Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) is Sam Wood's tender British drama, free to watch online on iFILM. Robert Donat plays Arthur Chipping, a stiff young Latin master who walks nervously into Brookfield, a boys' boarding school.

The story unfolds as one old man's memory. Sixty-odd years at the same blackboard, generation after generation of pupils, their nicknames and pranks and farewells. A brief marriage to Katherine — Greer Garson, in her screen debut — thaws the fussy pedant into the school's most beloved figure. Beyond the gates the wars keep coming, from the Franco-Prussian conflict to the rise of Hitler, each one claiming former boys he once taught.

Donat took the Best Actor Oscar for this, beating Clark Gable's Rhett Butler in the year Hollywood still calls its greatest. Adapted from James Hilton's novella, it runs on quiet charm rather than plot. One of the few films that look at old age without a drop of pity. Stream Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) online on iFILM.