The Breakfast Club (1985) on Netflix
Five students report for Saturday detention: Brian Johnson, Andrew Clark, Allison Reynolds, Claire Standish and John Bender. Vice Principal Vernon orders an essay on who they think they are.
- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb7.8/10477,465 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes89%
Trailer
Plot summary
Shermer High School in Shermer, Illinois, holds a Saturday detention that runs all day on March 24, 1984. Five students gather in the library: Claire Standish, Andrew Clark, John Bender, Brian Johnson and Allison Reynolds. Claire is popular, Andrew is an athlete, John is a delinquent, Brian the brainy one and Allison a loner, and except for Claire and Andrew they do not mix at school. Vice Principal Richard Vernon tells them not to talk or leave their seats, and assigns a thousand-word essay on who they think they are. With nine hours in one room ahead of them, they are stuck with each other while Vernon watches from his office across the hall.
Cast
- Perry Crawfordas Allison's Father
- Mary Christianas Brian's Sister
- Tim Gambleas Claire's Father
- Fran Garganoas Allison's Mom
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Breakfast Club (1985)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- John Cusack was set to play delinquent John Bender in The Breakfast Club, with Nicolas Cage and Alan Ruck also considered for the part, but director John Hughes replaced Cusack with Judd Nelson right before shooting because Cusack did not look intimidating enough.
- Molly Ringwald was first offered the role of loner Allison Reynolds but was 'really upset' because she wanted to play popular girl Claire Standish instead, a role that Robin Wright, Jodie Foster, Diane Lane and Laura Dern had all auditioned for; Ringwald talked Hughes and the studio into giving her the part.
- Rick Moranis was originally cast as janitor Carl but was let go by producer Ned Tanen, who felt Moranis was playing the character as an over-the-top Russian caricature that clashed with the film's serious tone; John Kapelos took over the role instead.
- Actor Todd Bridges was invited to audition for an unnamed role after Hughes approached him on a plane, but Bridges walked away from the opportunity after a studio executive told him they did not know how to write for Black people.
- Judd Nelson stayed in character as the abrasive Bender between takes to the point of harassing Molly Ringwald off-camera, which so angered Hughes that the rest of the cast had to talk him out of firing Nelson from the film.
- The real school library at Maine North High School was judged too small to shoot in, so the crew built a nearly identical but larger replica of the room inside the school's gymnasium for filming.
- The film's famous poster of the five leads huddled together was shot by photographer Annie Leibovitz near the end of production, and its group-portrait composition went on to shape how teen movies were marketed afterward.
- In April 2025, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy reunited for a panel discussion in Chicago, the first time all five original stars had appeared together in forty years.
