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Fans of The Penguin Lessons in the U.S. are in for a treat later this month as the critically acclaimed movie will find its way to Netflix. You may recall that the drama was first released as a gala presentation at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival before landing in the States earlier this year on March 28, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics. The following month, it was released in the U.K. and Ireland by Lionsgate UK, where it was met with rave reviews.

Starring Steve Coogan and Jonathan Pryce, The Penguin Lessons debuts on Netflix US on July 26, 2025, less than two weeks away, as reported by What’s on Netflix. Coogan is well known for creating and portraying the iconic British character Alan Partridge, who is seen in the sitcom I'm Alan Partridge and the 2013 film Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa. Pryce, on the other hand, is popular for playing...

The Penguin Lessons came to us in the form of a memoir by Tom Michell in 2016, and it has finally been made into a movie. Adapted by BAFTA-winning writer Jeff Pope, the story follows a British teacher who takes a job in Argentina in 1976. With the country’s political turmoil as the backdrop, the movie tells a human tale that reminds us that even in times of chaos and uncertainty, the bonds we form become the reason to stay alive.

Oscar-nominated director Peter Cattaneo helmed the dramedy and promises to bring his signature blend of heartfelt storytelling and nuanced character portrayal. Cattaneo is known for creating the comedy film The Full Monty, for which he won multiple accolades. Military Wives is another one of his projects that gained recognition.

Steve Coogan, the acclaimed actor, takes on the leading role along with an extensive list of the ensemble cast. This project...

Penguins are some of the cutest animals in the world, second only to — and I admit that I may be slightly biased — my two cats. Yes, whether penguins are marching, surfing, dancing or trying to blow up Gotham City with rockets strapped to their backs, every movie is better with at least one cute little waterfowl in it. Even a drama about an English teacher fighting fascism in Argentina in the 1970s while learning to love again.

“The Penguin Lessons” stars Steve Coogan as Thomas Michell. He’s a grumpy gus who’s given up on life. He moves into St. George’s, a boarding school for rich children in Argentina in 1976, expecting to coast by with zero effort. He doesn’t even care about the country’s violent political upheaval. When a coup d’état is declared, he’s just happy to get a week off.

Thomas tries to...

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson for Wbgr-fm on March 27h, 2025, reviewing the new film “The Penguin Lessons,” featuring comic actor Steve Coogan in a care-giving role. In theaters beginning March 28th.

Coogan is Tom, an expatriate Brit who is teaching English classes at a boarding school in 1976 Bueno Aires, Argentina, a country in the midst of a military coup. In a series of high concept events, Tom finds himself caring for an errant penguin that had been caught in an oil spill. In his effort to both get rid of the bird and nurture it, he starts to learn the title lessons that lift him out of entrapped doldrums and allows him to participate in his world again.

”The Penguin Lessons” is in theaters on March 28th. Featuring Steve Coogan, Jonathan Pryce, Vivian El Jaber, Björn Gustafson and Alfonsina Carrocio. Screenplay adapted by Jeff Pope,...

Baba/Richard the penguins as Juan Salvador, and Steve Coogan as Tom Michel in ‘The Penguin Lessons’

Image: Lucia Faraig Ferrando. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Steve Coogan is terrific in true story-based comedy The Penguin Lessons which combines a quirky story about an ex-pat English teacher who accidentally acquires a penguin while teaching in 1970s Argentina, just as a dictatorship takes hold. Directed by the Full Monty’s Peter Cattaneo, The Penguin Lessons has some of that same mix of humor and humanity, in a off-beat tale that starts out comedic but ends up being moving, and saying something significant about people in a changing society.

Are penguins and authoritarianism having a moment? Could be. There was My Penguin Friend, another true story set in South America, about a grieving man whose life is changed when he is befriended by a lost penguin. And there was the Oscar-winning I’M Still Here,...

There are two things that can make any movie better: Steve Coogan and penguins.

Fortunately, and not surprisingly considering its title, The Penguin Lessons features both. Well, at least one penguin, who goes by the name Juan Salvador. But he’s more than enough. He’s Coogan’s best onscreen partner since Rob Brydon in the Trip movies.

Loosely based on a memoir by Tom Michell, the film takes place in 1976 in Buenos Aires, where teacher Tom (Coogan) arrives to teach English to teenage students at a tony private school. His timing wasn’t exactly fortuitous, as not long after he gets there the country is rocked by a military coup, with people disappearing subsequently.

Not that any of the tumult affects Tom, who soon embarks on a weekend getaway to Uruguay with his Swedish colleague (Bjorn Gustafsson, priceless), where he enjoys a flirtation with a local woman. Walking together on the beach,...

It’s not hard to imagine plenty of moviegoers enjoying a comedy where wry English actor Steve Coogan plays a teacher who inspires a class of spoiled boarding school students with the help of his pet penguin. Nor is it hard to imagine moviegoers being riveted by a political drama about Argentina’s notorious Dirty War, during which a vicious military junta overthrew President Isabel Perón's government in 1976 and sent death squads to kill a reported 30,000 dissidents. However, it is hard to imagine moviegoers embracing, to any memorable degree, The Penguin Lessons, which attempts to gently combine those two things, but does so in a manner that is rarely smooth, which was probably inevitable considering these narrative extremes.

The surprising part is that The Penguin Lessons is based on a true story. Tom Michell was in his 20s when he accepted a job as an English professor at a Buenos Aires boarding school.

P-p-p-pick up the new trailer for The Penguin Lessons, an upcoming drama starring Steve Coogan. And also a penguin.

Coming to a cinema near you soon(ish) is The Penguin Lessons, directed by Peter Cattaneo and based on the memoir of Tom Michell, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jeff Pope. Steve Coogan stars alongside Jonathan Pryce, Vivian El Jaber, Björn Gustafsson and Alfonsina Carrocio.

The synopsis reads as follows:

The Penguin Lessons is a story about a disillusioned Englishman who went to work in a school in Argentina in 1976. There, he found a divided nation and a class of unteachable students, only for everything to change when he rescues a penguin from an oil-slicked beach.

Steve Coogan and writer Jeff Pope have been a successful filmmaking team over the last few years. It began in 2013 with Philomena, which starred Judi Dench as the titular character, who enlists the help...

Sony Pictures Classics has announced that it will release its dramedy The Penguin Lessons, starring Academy Award nominees Steve Coogan (Philomena) and Jonathan Pryce (The Two Popes), in theaters nationwide on March 28.

The film is set to open against Focus Features’ Sundance entry The Ballad of Wallis Island, starring Carey Mulligan; Universal’s horror thriller The Woman in the Yard, A24’s Death of a Unicorn, starring Jenna Ortega and Paul Rudd; and Amazon MGM’s Jason Statham action thriller A Working Man, among other titles.

Based on Tom Michell’s 2016 memoir of the same name, The Penguin Lessons is inspired by the true story of a disillusioned Englishman who went to work in a school in Argentina in 1976. Expecting an easy ride, Tom (Coogan) discovers a divided nation and a class of unteachable students. However, after he rescues a penguin from an oil-slicked beach, his life is turned upside-down.

Lionsgate has released the trailer for the Steve Coogan-led feature ‘The Penguin Lessons’

Starring Oscar nominee Steve Coogan, this poignant dramedy from director Peter Cattaneo follows an Englishman’s personal and political awakening after he adopts a penguin during a cataclysmic period in Argentine history.

Jonathan Pryce, Vivian El Jaber, Björn Gustafsson, Alfonsina Carrocio, David Herrero also star.

Also in trailers – “You asked for me…” New trailer flies in for ‘Captain America: Brave New World’

The film debuts across the UK and Ireland on 18th April 2025.

The post Steve Coogan stars in trailer for ‘The Penguin Lessons’ appeared first on HeyUGuys.

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired Toronto premiere The Penguin Lessons starring Steve Coogan for North America, the Middle East, Turkey, Asia, India, Japan, and South Korea.

Peter Cattaneo directed the adaptation of Tom Michell’s 2016 memoir of the same name from a screenplay by Jeff Pope, who worked with Coogan on prior Toronto International Film Festival selections The Lost King and Philomena, as well as Stan & Ollie.

Coogan and Jonathan Pryce star in the story about a disillusioned Englishman who went to work in a school in Argentina in 1976. There, he found a divided nation and a class of unteachable students,...

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired “The Penguin Lessons,” an uplifting dramedy starring Steve Coogan as a teacher who forms an unlikely bond with a feathered friend.

Peter Cattaneo directed the film, which premiered at this year’s Toronto Film Festival. It’s adapted by Jeff Pope from Tom Michell’s 2016 memoir. It follows a cynical British professor who takes a job in Argentina in the 1970s during a period of political upheaval, only to find his life transformed when he rescues a oil-soaked penguin from a beach. Under the deal, Sony Pictures Classics has distribution rights in North America, the Middle East, Turkey, Asia, India, Japan and South Korea.

In Variety’s review, critic Guy Lodge described “The Penguin Lessons” as a “heartwarming tale of human-animal bonding” and praised the eponymous penguin, writing that “almost inevitably, it’s best when it’s about the bird.”

Coogan, the English actor who...

All too often, a Toronto Film Festival premiere is seen as an audition for a U.S. release, when the end result is more like sending a manned space flight into the sun. The Penguin Lessons is a case in point, being a peculiarly British movie that takes a very traditional trope — man becomes attached to a very unusual pet — and then infuses it with an unexpectedly modern sense of humor. Given its setting, there were always going to be some serious issues to deal with that wouldn’t quite square with what is essentially a wry comedy. Star Steve Coogan, however, working from a script by his frequent writing partner Jeff Pope, does his best to ground the movie, using irony in a way that international audiences may find hard to process.

After an epoch-defining montage of civil unrest...

Argentina’s 1976 military coup d’état, along with the sustained period of violence and forced disappearances that it ushered in, isn’t an obvious historical backdrop for a heartwarming tale of human-animal bonding. But that’s how the timing worked out for Tom Michell, an English teacher stationed at an elite Buenos Aires private school, at the time of the turmoil: With the country in chaos and many of his colleagues in crisis, he was figuring out what to do with the Magellan penguin he had accidentally adopted on a weekend jaunt to Uruguay. His 2016 memoir of that period, “The Penguin Lessons,” was the kind of breezy read that bridges adult and juvenile tastes for animal stories; Peter Cattaneo’s amiable film adaptation matches the book’s feathery whimsy while reaching for a little more political import. Almost inevitably, it’s best when it’s about the bird.

While Michell...

“Penguins only have one partner. When they lose their mate, they never take another one,” a student tells his English teacher Tom Michell (Steve Coogan) during a pivotal moment in the dramatic comedy “The Penguin Lessons.”

Based on a memoir of the same name by the real-life Michell, the film adaptation tells the story of how an adorable penguin gets a new companion in the form of a mercurial yet charming British man who is stunted by his tragic past. Si pinguino, named Juan Salvador, brings anthropomorphized hope to Michell and the elite boarding school St. George’s College in Buenos Aires where he teaches the sons of wealthy Latin American families during a time of intense political upheaval.

The real-life Michell took a liking right away to the oil-soaked penguin washed up on a beach. But the film’s version of Michell is reluctant and, after he realizes the...

David Gordon Green y Rebel Wilson en la inauguración y clausura.

El Festival Internacional de Cine de Toronto (TIFF) ha revelado su programación para la edición de 2024.

La nueva película de David Gordon Green, “Nutcrackers”, protagonizada por Ben Stiller, inaugurará el Festival, mientras que la nueva película musical “The Deb”, dirigida y protagonizada por Rebel Wilson, será la encargada de clausurarlo.

Entre las películas que harán su debut mundial en TIFF, se encuentran el drama deportivo “Unstoppable”, dirigido por William Goldenberg y protagonizado por Jharrel Jerome y Jennifer Lopez; la película dramática “Hard Truths”, de Mike Leigh y con Marianne Jean-Baptiste; el terror psicológico de A24, “Heretic”, de Scott Beck y Bryan Woods con Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher y Chloe East; la comedia criminal “Riff Raff”, de Dito Montiel, con Jennifer Coolidge, Dustin Hoffman, Brian Cox, Gabrielle Union, Pete Davidson, Ed Harris y Bill Murray; la película de animación “The Wild Robot”, de Chris Sanders,...

Exclusive: Oscar nominee Jonathan Pryce (The Two Popes) has joined two-time Oscar nominee Steve Coogan in feature drama The Penguin Lessons, which recently wrapped in Spain.

Lionsgate UK has newly boarded the movie as distributor. Two-time Oscar nominee Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty) directs for LA and London-based management and production firm 42, with whom he collaborated on Military Wives.

Vivian El Jaber, Bjorn Gustafsson, Alfonsina Carrocio, Micaela Breque, Tomas Pozzi and Ramiro Blas round out the cast.

Based on the successful book of the same name by Tom Michell, the film charts the true story of a disillusioned Englishman who went to work in a school in Argentina in 1976. Expecting an easy ride, he discovered instead a complicated and divided nation – and a class of practically unteachable young boys. However, when he finds a small penguin washed up on an oil slicked beach, his life is turned upside down...

Stars: German Palacios, Tomas Carullo Lizzio, Naiara Awada, Lautaro Bettoni, Alfonsina Carrocio, Carmela Merediz | Written and Directed by Santiago Fernández Calvete

A.K. Tolstoy’s A Taste of Blood, not be confused with the recent Canadian cannibal film of the same name, or H.G. Lewis’s 1967 splatter epic, is a new vampire film based on an old story, Tolstoy’s 1839 short story “The Family Of The Vourdalak” to be exact. It’s been filmed a few times over the years, most notably as a segment of Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath starring Boris Karloff.

This version, shot in Argentina under the title Sangre Vurdalak was filmed by writer/director Santiago Fernández Calvete. His credits include The Second Death and Intimate Witness, as well as co-writing the recent release The Exorcism of God. Can his experience working in the genre make A Taste of Blood easy to swallow?

Natalia (Alfonsina...

On May 10th, Cleopatra Entertainment will release Santiago Fernandez Calvete’s horror film, A Taste of Blood, to digital platforms and we have the exclusive trailer premiere for Daily Dead readers!

Based on Aleksey Tolstoy’s 1839 short story The Family Of The Vourdalak, "The film, hot from an international film festival run, takes place in the uncertain hours after a vampire hunt when it’s unclear if the hunter himself has been turned into a creature of the night. Will his family find out in time, or will their sentiment make them easy prey for the novice nightwalker?"

A Taste of Blood stars German Palacios, Tomas Carullo Lizzio, Naiara Awada, Lautaro Bettoni and Alfonsina Carrocio."

The post Indie Horror Month 2022: Exclusive Trailer Premiere of A Taste Of Blood appeared first on Daily Dead.

Cleopatra Entertainment Acquires North American Rights To ‘Vurdalak Blood’ (Exclusive)

Cleopatra Entertainment has acquired the North American and English-speaking territory rights to the horror film “Vurdalak Blood,” which will be released on VOD platforms in October.

Based on Aleksey Tolstoy’s 1839 short story “The Family Of The Vourdalak,” the film takes place in the uncertain hours after a vampire hunt when it’s unclear if the hunter himself has been turned into a creature of the night. Will his family find out in time, or will their sentiment make them easy prey for the novice nightwalker?

After its recent international film festival run, the project was discovered at the BiFAN Naff co-production market, where it was a Work In Progress selection.

Directed by Argentinian genre filmmaker Santiago Fernandez Calvete, The film is a co-production between Aramos Cine and 108 Media. It stars German Palacios, Tomas Carullo Lizzio, Naiara Awada, Lautaro Bettoni and Alfonsina Carrocio.

Written and directed by popular Argentine genre filmmaker Santiago Fernandez Calvete, “Vurdalak Blood,” based on Alexi Tolstoy’s short story “The Family of the Vourdalak,” is screening in works in progress version at this year’s Ventana Sur Blood Window genre sidebar.

“Vurdalak Blood” takes place in the uncertain hours after a vampire hunt when it’s unclear if the hunter has himself been turned into a creature of the night. Will his family find out in time, or will their sentiment make them easy prey for the novice nightwalker? Natalia, his teenage daughter, ends up proving that her father has become a vampire just when her brother is abandoning her to her fate and the night threatens to arrive.

Fernandez’s film is produced by Aramos Cine, headed by Roxana Ramos and co-produced with Córdoba-based Jaque Content. As a project it received two production awards, one from Incaa and...