Movie Review: The Breakfast Club (1985)

★★★★★

The Breakfast Club gets it. It’s funny, honest, and somehow still feels real after all these years.

Riley S.

Minnesota

When people talk about defining ‘80s films, The Breakfast Club always comes up. It’s not just a high school movie, it’s the high school movie. But what struck me while rewatching it for BoxReview.com is that for all its quotable lines and pop culture nostalgia, the film still feels deeply human, even decades later.

It’s a story about stereotypes, sure, but it’s also about the quiet (and sometimes painful) ways we start to understand ourselves in those weird, in-between teenage years.

The Premise: Five Strangers in a School Library

The setup is simple: five students from different cliques the brain (Brian, Anthony Michael Hall), the athlete (Andrew, Emilio Estevez), the basket case (Allison, Ally Sheedy), the princess (Claire, Molly Ringwald), and the criminal (Bender, Judd Nelson) are forced to spend a Saturday in detention under the watch of cranky vice principal Richard Vernon (Paul Gleason).

They start the day barely acknowledging each other. By the end, they’ve shared enough personal truths to never see each other the same way again.

John Hughes’ Minimalist Genius

Hughes keeps the film almost entirely within one location, the school library. That’s risky for a feature-length movie, but it’s also the point. The lack of space forces the characters into conversation and conflict.

It’s a script built on dialogue, and while some of it has that snappy Hughes wit, a lot of it is raw and unpolished in a way that feels real. There are long pauses, awkward tangents, and moments where someone says exactly the wrong thing.

The Cast: Chemistry That Sells the Story

Each actor nails their archetype in the opening scenes. Hall’s awkward posture, Estevez’s confident athletic stance, Ringwald’s polished composure, Sheedy’s twitchy withdrawal, and Nelson’s cocky slouch all tell you who these people are before they speak.

But the magic is in how they break those molds.

• Anthony Michael Hall gives Brian a heartbreaking vulnerability in his confession about academic pressure.

• Emilio Estevez has one of the film’s most powerful monologues about parental expectations and misplaced anger.

• Molly Ringwald plays Claire’s privilege without making her a villain, showing just how trapped she feels in her own way.

• Ally Sheedy transforms Allison from a silent oddball to someone unexpectedly open and warm.

• Judd Nelson makes Bender infuriating and magnetic at the same time, his pain simmering under the sarcasm.

Paul Gleason as Vernon: The Villain Who’s Not Entirely Wrong

Vice Principal Vernon could have been just a one-note authority figure, but Gleason plays him with enough edge to make you wonder if he’s as much a prisoner of the system as the kids are. His scenes with Carl the janitor (John Kapelos) are small but revealing, hinting at how easily youthful idealism turns to cynicism.

An Overlooked Character: The Library

The setting itself deserves mention. The cavernous library, with its glass walls and open space, is both a prison and a stage. The openness makes their secrets feel even riskier to share; there’s nowhere to hide.

By the end, it almost feels smaller, as if the characters’ willingness to be vulnerable has shrunk the emotional distance between them.

The Honesty of the Conversations

One of the film’s most impressive tricks is that it takes exaggerated high school types and makes them feel specific. The famous “circle talk” scene, where the group shares personal stories, doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable truths: absent parents, abusive households, suffocating expectations.

What’s rarely discussed is how funny the movie still manages to be in these moments. Hughes knew that humor and vulnerability go hand-in-hand; a joke can open the door to a confession, and vice versa.

The Ending: Ambiguity Done Right

The letter Brian writes on behalf of the group, explaining that they are each more than the labels assigned to them, is the perfect conclusion. It’s not tied up with a neat bow. We don’t know if Monday will find them talking in the hallways or pretending the day never happened.

And that’s the brilliance: real life doesn’t always reward vulnerability with instant change. But it does shift perspectives, even if only for a moment.

Themes Worth Noting Beyond the Obvious

While The Breakfast Club is often seen as a coming-of-age film about breaking stereotypes, it’s also about:

• The performance of identity – how much of who we are is shaped by who we think others expect us to be.

• Teen isolation – the shared loneliness that hides behind both popularity and rebellion.

• The fragility of connection – how easily social walls can be lowered in the right circumstances, and how quickly they can go back up.

Cinematography and Music

Cinematographer Thomas Del Ruth uses a lot of medium shots and slow push-ins to make the space feel intimate without losing its sense of confinement. The lack of flashy camera moves keeps the focus on the characters.

And of course, the Simple Minds anthem “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” has become inseparable from the film. It’s not just a soundtrack choice, it’s a promise and a question rolled into one.

Why The Breakfast Club Still Works

Even with some dialogue and attitudes that feel rooted in the ‘80s, the emotional core hasn’t aged a bit. Teenagers still wrestle with identity, pressure, loneliness, and the fear of being misunderstood.

It’s also refreshingly low-stakes in an era of teen movies packed with contrived plots. There’s no prom, no big game, no life-or-death crisis, just conversation, conflict, and connection.

Final Thoughts

The Breakfast Club is the rare teen film that grows with you. As a teenager, you see yourself in the characters’ frustrations. As an adult, you recognize the forces shaping them.

John Hughes didn’t just make a movie about high school stereotypes; he made a film about the messy, temporary alliances that form when you strip away the roles and just let people talk.