closer contact with the Reality of Teaching AND creation of Curriculium. Notwithstanding the merit of the value of fighting for one's beliefs, as Pat Conway did, this man gave from his Heart to these children of Yamacraw Island. I believe that this is a vital portrait of Humanness to be shown people, whether 14 or 94."... may the River be good to you in the Crossing ..."

This film, as has already been pointed out, is of the "idealistic teacher meets challenging class in unsupportive environment and triumphs" class. And it's nicely done.But the ending sure touched a nerve in me. Our idealistic teacher who has been very successful in teaching his class many important things then chooses to abdicate his responsibility to his students rather than give up behaving any old way he pleases. His few attempts to work with those who must take responsibility for his work are actually greeted with some movement on the part of the authorities. But he changes not at all, continuing to teach his charges by example that self-discipline and willingness to face and cope with adversity are not important. Appropriately, the music played as our teacher abdicates his young charges is the "death knocking at the door" theme of Beethoven's 5th.