Breakfast Club-Flashback Edition (1984)

"...a heartfelt, surprisingly experimental film...a touchstone of 80's pop culture...  Entertainment Weekly
"Perceptive and entertaining teen drama...  Find-A-Video
"...lively and amusing and occasionally disconcerting in its reproduction of what life was like in the mid-to-late teens.  Jay Scott, The Globe and Mail
"A bold experiment in the era of teen raunch movies...filled with moments of truth and perception.  Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide
"Hughes shows there is a life form after teenpix. It is called goodpix.  Richard Corliss, Time
"From the neon-sign opening titles to the derivative angst of the dialogue, it's a touchstone of '80s pop culture...  Ty Burr, Entertainment Weekly
"...Gleason is convincing as the kind of teacher no one ever goes back to see...  USA Today

Editor's Note When five high school students from different social groups are forced to spend a Saturday together in detention, they find themselves interacting with and understanding each other for the first time. A jock (Emilio Estevez), a criminal (Judd Nelson), a princess (Molly Ringwald), a basket case (Ally Sheedy), and a brain (Anthony Michael Hall) talk about everything from parental tension to sex to peer pressure to hurtful stereotypes while serving time. Ultimately, the five find that they may have more in common than they ever imagined and learn more about themselves as well as each other. The only question is, Will they remember what they've learned after they leave detention? Director and writer John Hughes, along with the stellar Brat Pack, cast makes this a memorable, moving film filled with believable dialogue, intelligent humor, and a sufficient dose of high school hijinx. Its timeless appeal makes this film a teen classic along with Hughes's other teen films from the 1980s: SIXTEEN CANDLES and FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF. A great soundtrack features the hit "Don't You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds.

	Emilio Estevez
	Ally Sheedy
	Paul Gleason
	Ron Dean
	John Kapelos
	Anthony Michael Hall
	Molly Ringwald
	Judd Nelson
	John Hughes - Producer
	John W. Corso - Production Designer
	John Hughes - Screenwriter
	Dorain Grusman - Choreographer
	Gary Chang - Composer
	Ned Tanen - Producer
	Dede Allen - Editor
	Marilyn Vance - Costume Designer
	Christian Zamiata - Costume Designer
	Thomas Del Ruth - Director of Photography
	Keith Forsey - Composer
	John Hughes - Director

In one of the few intelligent Brat Pack movies, five high school students are forced to spend an entire Saturday together in detention. While serving time, they slowly form friendships that could last a lifetime...or might not last until Monday morning.

"So it's sort of social----demented and sad, but social."----Bender (Judd Nelson) to Brian (Anthony Michael Hall)

"Don't mess with the bull, young man. You'll get the horns."----Vernon (Paul Gleason) to Bender

Entertainment Weekly
"...A heartfelt, surprisingly experimental film....A touchstone of 80's pop culture..." -- Rating: B 08/07/1998 pp.80-1

Total Film
"...The Brat Pack unite under '80s Teen King John Hughes..." 08/01/2003 p.128

USA Today
"...Paul Gleason is convincing as the kind of teacher no one ever goes back to see..." 09/05/2003 p.9E

Empire
4 stars out of 5 -- "John Hughes' teen masterpiece remains entertaining after all these years..." 11/01/2008 p.193

Premiere
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "An insightful, smart and emotionally charged drama that still holds up more than 25-years later." 08/02/2010

ReelViews 8 of 10
One of the most consistent writer/directors to contribute to the '80s teen fad was John Hughes (the man who would later scale the heights of box-office prosperity with Home Alone). In one way or another, Hughes was responsible for the likes of Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and The Breakfast Club. While all of those films were a cut above the sex and booze-drenched antics of most teen comedies, The Breakfast Club was arguably the most insightful and emotionally-true of them...Few will argue that The Breakfast Club is a great film, but it has a candor that is unexpected and refreshing in a sea of too-often generic teen-themed films. The material is a little talky (albeit not in a way that will cause anyone to confuse it with something by Eric Rohmer), but it's hard not to be drawn into the world of these characters. The depiction of high school is evocative because it's so accurate (an actual suburban Illinois high school was used as the filming location). Unlike many teen films, which seem to transpire in some kid's dirty imagination, this picture, despite its occasional flights of fancy, is grounded in reality. In The Breakfast Club, Hughes has created a surprisingly enduring motion picture that is still effective 13 years after its theatrical debut. - James Berardinelli

Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
"The Breakfast Club" begins with an old dramatic standby. You isolate a group of people in a room, you have them talk, and eventually they exchange truths about themselves and come to new understandings...Nothing that happens in "The Breakfast Club" is all that surprising. The truths that are exchanged are more or less predictable, and the kids have fairly standard hang-ups. It comes as no surprise, for example, to learn that the jock's father is a perfectionist, or that the prom queen's parents give her material rewards but withhold their love. But "The Breakfast Club" doesn't need earthshaking revelations; it's about kids who grow willing to talk to one another, and it has a surprisingly good ear for the way they speak...The performances are wonderful, but then this is an all-star cast, as younger actors go; in addition to Hall and Ringwald from "Sixteen Candles," there's Sheedy from "War Games" and Estevez from "Repo Man." Judd Nelson is not yet as well known, but his character creates the strong center of the film; his aggression is what breaks the silence and knocks over the walls...The only weaknesses in Hughes' writing are in the adult characters: The teacher is one-dimensional and one-note, and the janitor is brought onstage with a potted philosophical talk that isn't really necessary. Typically, the kids don't pay much attention. - Roger Ebert