One Saturday in 1984, five students from different social cliques report to all-day detention at Shermer High School. The group includes Brian Johnson, a socially awkward academic; Andrew Clark, a varsity wrestler; Allison Reynolds, a withdrawn loner; Claire Standish, a popular socialite; and John Bender, a rebellious delinquent. Vice Principal Richard Vernon supervises the group and instructs them not to speak or leave their seats. He assigns a 1,000-word essay on the topic “who you think you are.” As the day unfolds with heavy doses of badass posturing, gleeful misbehavior, and potent angst, the students discover that they have a great deal more in common than they thought when they walked in the door.

With this exuberant, disarmingly candid film, writer-director John Hughes established himself as the bard of American youth, vividly and empathetically capturing how teenagers hang out, act up, and goof off.

The Breakfast Club stars Emilio Estevez, Paul Gleason, Anthony Michael Hall, John Kapelos, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy.

Release Dates

• Original Release Date: February 15, 1985
• Criterion Blu-ray and 4K UHD Release: November 4, 2025

Criterion Special Edition Release Features

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Alternate 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Audio commentary featuring actors Anthony Michael Hall and Judd Nelson
• Interviews with actors Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy and other members of the cast and crew
• Video essay featuring director John Hughes’s production notes, read by Nelson
• Fifty minutes of deleted and extended scenes
• Promotional and archival interviews
• Excerpts from a 1985 American Film Institute seminar with Hughes
• Radio interview with Hughes
• Audio interview with Ringwald from an episode of This American Life
• Theatrical Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• An essay by author and critic David Kamp
• Disc cover based on an original theatrical poster photographed by Annie Leibovitz