--- title: "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" year: 1939 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/goodbye-mr-chips" fi1m_score: 82 critics_score: 85 critics_reviews: 6 published: "2026-09-20T00:02:32.175265+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T00:02:33.160885+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) Directed by Sam Wood · 1h 54m · MPA NR · Drama, Romance **Fi1m score: 82** · Critics 85 from 6 reviews *In a sentence:* A shy man learns to be loved by teaching the same joke to four generations of the same boy > Sam Wood’s film of James Hilton’s novel is gentle, tidy and rather pleased with the England it describes. Robert Donat’s schoolmaster, ageing from nervous young man to shuffling institution, is reason enough to see it; the rest is a well-made accompaniment. ## Synopsis Brookfield School, 1870. Charles Edward Chipping (Robert Donat), a young Latin master, arrives for his first term and cannot hold a class. The boys riot, and the headmaster, Wetherby (Lyn Harding), warns him that a master who cannot keep order has no place there. Chipping answers by becoming strict and, over the years, feared and lonely. His one friend on the staff is the German master, Max Staefel (Paul Henreid), who talks him into a walking holiday in the Tyrol. On a mountain in the mist he meets Katherine (Greer Garson), an Englishwoman on a bicycle tour whom he mistakes for someone in need of rescue. The film tells all this from the end, as the old man, kept from the first day of term by a cold, dozes in Mrs Wickett’s (Louise Hampton) sitting room across the road and remembers. ## Review Charles Edward Chipping (Robert Donat) arrives at Brookfield School in 1870 to teach Latin and loses his first class within minutes. The boys throw things, the noise carries down the corridor, and the headmaster, Wetherby (Lyn Harding), tells him afterwards that a master who cannot keep order has no future there. Chipping decides to be feared instead, and for years he is. Sam Wood’s film, from James Hilton’s novel, tells the rest from the far end. It opens with the old man, kept indoors by a cold on the first day of term, dozing by the fire in Mrs Wickett’s (Louise Hampton) sitting room across the road and remembering how he became somebody else. It is a gentle film and a tidy one, and it is worth your evening for Donat before anything else. We would add that it has less to say about schools than it thinks, and that the last third asks the same small scene to work several times over. It works, mostly. That is the caveat, and it is not a large one. Donat plays the young man as someone holding himself still, hands behind his back, voice pitched a shade too high, and the old man loose and shuffling and delighted by his own jokes. The make-up is the least of it. What changes is the walk, the breathing, the way he listens. It moved us more than we expected, and the moment that did it was not a farewell but a reaction shot: Chipping makes his first deliberate joke in a lesson, the boys laugh with him rather than at him, and Donat’s face registers, for about a second, that he is allowed this. Everything the film knows about kindness is in that second. The person who teaches him is Katherine (Greer Garson), met on a mountain in the Tyrol during a walking holiday that Max Staefel (Paul Henreid), the German master, has bullied him into. She is on a bicycle tour; he thinks she is lost in the mist and sets out to rescue her, and she turns out to have the better sense of direction. Garson, in her first film, plays Kathy with enough briskness to stop the part being a wish. It is still a wish. She exists to cure a man of himself, tell him his nickname is a term of affection and open his rooms to the boys for tea. The Tyrol and Vienna stretch runs long, with a ballroom waltz Wood plainly could not bear to shorten, and the film sags in the middle of its own romance. Then Kathy arrives at Brookfield, the staff brace for a dragon, and it finds its pace again. Freddie Young shoots the quad and the cloisters in the same even grey daylight in every decade, and the sameness is the point. Brookfield does not change; the boys do, and Chips does. Charles Frend carries the years in roll calls and dissolves, the same surnames answering from new faces, and the film’s cleverest idea is to have Terry Kilburn play a Colley in each generation, so that the boy Chipping first meets keeps turning up in the front row with the same haircut and a new first name. Richard Addinsell’s score has the tact to stay out of the classroom and let the boys’ voices carry those scenes; it saves its strings for the mountains and for the parts we will not describe. What the film does not have is any doubt about the school. Brookfield is a place where the worst thing that can happen is a headmaster, Ralston (Austin Trevor), who wants the Latin pronounced differently and the old men moved on. Nobody asks what the place is for, or who is missing from the roll call. The screenplay, by R.C. Sherriff, Claudine West and Eric Maschwitz, treats English decency as something you inherit with a surname, and late on it repeats itself: another tea, another remark about a boy’s father, another dissolve. Two or three of these scenes overstay. Wood does not vary his tempo, and we had noticed the pattern before the film had finished using it. It is a U certificate and 114 minutes, and it wants an evening rather than an afternoon; the last scenes are lit for a dark room. Watch it with anyone who has taught, or was taught by someone who stayed too long, and see which of you speaks first. *Fi1m score 82, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews are unanimous in their approval and almost as unanimous about why. Every critic puts Robert Donat first: his schoolmaster ages across several decades and the performance, rather than the make-up, does the work, and most reviewers find him moving because he never pleads for sympathy. Sam Wood’s direction is credited with keeping the warmth from turning to treacle, and the romance is thought to be handled with tact. Several critics note that the film earns its losses instead of milking them. The spread is narrow, running from good to outstanding with nobody below. Radio Times goes furthest, calling this the definitive telling of the story. The only reservation of substance comes from The New Yorker, which finds a few moments, the death scene among them, pushed harder than they need to be. Otherwise the disagreement is one of temperature rather than verdict. ### Reviews we read (6) - **Radio Times**, Tony Sloman (5/5): The critic praises this as the definitive version of the story, highlighting Robert Donat's subtle, Oscar-winning performance as the aging teacher and the film's warm-hearted, humanitarian qualities beautifully realized by MGM and director Sam Wood. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-p4n3dv/goodbye-mr-chips/) - **The New York Times** (85/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a serene, heartwarming and generally satisfactory adaptation of the novelette, praising its tender handling and especially Robert Donat's incredibly fine characterization that convincingly spans decades. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1939/05/16/archives/the-screen-metros-londonmade-version-of-goodbye-mr-chips-has-its.html) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (85/100, inferred): The review describes a charming, quaintly sophisticated account of a schoolteacher's life, highlighted by a remarkably fine performance from Robert Donat whose range keeps the picture intensely alive, with the romance developed adroitly. [Read](https://variety.com/1938/film/reviews/goodbye-mr-chips-1200412073/) - **Empire**, David Parkinson (80/100, inferred): The critic praises the film as a charming classic of British cinema, highlighting Robert Donat's deeply moving yet unsentimental performance as the dedicated schoolmaster. They single out the film's ability to convey both sweet moments and affecting losses without excess sentimentality. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/goodbye-mr-chips-review/) - **The New Yorker**, John C. Mosher (80/100, inferred): The critic finds the gentle story of a schoolmaster's life surprisingly absorbing and stirring, crediting Sam Wood's sympathetic direction and Robert Donat's triumphant performance of growing old with superb skill, while noting minor overdone moments like the death scene. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1939/05/20/1939-05-20-088-tny-cards-000051092) - **Collider**, Luc Haasbroek (80/100, inferred): The film is a moving character study anchored by Robert Donat's Oscar-winning performance as the shy schoolteacher who becomes beloved over decades through a transformative marriage. It affirms the power of devotion, kindness, and leading by example while avoiding excessive sentimentality, particularly in scenes of mourning. [Read](https://collider.com/best-1939-movies-classics/) ## Details - **Director:** Sam Wood - **Director:** Sam Wood - **Screenplay:** R.C. Sherriff, Claudine West, Eric Maschwitz - **Novel:** James Hilton - **Cinematography:** Freddie Young - **Editor:** Charles Frend - **Music:** Richard Addinsell - **Producer:** Victor Saville - **Cast:** Robert Donat as Charles Edward Chipping aka 'Mr. Chips'; Greer Garson as Katherine 'Kathy'; Terry Kilburn as John Colley / Peter Colley I / Peter Colley II / Peter Colley III; John Mills as Peter Colley as a Young Man; Paul Henreid as Max Staefel; Judith Furse as Flora; Lyn Harding as Dr. John Hamilton Wetherby; Milton Rosmer as Chatteris - **Runtime:** 1h 54m - **Certificate (MPA):** NR - **Release (the US):** 28 July 1939 - **Genres:** Drama, Romance - **Budget:** $1 million - **Box office:** $3 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lk8Th5SAkE ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $9.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-19.* Also available in: CZ, DE, ES, GB, HR, LT, RO, RS, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1940: Best Actress (nominated); Best Director (nominated); Best Film Editing (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Sound (nominated); Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (nominated); Best Actor (won) ## If you liked this - *The Browning Version* (1951): The same profession, the same country, and none of the comfort; Michael Redgrave is devastating. - *Random Harvest* (1942), Fi1m 76: Garson again, another Hilton novel, and a romance that trusts its own absurdity. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/random-harvest.md) - *Ikiru* (1952), Fi1m 92: Kurosawa’s clerk finds his purpose late; the ending is what Chips only gestures at. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/ikiru.md) - *If....* (1968), Fi1m 82: Lindsay Anderson takes the public school Brookfield never questions and sets it alight. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/if-1968.md) - *Au revoir les enfants* (1987), Fi1m 90: Louis Malle’s boarding school in occupied France; the boys are real and the loss is too. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/au-revoir-les-enfants.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/goodbye-mr-chips