The Professor

The Professor (2019) is Wayne Roberts' dark comedy starring Johnny Depp, and you can watch it online on iFILM. College literature teacher Richard gets a terminal diagnosis from his doctor and, within the hour, simply stops pretending to be anyone he isn't.

He lights a cigarette mid-lecture, tells his class exactly what he thinks of their effort, and dismisses everyone except the handful who actually want to learn. Home offers no comfort either: his wife (Rosemarie DeWitt) is sleeping with the dean, his daughter has her own secrets. Richard doesn't beg for sympathy or spiral into despair. He decides to spend whatever time is left on his own terms — whiskey, blunt honesty, bad behavior, and a flat refusal to obey the rules that boxed him in for two decades.

Depp plays it dry and wry, smirking at his own ending rather than weeping over it, backed by Zoey Deutch, Danny Huston and Ron Livingston. The film stays quiet and acidic where a lesser one would tug at the tear ducts, and it lands warmer than you'd expect. Good pick for fans of gallows humor and a Depp performance with no prosthetics or franchise in sight. Stream The Professor (2019) online on iFILM.