Kes(1969)
dir. Ken Loach
A bullied boy trains a hawk; school ignores it.
Where to watch: Free with ads on Tubi, The Roku Channel and YouTube; Prime Video (listed as leaving soon); rent $3.99 on Amazon and Apple TV (JustWatch US, Oct 29 2026)Letterboxd ↗
Billy Casper is a fifteen-year-old in a Yorkshire mining town, bullied at home and caned at school, expected to end up down the pit. Then he finds a young kestrel in a nest, steals it and trains it, and for the first time he is good at something. A teacher notices. The school doesn't care.
Why it’s here
The film is a case study in what school ignores. What's punk is that the one thing Billy loves is the thing no one has put on the syllabus. What's pedagogical is the scene where he describes falconry to his class, and the teacher listens. Pairs with Teacher, Summerhill School and The Class (suggested earlier this month). Note: Loach's later politics are publicly contested, including his 2021 expulsion from the Labour Party; the film predates all of it.
Where This Film Lives
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