The Breakfast Club

"They only met once, but it changed their lives forever."

1985 1h 38m EN

🙌

7.7

BANGER

🍅

87%

FRESH

👌

METACRITIC

⭐

7.8

IMDB

★7.7TMDB · 8,761🍅87%Rotten Tomatoes●66Metacritic★7.8IMDB · 469,508

ComedyDrama

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Five high school students from different walks of life endure a Saturday detention under a power-hungry principal. The disparate group includes rebel John, princess Claire, outcast Allison, brainy Brian and Andrew, the jock. Each has a chance to tell his or her story, making the others see them a little differently -- and when the day ends, they question whether school will ever be the same.

“They only met once, but it changed their lives forever.”

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Cast

Emilio Estevez
Andrew Clark
Judd Nelson
John Bender
Molly Ringwald
Claire Standish
Anthony Michael Hall
Brian Johnson
Ally Sheedy
Allison Reynolds
Paul Gleason
Richard Vernon
John Kapelos
Carl
Perry Crawford
Allison's Father

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: John Hughes
Writers: John Hughes
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $1.0M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Grossed $52M — a 51.5× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

41 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by John Hughes, shot by Thomas Del Ruth. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Keith Forsey. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Dede Allen shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Emilio Estevez and Judd Nelson and Molly Ringwald carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "They only met once, but it changed their lives forever.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

John Hughes directs. Thomas Del Ruth behind the camera. Keith Forsey scores. Dede Allen cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Shot for just $1.0M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
2Grossed $52M — a 51.5× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.
341 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
4Directed by John Hughes, shot by Thomas Del Ruth. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Keith Forsey. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Dede Allen shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Emilio Estevez and Judd Nelson and Molly Ringwald carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "They only met once, but it changed their lives forever.".
9IMDB entry: tt0088847 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 12 themes, including "high school", "coming of age", "teen angst", "detention".
11Released under 17 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Thomas Del Ruth
Original score: Keith Forsey
Editing: Dede Allen
Production design: John W. Corso
Costume design: Marilyn Vance
Makeup / hair: Ron Walters
Sound: Daniel J. Leahy
Runtime: 98 min · 1h 38m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $1,000,000
Box office: $51,530,442
Return: 5153% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: The Breakfast Club (1985)
Rotten Tomatoes: 87% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 66/100
IMDB rating: 7.8/10 · 469,508 votes
MPAA: R

Awards

4 wins total

Also by

John Hughes

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

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Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

SierraKiloBravo2020-06-30
★ 6/10
Click here for a video version of this review: https://youtu.be/tCnm1BN1iAs The brain, the athlete, the princess, the basket case, and the criminal - yes we’re talking about The Breakfast Club. It’s been dubbed as a seminal film of the 1980s and takes a place as an intergenerational classic. They were five students with nothing in common, faced with spending a Saturday detention together in their high school library. At 7.00am they had nothing to say, but by 4.00pm they had bared their souls to each other and become The Breakfast Club. Directed by John Hughes and starring Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, and Ally Sheedy it rightly deserves that spot as a revered movie. It's very much a comedy-drama and is surprisingly deep in parts, like the scene toward the end where they are all explaining what they did to get the detention. The acting is brilliant, and even though there is a very small cast, its basically the five members of The Breakfast Club and the Vice Principal, they hold your attention because they are so good. What I particularly liked was how they took the standard college stereotypes and then slowly deconstructed them over the course of the movie, and showed that they actually all had a lot in common. They all had their loves and hates, their sensitivities, and the burden of expectation from their parents, the school, and society as a whole. It's funny, it's sad, and by the time it concludes, it's quite uplifting, and if it's been a while since you saw it, it might be time to load it up for another look. If you've never seen it, then I suggest you check it out for a great time capsule of a movie that has themes that still resonate today.
Wuchak2021-09-19
★ 4/10
Forced, artificial dialogs with eye-rolling character arcs Released in 1985 and written & directed by John Hughes, "The Breakfast Club" is a teen dramedy about five high school students from five different sub-cultures during an all-day detention over the weekend at their suburban Chicago school. Molly Ringwald plays the popular girl, Emilio Estevez the jock, Anthony Michael Hall the Brainiac nerd, Judd Nelson the dope-smoking rebel and Ally Sheedy the neurotic misfit. Paul Gleason and John Kapelos are on hand as the host principal and janitor respectively This movie has a big reputation as an 80's teen flick, but I was wholly disappointed. Most of the discussions between the five students from different cliques come across contrived and unconvincing. Some of the dialog is actually cringe-inducing. The hoodlum could've worked as a character, like the Fonz or Vinnie Barbarino, but he's such an annoying, loud-mouthed jerk that he loses all sympathy, particularly when he verbally rapes the redhead on multiple occasions for no ostensible reason. SPOILER ALERT The fact that the two end up together at the end adds insult to injury. END SPOILER Not to mention two others that unrealistically couple up. It's strange that "The Breakfast Club" is billed as a comedy because there's very little that's funny, although it's occasionally entertaining, like some of the music sequences. Unfortunately, Hughes wasn't into the heavier side of rock and so the soundtrack consists solely of bland 80's new wave bands, like his other 80's teen flicks (e.g. "Sixteen Candles," "Pretty in Pink" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"). Don't get me wrong, there are a couple of quality songs, like "We Are Not Alone" by Karla DeVito, but where are the heavier popular bands of 1984, like Van Halen, Scorpions, Judas Priest, Ratt, Dokken, Queensryche, Def Leppard, AC/DC or Motley Crue? Is it asking too much to have ONE song that actually rocks? But the music is the least of the movie's problems (and isn't really a problem at all, except that there aren't any heavy tracks). The actors are fine, but Hughes' dialog is unconvincing. As such, you don't buy the characters. The script needed a serious rewrite. The movie runs 97 minutes and was shot in the suburbs north of Chicago. GRADE: C-
Rob2023-06-18
★ 9/10
An absolute classic, and no mistake. If you disagree, sorry, you're wrong. John Hughes was an utter genius.