No More School

The film follows the last three weeks before graduation at Gymnasium Kerkheim, where a tight circle of friends is folding up a chapter of their lives. Markus wants to spend as much time as possible with his long-running crew, while Sandra, who is younger, hopes he’ll stick around for her. Dirk faces the possibility of expulsion if he flunks an important math test, and Michael seems to have everything together on paper but lacks any real enjoyment. When Steven calls for a party to celebrate a letter of exemption from military service, the group converges for one of their final nights together, and old loyalties, small betrayals, and fleeting romances all surface as they try to make sense of what comes next.

Directed by Marco Petry and created by Stefan Wood, No More School premiered in 2000 as a German comedy focused on late-teen life and the awkward closure of school days. It’s an early entry in the turn-of-the-century wave of German youth films.

The film didn’t attract major award attention or high-profile nominations. It remains a lesser-known title in festival and awards circles, though it has stayed visible to fans of German teen comedies and to followers of the cast.

No More School is often noted today for featuring an early screen role by Daniel Brühl, who later gained international recognition. Because of his later success the movie gets occasional attention from viewers curious about his beginnings, and it holds a small place in discussions of German cinema from that era.

Critical and audience responses were mixed, reflected in a modest average rating around 5.9 out of 10 from viewer polls. The story leans on themes of friendship, the pressure of exams, class differences, and the awkwardness of growing up, delivering its humor with a straightforward, occasionally uneven tone that some viewers find authentic and others see as uneven.