Bad Apples

Bad Apples is the English-language debut of the Swedish director Jonatan Etzler, adapted from Rasmus Andersson's 2020 novel De Oönskade and relocated from Sweden to a primary school in Somerset. A UK–US production backed by HanWay Films and Vice Studios, it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2025, then opened San Sebastián's New Directors strand and played in the Official Competition at the BFI London Film Festival before its British and American release a year later.

Saoirse Ronan plays Maria, a conscientious Year 5 teacher whose class is falling behind, whose headteacher, played by Rakie Ayola, is bracing for Ofsted, and whose most disruptive pupil, Danny, seems to answer to no one. The premise is the setup for a very dark comedy about what a decent person might do when every institution around her prefers not to notice. Jess O'Kane's script keeps the jokes dry and English, and Etzler, working with the Swedish cinematographer Nea Asphäll, stages the village in bright, tidy frames that make its evasions look all the more polite. Jacob Anderson, Robert Emms and Sean Gilder fill out a village of neighbours who would rather keep the peace.

Critics singled out Ronan's performance, which holds the film between satire and something more unsettling, and the Rotten Tomatoes consensus called it a tart comedy with a darkness that worms its way through. It joins a line of Nordic-minded moral comedies, Östlund's among them, in which embarrassment and complicity are hard to tell apart.