The Breakfast Club

4.46
    The Breakfast Club
    1985

    Synopsis

    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.

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    Cast

    • Emilio EstevezAndrew Clark
    • Judd NelsonJohn Bender
    • Molly RingwaldClaire Standish
    • Anthony Michael HallBrian Johnson
    • Ally SheedyAllison Reynolds
    • Paul GleasonRichard Vernon
    • John KapelosCarl
    • Perry CrawfordAllison's Father
    • Mary ChristianBrian's Sister
    • Ron DeanAndy's Father

    Recommendations

    • 80

      Film Threat

      This could have been an unmitigated disaster, but Hughes' way with the material ensured it a special place in the heart of just about everyone who happened to be in high school while Ronald Reagan was President.
    • 78

      Austin Chronicle

      Before lapsing into the land of the insipid,... John Hughes actually made a few movies that shined some light on the trials of modern adolescence. The Breakfast Club is one of them.
    • 75

      Entertainment Weekly

      From the neon-sign opening titles to the derivative angst of the dialogue, it's a touchstone of '80s pop culture, and a schizophrenic one, too.
    • 75

      ReelViews

      Eminently watchable and consistently entertaining...It has a candor that is unexpected and refreshing in a sea of too-often generic teen-themed films.
    • 75

      The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

      For all its contrivance, it's lively and amusing and occasionally disconcerting in its reproduction of what life was like in the mid-to-late teens.
    • 70

      Chicago Reader

      Comes to the comforting conclusion that they're just as alienated, idealistic, and vulnerable as the baby boomers of the 1960s.
    • 70

      Washington Post

      Their conversations give The Breakfast Club its snap, crackle and pop. And this is that rare movie that could benefit from another half hour of talking time. [15 Feb 1985]
    • 60

      TV Guide Magazine

      Hughes, though he gives the material a sense of fun and achieves several moments of genuine warmth, too often resorts to obvious cliches, stereotypes, and easy answers, and throws in the near-obligatory rock video as well.

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