The coming-of-age trope came into its own in the 1980s – and perhaps the biggest film from that decade to explore the teen experience was The Breakfast Club.
On May 2, it will be 40 years since the Australian cinema release of the cult classic about five high-school students – a rebel, a jock, the popular girl, a nerd and a misfit – who find themselves in Saturday detention.
The film also played a pivotal part in the cultural phenomenon that was the Brat Pack, a group of hot, young actors taking over Hollywood. Think Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Andrew McCarthy, and of course, the cast of The Breakfast Club.
The group of friends and colleagues ruled screens and the Los Angeles social scene. You could even call them the original influencers.
The Breakfast Club’s writer and director, John Hughes, was the unofficial creator of the teen movie genre. “It can be hard to remember how scarce art for and about teenagers was before John Hughes arrived,” the movie’s leading lady, Molly Ringwald, shared with The New Yorker in 2018.
As Claire Standish, Ringwald played Shermer High School’s popular girl with a privileged upbringing. Seeing a teen girl with depth on the big screen was rare in the 1980s. For Hughes and Ringwald, it was their second collaboration, but not their last.
“The Breakfast Club was to be his directorial debut – he planned to shoot it in Chicago with local actors,” Ringwald explained. “He told me later that, over a July 4th weekend, while looking at headshots of actors to consider for the movie, he found mine and decided to write another movie around the character he imagined that girl to be. That script became Sixteen Candles, a story about a girl whose family forgets her 16th birthday.”
The plots to Hughes’ films were simple. Take something as mundane as Saturday detention and turn it into a thought-provoking classic for a generation.
“No-one in Hollywood was writing about the minutiae of high school, and certainly not from a female point of view,” Ringwald said, reminding us that, even today, young female protagonists are often only seen in the dystopia or fantasy genres.
He also made the film with a $1.6 million budget – and it went on to rake in a massive $80 million at the box office.
What the late Hughes perhaps didn’t expect was that 40 years on, The Breakfast Club would still be relevant to teens. The students broached subjects like sexism, relationships and beliefs. They fought, mocked and learned until they walked out of detention as new friends, regardless of their backgrounds or social status. By the end of their nine-hour detention, they’d undergone a master-class of self-discovery.
In April, Emilio Estevez, who played jock Andrew Clark; Judd Nelson, who portrayed rebel John Bender; Anthony Michael Hall, who was the nerd Brian Johnson; Ally Sheedy, who played misfit Allison Reynolds and, of course, Ringwald will reunite for the first time since 1985 at the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo.
“I was really happy when we were making this movie, we all really … I don’t know if you can tell but we all really do love each other. It was a dream,” Sheedy told the crowd at MegaCon Orlando in February alongside all her co-stars except Estevez. When asked where their characters would be today, they gave their thoughts, but suggested the mystery of it all was part of the magic.
“I think Bender is clearly the principal of the school,” Nelson said, while Sheedy thought Allison was a writer or professor. Ringwald’s prediction might have been the best.
“I think that Claire probably got married a few times. And maybe decided she liked women. You know, her kids are grown-up, she’s like, ‘OK, I’ll try that.’ It didn’t work out so well with the guys,” she mused.
Sounds like the perfect plot for a sequel. “It was something that was conjured and thought about,” Hall said of a potential follow-up, but ultimately, the group wouldn’t sign on without the late Hughes.
Where to watch The Breakfast Club in Australia.
The Breakfast Club is streaming on Binge, so you can join Claire, Andrew, Brian, Allison and Bender in detention at Shermer High School.
If you end up going down the rabbit hole of John Hughes films – excellent decision! – we’ve also rounded up his other classics.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, starring Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck and Mia Sara, is also streaming on Binge.
Sixteen Candles – the film Hughes wrote for Ringwald – is available to rent or buy on Prime or Apple TV. Warning: this film has not aged well at all, and if you’ve seen To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before on Netflix you’ll know why.
Weird Science, starring Hall, Ilan Mitchell-Smith and Kelly LeBrock, is available to rent or buy on Prime and Apple TV.
Where are the cast of The Breakfast Club now?
Molly Ringwald
The 57-year-old lamented her status as the teen queen of the ’80s, but more recently, she’s starred in Riverdale, the Kissing Booth trilogy, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and Feud: Capote vs. The Swans.
Emilio Estevez
Estevez, 62, starred in a string of hits throughout the late ’80s and early ’90s, including Young Guns (1988) and its 1990 sequel, and the Mighty Ducks series. Now, he lives a low-key life, dabbling in writing and acting.
Ally Sheedy
After her breakout roles in 1985, she starred in movies like Short Circuit (1986) and 1988’s She’s Having A Baby. Since 2021, the 62-year-old has worked as a theatre professor at the City College of New York.
Anthony Michael Hall
Hall, 56, told People he struggled to find work in the wake of The Breakfast Club. He believed it was as a result of being lumped into the Brat Pack. Fast-forward to now and Hall can be seen in Prime Video’s hit series Reacher.
Judd Nelson
Until now, the 65-year-old has shunned the movie that made him an icon. He even refused to appear in 2024 doco Brats, calling it “edited entertainment”. He continues to act, recently in a recurring role in Empire.
John Hughes
The filmmaker left a huge legacy when he passed away in 2009 from a heart attack. His other credits include Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Pretty in Pink (both 1986), Uncle Buck (1989) and Home Alone (1991).
