Teacher Guide
Learning goals, teaching notes, and answer keys.
View Teacher NotesPaper & online answer keysFlags of Our Fathers Movie Guide
Choose the format that fits your classroom, then explore the film through focused questions and evidence.
About the Film
The film moves between combat, a wartime fundraising tour, and later memories. Examine what happens when a photograph becomes a public symbol that cannot capture the experiences of everyone involved.
Movie at a Glance
- Release year
- 2006
- Genre
- Historical drama
- U.S. rating
- R
- Runtime
- Approx. 132 minutes
- Director
- Clint Eastwood
- Screenplay
- William Broyles Jr. & Paul Haggis
- Based on
- James Bradley with Ron Powers’s nonfiction book of the same name
- Music
- Clint Eastwood
- Featured cast
- Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford & Adam Beach
- Historical setting
- Battle of Iwo Jima and U.S. bond tour, 1945 · Later recollections
Check your edition when planning class periods; cuts and playback speeds can change runtime.
Content to Preview
- Graphic combat injuries, deaths, bodies, explosions, and disturbing descriptions of wartime harm.
- Strong language, grief, survivor guilt, and alcohol misuse.
- Racist treatment of Ira Hayes, a Pima Marine, and demeaning language; discuss without requiring students to repeat slurs.
Preview your edition, follow school viewing and permission policies, and provide an appropriate alternative assignment. Suggested grades 11–12 are Teach Arcade’s classroom recommendation, separate from the film’s U.S. rating.
Classroom Connections
Connect Social Studies with English language arts through perspective, evidence, and visual storytelling. Historical dramas should be paired with sources beyond the film.
Film details, advisories & historical context: Detailed content advisory (spoilers) · Amblin credits · Paramount film details · Updated Marine Corps identification