80s Movies: The Breakfast Club

The Mother of All 80s Movies

The Breakfast Club is like THE quintessential 80s movie. Ask anyone what is the mother of all 80s movies and they’ll totally tell you it’s The Breakfast Club.

In fact, this movie is such a huge 80s icon that it almost always tops any list of 80s movies, and it usually ranks at number one.

It’s packed with 80s attitudes, style, and jargon but it reigns as a classic despite its status as the be-all-end-all of 80s movies.

Fortunately, The Breakfast Club hit video after VHS was widely available. Oh sure, it was a big hit at the box office, but on video, you could watch it over and over.

Back then, watching movies at home was still kind of a big deal. We played our 80s movies day in and day out, and The Breakfast Club was no exception. It wasn’t uncommon for teens to know every line of the movie.

I watched my copy until it wore out, and then I went and got the DVD. I also had the soundtrack, and we’ll talk about that later. First, let’s talk about the cast, aka The Brat Pack.

The Cast

Probably what made this movie such a huge hit, besides the killer screenplay, was its amazing cast of up-and-coming teen actors.

The film itself had only a small handful of actors who played the five main characters (the kids who comprised The Breakfast Club), plus two supporting roles (the principal and janitor), and a couple of the kids’ parents, plus one sibling.

The five primary actors and the characters they played were:

• Emilio Estevez – Andrew Clark (The Athlete)
• Anthony Michael Hall – Brian Johnson (The Brain)
• Judd Nelson – John Bender (The Criminal)
• Molly Ringwald – Claire Standish (The Princess)
• Ally Sheedy – Allison Reynolds (The Basket Case)

This film launched all of their careers, and while most of them didn’t enjoy high visibility into the 90s, they made up almost the entire group of 80s movies actors known as The Brat Pack.

The Breakfast Club

Interesting to note is that John Hughes, guru of all the greatest 80s movies, wrote the entire screenplay for The Breakfast Club over the course of two days – July 4-5 in 1982. That’s a lot of writing in a very little amount of time, especially when you consider what a totally huge hit the movie turned out to be.

Hughes also acted in the film, appearing in a cameo performance as Brian’s father at the end of the film when Brian is picked up from detention.

The film is about five high school students, who are all totally different from one another. They have to attend a Saturday detention for the various infractions they’ve committed against school rules. When the day starts, they see each other as strangers, in some cases, enemies. But by the time detention’s over, they’ve learned a valuable lesson about what it means to be human. We’re all not so different after all.

According to IMDB:

The film’s title comes from the nickname invented by students and staff for detention at New Trier High School, the school attended by the son of one of John Hughes’ friends. Thus, those who were sent to detention were designated members of “The Breakfast Club.” “The Breakfast Club” at that school probably took its name in turn from the title of American radio’s longest running network entertainment show, broadcast from Chicago, 1933 to 1968.

The Breakfast Club Soundtrack

Lots of 80s movies had soundtracks that we loved and played over and over. The Breakfast Club Soundtrack made good sales, but mostly that was because it had one big hit on it – The Simple Minds’ single “Don’t You Forget About Me.”

The song was a little bit haunting and had the driving beat, desperate lyrics, and new wave flavor that was synonymous with 80s music.

The video for the song featured the Simple Minds in a big, abandoned space with iconic checkerboard floors, very old-fashioned, interspersed with clips from the movie.

Grow Your Collection of 80s Movies

Even though the 80s are well behind us, you can still get a copy of The Breakfast Club. If you don’t have it, then your 80s movies collection is totally abysmal. Better hurry up and get your fix:

Order The Breakfast Club DVD from Amazon
Order The Breakfast Club Soundtrack from Amazon

Stay tuned to Total 80s Remix for more of your favorite 80s movies.