The Penguin Lessons is a 2025 comedy-drama film directed by Peter Cattaneo and starring Steve Coogan and Jonathan Pryce.

The script was adapted from Tom Michell’s 2015 memoir, which chronicles his experience as a British teacher who travelled to South America to teach at a boys’ boarding school in Argentina in the 1970s. Expecting an easy ride, Tom discovers a divided nation and a class of unteachable students.

On a trip to Uruguay, he visited a beach where he rescued a penguin from an oil slick. He brought it to his hotel to clean and feed it. After that, the penguin would not leave him, and kept following him. Eventually he took it back to the school, only to find his life turned upside down.