Cameron Diaz fans can prepare to be educated by her Bad Teacher next month as the R-rated 2011 comedy will be streaming on 
Netflix from December 1, 2025. Diaz recently returned to screens alongside Jamie Foxx in Back in Action, also on Netflix, and has several other roles lined up after her lengthy hiatus from the industry. However, before she ducked out of Hollywood to concentrate on enjoying a family life, this panned, raunchy comedy was a massive box office success, and everyone will soon be able to reassess it when it lands on Netflix next week.
Directed by Jake Kasdan, who has more recently been behind the Jumanji sequels and Dwayne Johnson’s disappointing Red One, Bad Teacher turned a reasonable $20 million budget into a $216 million worldwide box office. Diaz starred alongside Justin Timberlake, Lucy Punch, John Michael Higgins, and Jason Segel, with the plot of the movie going a bit like this:
“For most, teaching is an honorable profession — except for Elizabeth (Cameron Diaz). The foul-mouthed, boozy woman can’t wait to marry a rich man and quit her job, but she has to rethink her plans when her sugar daddy dumps her. Then Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake), a substitute teacher who’s cute and rich, arrives. Elizabeth can’t wait to sink her teeth into a new meal ticket, but she faces stiff competition from Amy (Lucy Punch), a popular and perky colleague.”
‘Bad Teacher’ Received a Bad Grade
While Bad Teacher had a premise full of raucous comedy potential, the results were very mixed, and audiences were particularly harsh on the film at the time of its release, even if some more recent reviews have given it a second chance to aim for a higher grade.
The Rotten Tomatoes scores for the movie sit on 46% and 36% from critics and audiences, respectively. With almost 150 critic reviews logged on the site, the result is almost as split as it could be. One review from The Post NZ puts forward the bold opinion that the film is “one of Cameron Diaz’s last great films,” and another from TheIndependentCritic.com praises Justin Timberlake playing against type as “a rather timid, bookish wallflower whose funniest scenes seem to be making fun of his reputation.” However, the Houston Chronicle warned, “The best lines were harvested for the trailer – so if you’ve seen that, you’ve seen it all.”
Meanwhile, audiences who saw the movie both on its debut and a few years later were more critical. Some called it “extremely clichéd and boring,” while others slammed the movie as “racist in every way,” over its use of “ethnic slurs” for calling the fictional school the worst in the state, and having a Black student talking about basketball. Make of that view what you will. However, many recent reviews have been much more generous with their reviews, calling it an “underrated gem,” and “a laugh riot.”
From December 1, Netflix subscribers will be able to check out Bad Teacher and see which side of the class they sit on.
- Release Date
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May 16, 2011
- Runtime
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92 minutes
- Writers
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Gene Stupnitsky, Lee Eisenberg