Bad Apples (2026) on Netflix
Maria teaches Year 5 in Somerset, where her class is failing before an Ofsted inspection. When her student Danny threatens to accuse her of assault, she takes him to her house.
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- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.2/10623 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes84%
Trailer
Plot summary
Maria Spencer teaches Year 5 at a school in Somerset, where her class performs poorly and the headteacher, Sylvia, presses her ahead of an Ofsted inspection. During a class trip to a cider mill, Danny throws a shoe into the equipment and runs off. The next day he pushes a classmate, Pauline, down a flight of stairs and breaks her arm; he is suspended, and staff cannot reach his father, Josh. Maria drives to the address on file and finds Josh, a delivery driver, too busy to talk. Returning to her car, she catches Danny vandalizing vehicles and, intervening, knocks him unconscious. She puts him in the car to take him to a hospital, but he wakes and threatens to accuse her of assault, so she drives him to her own house instead.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Bad Apples (2026)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Director Jonatan Etzler said Saoirse Ronan was the only actor he had in mind for the lead role, and she replied within a week of being sent the script, keen to play an unsympathetic character after years of playing good-hearted people.
- Director Jonatan Etzler, who had been a teacher himself, moved the source novel's Swedish setting to Southern England, saying the Swedish and British school systems were similarly dysfunctional and that both countries shared a similar dark sense of humor.
- Eddie Waller had no prior acting experience before casting director Fiona Weir discovered him; the co-star is from Northern England.
- Bad Apples filmed at a real school in Bath, on the site of Culverhay Secondary School, which is now set to be demolished.
