Paramount has released the official trailer for Bad Apples, a dark comedy thriller led by Saoirse Ronan.
Ronan stars as Maria, a primary school teacher trying to keep control of a class of onan stars as Maria, a primary school teacher trying to keep control10-year-olds while one chaotic pupil, Danny, makes teaching almost impossible. Exhausted, unsupported and pushed far beyond her limits, Maria makes one terrible decision — and accidentally ends up locking the “bad apple” in her own home.
That premise gives Bad Apples a wickedly uncomfortable hook. On paper, Maria’s life improves when Danny disappears: the class starts behaving, the school appears pleased, and everything she was failing to manage suddenly becomes easier. The problem, of course, is that the solution is completely illegal, morally indefensible and almost certainly not covered in teacher training.
The trailer looks like it is walking a sharp line between workplace satire, psychological comedy and thriller. Maria is not presented as a cartoon villain. She is a woman crushed by pressure, expectations and a system that expects teachers to absorb chaos without breaking. The horror-comedy edge comes from watching her break anyway — and then try to pretend she can somehow fix it.
Directed by Jonatan Etzler and written by Jess O’Kane, Bad Apples is based on the Swedish satirical thriller novel De Oönskade. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and has already drawn attention for Ronan’s performance and its very dark sense of humour.
For fans of sharp indie dark comedies, Bad Apples looks like the kind of film that makes you laugh and then immediately question whether you should have laughed. It is a school story, a kidnapping story and a moral panic attack all rolled into one very bad lesson plan.
Bad Apples opens in cinemas on September 18, 2026.
