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I recently attended Chicago’s Comic and Entertainment Expo C2E2 (2025) and had the fortune of attending the live panel where, for the first time in 40 years, all five main Breakfast Club cast members (Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy) were in attendance. Audience members’ ages ranged across the lifespan, which was indicative of the enduring legacy John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club (1985) has had in pop culture. Considered a genre defining movie and amongst the peak of teen comedy films, The Breakfast Club transcends generations and still remains highly relevant and impactful 40 years after its initial release.
The Breakfast Club is about five teenagers who received Saturday detention for various reasons. They all belong to different cliques (e.g. brain, athlete, rebel, princess, and the oddball) and the film illustrates that, despite belonging to different cliques and surface level differences, the main characters have more in common than what appears. Shared experiences and subsequent bonding provide a snapshot of what being one’s genuine and authentic self with others can lead to with regards to developing meaningful and complex relationships. What makes The Breakfast Club stand out the most is its fearlessness to go beyond being “just a comedy” and explore the pressures adolescents face during one of many critical developmental periods in their life (aka high school).
Through the unexpected bonding and honest conversation expressed by the members of the breakfast club, they each make a significant stride towards understanding themselves better through the connections they made within the group.
While it is true that the five cliques depicted in the movie are not all encompassing of the various cliques and identities that adolescents could be categorized in during the 80’s (and definitely not in 2025), the film was never really about those five specific cliques. Self-fulfilling prophecy is prevalent for all of the characters, as they navigate societal expectations at home and at school. Furthermore, based on Erik Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development, their stage of psychosocial development is Identity versus Role Confusion, which essentially asks “Who Am I?” Individuals in this stage are seeking to understand their sense of self through their relationship with others. Through the unexpected bonding and honest conversation expressed by the members of the breakfast club, they each make a significant stride towards understanding themselves better through the connections they made within the group. Whether or not this continued beyond that one day is up to the imagination, but significant strides were made.
Beyond quotable dialogue, 80’s nostalgia, and a classic dance montage is a raw, emotional, and genuine character driven film. This movie is immortalized because of the human relationships and its complex exploration of intrapersonal and interpersonal relationship dynamics that many other movies have attempted to replicate, but few have been able to achieve. Ultimately, it is a film we could never forget.
