Teacher Guide
Learning goals, teaching notes, and answer keys.
View Teacher NotesPaper & online answer keysCool Runnings Movie Guide
Choose the format that fits your classroom, then explore the film through focused questions and evidence.
About the Film
A Jamaican bobsled team navigates unfamiliar sport, stereotypes, and conflicting ideas of success. Examine cooperation and integrity while checking the film’s inventions against the historical team.
Movie at a Glance
- Release year
- 1993
- Genre
- Sports comedy dramatization
- U.S. rating
- PG
- Runtime
- Approx. 98 minutes
- Director
- Jon Turteltaub
- Screenplay
- Lynn Siefert, Tommy Swerdlow & Michael Goldberg
- Based on
- A fictionalized account inspired by Jamaica’s first Olympic bobsled team
- Music
- Hans Zimmer
- Featured cast
- Leon, Doug E. Doug, Rawle D. Lewis, Malik Yoba & John Candy
- Story setting
- Dramatized Jamaica and Calgary · 1988 Winter Olympics
Check your edition when planning class periods; cuts and playback speeds can change runtime.
Content to Preview
- Sport-related crashes and physical danger.
- Discriminatory comments, fights, insults, and some language.
- Drinking and discussion of a coach’s cheating.
Preview your edition, follow school viewing and permission policies, and provide an appropriate alternative assignment. Suggested grades 6–12 are Teach Arcade’s classroom recommendation, separate from the film’s U.S. rating.
Classroom Connections
Use scene evidence to explore the topics above. Pair historical portrayals with reliable sources, literary adaptations with their texts, and animated metaphors with appropriate factual context.
Film details, advisories & classroom context: Disney film information · Content advisory (spoilers)