Children of a lesser god

United States, 1986

Film
Please note

Sorry, we aren't able to make images or video for this item available to the public online.

Based on Mark Medoff’s Tony Award-winning (1980) play. It is a touching and poignant love story between a deaf woman and a hearing man. William Hurt gives a sensitive performance as James a likeable schoolmaster, whose job is to teach hearing impaired people to speak. Sarah (Marlee Matlin - who is hearing impaired in real life) is a young beautiful girl who leaves school with a chip on her shoulder and with the knowledge that sex needs no conversation. The touching portrayal of their attraction makes it impossible not to share the experience. Matlin won the 1987 Academy Award for Best Actress with nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Content notification

Our collection comprises over 40,000 moving image works, acquired and catalogued between the 1940s and early 2000s. As a result, some items may reflect outdated, offensive and possibly harmful views and opinions. ACMI is working to identify and redress such usages.

Learn more about our collection and our collection policy here. If you come across harmful content on our website that you would like to report, let us know.

How to watch

Stream, rent or buy via Just Watch Logo

Collection

In ACMI's collection

Credits

director

Randa Haines

co-producer

Burt Sugarman

Patrick Palmer

production company

Paramount Pictures

Duration

01:50:00:00

Production places
United States
Production dates
1986

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

305278

Language

English

Audience classification

MA

Sound/audio

Sound

Colour

Colour

Holdings

VHS; Access Print (Section 1)

Wikidata

Q1323446

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

Cite this work on Wikipedia

If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/83997/ |title=Children of a lesser god |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=6 May 2024 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}