Anyone who's ever been in a classroom will be touched by this moving, mostly-true story of famed East L.A. math teacher Jaime Escalante (Edward James Olmos), who finds himself in a classroom of rebellious remedial-math students. He stuns fellow faculty members with his plans to teach AP Calculus, and even more when the mostly Hispanic teens (including Lou Diamond Phillips as Angel Guzman) overcome the odds and eventually go the distance.
My teachers used to make us watch this in jr high. Didn't appreciate it then, but appreciate it now. RIP Jaime Escalante December 31, 1930 — March 30, 2010.