The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club is a 1985 American teen coming-of-age comedy-drama film written, produced, and directed by John Hughes. It stars Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy as teenagers from different high school cliques who spend a Saturday in detention with their authoritarian assistant principal (Paul Gleason).

The film premiered in Los Angeles on February 7, 1985. Universal Pictures released it in cinemas in the United States on February 15, 1985. It received critical acclaim and earned $51.5 million on a $1 million budget. Critics consider it to be one of Hughes's most memorable and recognizable works. The media referred to the film's five main actors as members of a group called the "Brat Pack".

In 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film was digitally remastered and was re-screened in 430 theaters in celebration of its 30th anniversary in 2015.

Casting

Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall both starred in Hughes's 1984 film Sixteen Candles. Towards the end of filming, Hughes asked them both to be in The Breakfast Club. Hall became the first to be cast, agreeing to the role of Brian Johnson; his real life mother and sister playing the same roles in the film. Ringwald was originally approached to play the character of Allison Reynolds, but she was "really upset" because she wanted to play Claire Standish (then named "Cathy" in the first draft of the script), which saw the auditions of Robin Wright, Jodie Foster, Laura Dern, and Bailey Hoyt. She eventually convinced Hughes and the studio to give her the part. The role of Allison ultimately went to Ally Sheedy.

Emilio Estevez originally auditioned for the role of John Bender. However, when Hughes was unable to find someone to play Andrew Clark, Estevez was recast. Nicolas Cage was considered for the role of John Bender, which was the last role to be cast, though the role was narrowed down to John Cusack and Judd Nelson. Hughes originally cast Cusack, but decided to replace him with Nelson before shooting began, because Cusack did not look threatening enough for the role. At one point, Hughes was disappointed in Nelson because he stayed in character and harassed Ringwald off-camera, with the other actors having to convince Hughes to not fire him.

Rick Moranis was originally cast as the janitor but left due to creative differences and was replaced by John Kapelos.

Filming

In 1999, Hughes said that his request to direct the film met with resistance and skepticism because he lacked filmmaking experience. Hughes ultimately convinced the film's investors that due to the modest $1 million budget and its single location shoot he could greatly minimize their risk. Hughes originally thought that The Breakfast Club would be his directorial debut. Hughes opted for an insular, largely one-room set and wrote about high school students, who would be played by younger actors.

Principal photography began on March 28, 1984, and ended in May. Filming took place at Maine North High School in Des Plaines, Illinois, which had been closed in May 1981. The same setting was used for interior scenes of Hughes's 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which featured exterior shots from nearby Glenbrook North High School. The library at Maine North High School, considered too small for the film, prompted the crew to build a virtually identical but larger set in the school's gymnasium. The actors rehearsed for three weeks and then shot the film in sequence. On the Ferris Bueller's Day Off DVD commentary (featured on the 2004 DVD version), Hughes revealed that he shot the two films concurrently to save time and money, and some outtakes of both films feature elements of the film crews working on the other film. The first print was 150 minutes in length.

During a cast reunion in honor of the film's 25th anniversary, Ally Sheedy revealed that a Director's Cut existed but Hughes's widow did not disclose any details concerning its whereabouts.

In 2015, the first draft of the film's script was discovered in a Maine South High School cabinet as district employees were moving offices to a new building.

Poster

The film's poster, featuring the five characters huddled together, was photographed by Annie Leibovitz toward the end of shooting. The shot of five actors gazing at the camera influenced the way teen films were marketed from that point on. The poster refers to the five "types" of the story using slightly different terms than those used in the film, and in a different sequence, stating "They were five total strangers with nothing in common, meeting for the first time. A brain, a beauty, a jock, a rebel and a recluse".

The Breakfast Club poster "family shot", notably including Bender's raised fist, was satirized in the poster for the comedy-horror film, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.

The main theme of the film is the constant struggle of the American teenager to be understood, by adults and by themselves. It explores the pressure put on teenagers to fit into their own realms of high school social constructs, as well as the lofty expectations of their parents, teachers, and other authority figures. On the surface, the students have little in common with each other. However, as the day rolls on, they eventually bond over a common disdain for the aforementioned issues of peer pressure and parental expectations. Stereotyping is another theme. Once the obvious stereotypes are broken down, the characters "empathize with each other's struggles, dismiss some of the inaccuracies of their first impressions, and discover that they are more similar than different".

The main adult character, Mr. Vernon, is not portrayed in a positive light. He consistently talks down to the students and forcefully flaunts his authority throughout the film. Bender is the only one who stands up to Vernon.

The film premiered in Los Angeles on February 7, 1985. Universal Pictures released the film in cinemas on February 15, 1985, in the United States.

Home media

The Breakfast Club was first released on VHS and LaserDisc.

In 2003, the film was released on DVD as part of the "High School Reunion Collection". In 2008, a "Flashback Edition" DVD was released with several special features, including an audio commentary with Anthony Michael Hall and Judd Nelson. A 25th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray was released in 2010, and the same disc was re-released with a DVD and digital copy in 2012 as part of Universal's 100th Anniversary series. On March 10, 2015, the 30th Anniversary Edition was released. This release was digitally remastered and restored from the original 35mm film negatives for better picture quality on DVD, Digital HD and Blu-ray.

The Criterion Collection released a special edition 2-disc DVD set and a Blu-ray disc on January 2, 2018. The transfer was the same as the previous release but included new features such as fifty-minutes of new deleted and extended scenes, an Electronic Press Kit, new and archival interviews, a 1985 excerpt of the Today program, a new video essay and an episode of This American Life.

Critical response

Roger Ebert awarded three stars out of four and called the performances "wonderful", adding that the film was "more or less predictable" but "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." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "This confessional formula has worked in films as different as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Big Chill, and My Dinner with Andre and it works here too. It works especially well in The Breakfast Club because we keep waiting for the film to break out of its claustrophobic set and give us a typical teenage movie sex-or-violence scene. That doesn't happen, much to our delight." Kathleen Carroll from the New York Daily News stated, "Hughes has a wonderful knack for communicating the feelings of teenagers, as well as an obvious rapport with his exceptional cast–who deserve top grades".

Other reviews were less positive. Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote, "There are some good young actors in The Breakfast Club, though a couple of them have been given unplayable roles", namely Ally Sheedy and Judd Nelson, adding, "The five young stars would have mixed well even without the fraudulent encounter-group candor towards which The Breakfast Club forces them. Mr. Hughes, having thought up the characters and simply flung them together, should have left well enough alone." James Harwood of Variety panned the film as a movie that "will probably pass as deeply profound among today's teenage audience, meaning the youngsters in the film spend most of their time talking to each other instead of dancing, dropping their drawers and throwing food. This, on the other hand, should not suggest they have anything intelligent to say."

Among retrospective reviews, James Berardinelli wrote in 1998: "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 Éric Rohmer), but it's hard not to be drawn into the world of these characters."

, review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an 89% approval rating based on 65 reviews and an average rating of 7.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "The Breakfast Club is a warm, insightful, and very funny look into the inner lives of teenagers". Review aggregator Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 66/100 based on 25 reviews from mainstream critics, considered to be "generally favorable reviews".

Writing in 2015, P. J. O'Rourke called The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off "Hughes's masterwork[s]". He described the former film as an example of Hughes's politics, in that the students do not organize a protest but, "like good conservatives do, as individuals and place the highest value, like this conservative does, on goofing off. Otherwise known as individual liberty".

Box office

In February 1985, the film debuted at No. 3 at the box office (behind Beverly Hills Cop and Witness). Grossing $45,875,171 domestically and $51,525,171 worldwide, the film was a box office success, given its $1 million budget.

Accolades

Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Paul Gleason and Ally Sheedy all won a Silver Bucket of Excellence Award at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards in 2005.

The Breakfast Club has been called the quintessential 1980s film. In 2008, Empire magazine ranked it at number 369 on their The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time list. It later ranked at number 38 on their 2014 list. Similarly, The New York Times placed the film on its Best 1000 Movies Ever list and Entertainment Weekly ranked the film number 1 on its list of the 50 Best High School Movies. In the 2001 parody film Not Another Teen Movie, Gleason reprised his role as Assistant Principal Vernon in a short scene that parodies The Breakfast Club.

In 2005, the film received the Silver Bucket of Excellence Award in honor of its 20th anniversary at the MTV Movie Awards. For the event, MTV attempted to reunite the original cast. Sheedy, Ringwald, and Hall appeared together on stage, with Kapelos in the audience; Gleason gave the award to his former castmates. Estevez could not attend because of other commitments, and Nelson appeared earlier in the show but left before the on-stage reunion, prompting Hall to joke that the two were "in Africa with Dave Chappelle". Yellowcard performed Simple Minds' anthem for the film, "Don't You (Forget About Me)", at the awards. At the 82nd Academy Awards (March 7, 2010), Sheedy, Hall, Ringwald, and Nelson all appeared in a tribute to John Hughes—who had died the prior year—along with other actors who had worked with him, including Jon Cryer from Pretty in Pink, Matthew Broderick from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and Macaulay Culkin from Home Alone. In 2012, Victorious aired their own version of the film, titled 'The Breakfast Bunch'. In 2018, The New Yorker published an article written by Ringwald in which she critiqued Hughes's films "in the Age of #MeToo".

On Saturday, March 24, 1984, five students at the fictional Shermer High School report at 7:00 a.m. for an all-day detention. Each comes from a different clique: Brian Johnson, a brainiac; Andrew Clark, a jock on the wrestling team; Allison Reynolds, an introverted outcast; Claire Standish, snobbish and extremely popular; and John Bender, a rebellious teen.

They gather in the school library, where Vice Principal Richard Vernon instructs them to not talk, move from their seats, or sleep until they are released at 4:00 p.m. He assigns them a thousand-word essay, in which each must describe "who you think you are." He leaves, returning only occasionally to check on and reprimand them.

John, who has an antagonistic relationship with Vernon, ignores the rules and riles up the other students. John spends most of his time bullying or harassing Claire, Brian, and Andrew. They all eventually feel sorry for him after seeing how he deals with abusive adults like Vernon, who gives John eight weekends' worth of additional detention and eventually locks him in a storage closet. John eventually escapes through the ceiling and returns to the library.

The students then pass the time by talking, arguing, and, at one point, smoking marijuana. Gradually, they open up and reveal their secrets: Claire has many experiences of peer pressure due to her popularity; John comes from an abusive household; Allison is a compulsive liar who dreams of running away from home; Andrew cannot think for himself due to his controlling father, and Brian contemplated suicide over a failing grade. They discover they all have poor relationships with their parents: Claire's parents use her to get back at each other during arguments; John's parents physically and verbally abuse him; Allison's parents are neglectful; Andrew's father pushes him to the limit to succeed, especially in wrestling; and Brian's parents pressure him to earn the highest grades possible. They all realize that, despite their differences, they face similar problems.

Each student then confesses why they are in detention. Andrew taped another student's buttocks together using athletic tape because he felt he had not "cut loose" on anyone in high school like his domineering father had. Brian left a flare gun in his locker, which went off accidentally, that he planned to use to commit suicide after getting an F in shop class. Vernon subsequently found it. Claire mentions peer pressure to go along with what her friends want to do: at the start of the film, Claire's father stated through dialogue that she is in detention due to skipping school to go shopping. Vernon had earlier stated that John was in detention for pulling a false fire alarm. Allison admitted she did nothing, yet showed up anyway for lack of anything better to do.

Claire gives Allison a makeover, which sparks romantic interest from Andrew. Claire decides to break her "pristine" innocent appearance by kissing John. Although suspecting their new relationships will end when detention is over, they believe their mutual experiences will change the way they look at their peers.

As the detention nears its end, the group requests that Brian complete the essay for everyone, and John returns to the storage closet so Vernon thinks he never left. Brian leaves the essay in the library for Vernon to read after they leave. As the students part ways, Allison and Andrew kiss, as do Claire and John. Allison rips Andrew's state championship patch from his jacket to keep, and Claire gives John one of her diamond earrings, which he then wears. Vernon reads the essay, in which Brian states that Vernon has already judged who they are using stereotypes and that he is crazy if he thinks they'll tell him who they are; Brian correspondingly states: "Each one of us is a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question?" He signs off the essay with "Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club." John raises his fist while walking through an empty football field.