Educating Rita is a 1983 British comedy-drama film directed by Lewis Gilbert with a screenplay by Willy Russell based on his 1980 stage play.

Bryant's passion for literature is rekindled by Rita, whose technical ability for the subject is limited by her lack of education but whose enthusiasm Frank finds refreshing.

Frank's bitterness and cynicism return as he notices Susan beginning to adopt the pretensions of the university culture he despises.

Susan becomes disillusioned by a friend's attempted suicide and realises that her new social niche is rife with the same dishonesty and superficiality she had previously sought to escape.

However, it was shot entirely in and around Dublin, where minor adjustments were made to suggest the city is in the UK: in several street scenes, for example, British red telephone boxes appear.

8 Hogan Avenue in Dublin 2, near Grand Canal Dock, was used for Rita's house in the film, and one in Burlington Road, Ballsbridge, for Bryant's.

Variety magazine in December 1982 lauded Walters' interpretation of Rita as "[w]itty, down-to-earth, kind and loaded with common sense".

He describes Walters's "splendidly rich interpretation" of Rita and characterises her "reactions to the traditions of English lit[erature] [as] carry[ing] the caustic brilliance of true intelligence, a shattering of blithe pretension".

"[11] Janet Maslin of The New York Times called the film "an awkward blend of intellectual pretension and cute obvious humour" and "the perfect play about literature for anyone who wouldn't dream of actually reading books"; she wrote that "the essentially two-character play has been opened up to the point that it includes a variety of settings and subordinate figures, but it never approaches anything lifelike".

In November 2002, the then-82-year-old director Lewis Gilbert went public with plans to remake his film "with a black cast that could include Halle Berry and Denzel Washington", with principal photography to commence in 2003.