Dangerous Minds

Director: John N. Smith

1995 / 99min / 35mm

Based on My Posse Don’t Do Homework, the autobiography of ex-Marine-turned-schoolteacher LouAnne Johnson, Dangerous Minds gives Pfeiffer the plum part of the tough, tenacious Johnson who, upon joining the faculty at a California high school, is faced with the difficult task of activating her classes of lethargic and hostile students, almost all of whom come from low-income homes. A ringing box-office success, this proudly melodramatic To Sir, with Love for the hip-hop ’90s made a triple platinum hit out of Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise.”

Part of Piping Hot Pfeiffer