Ever notice that every blockbuster movie has the same fundamental pieces? A hero, a journey, some conflicts to muck it all up, a reward, and the hero returning home and everybody applauding his or...

Inside Chicagoland At the very beginning of the movie, Brian's voiceover spells out the setting for us: "Saturday... March 24, 1984. Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois." So we know where we are...

A Kind of… Normal Narrative Technique?The Breakfast Club doesn't involve flashbacks or a "fractured narrative" (a la Pulp Fiction) or anything like that. It's just a good, old-fashioned narrative...

Teen Movie; Coming-of-Age Movie; Comedy-Drama The Ur-Teen MovieThe Breakfast Club is the teen movie. Arguably (or maybe inarguably?) it defines the whole genre. It's why Molly Ringwald has a promin...

The title describes what the main characters are: a bunch of kids who get together at breakfast time because they've all been sentenced to detention. But will they continue to get together for brea...

You'd probably have to say that the movie's climax really comes when they're all sitting around in a circle having big revelations and crying. When Brian talks about his suicide attempt after faili...

R There's no nudity in The Breakfast Club (although there was going to be—a totally gratuitous scene where Vernon spies on a lady who's swimming naked in the school's pool). There is a moment whe...