The text addresses audiovisual productions whose subject is education and which have been designed to promote a way of life, policy or model of society. Productions made in Spain during the Primo de Rivera dictatorship form the central line, and these are complemented with well-known European films. An analysis is then conducted of how these films present education according to the intentionality, emotive pathways or rationality they employ and the willingness for an active reception that allows for different opinions. This analysis enables an approach to be made to a time in which the education model was permeated by the desire to propagate new ideas and ways of thinking. These translated into an interest to raise the general public’s awareness of such issues as the need for better hygiene, more extensive schooling or care for children at risk.