Today Would Have Been John Hughes’ 70th Birthday
John Hughes, the beloved director and writer behind iconic ’80s flicks The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, would have been 70 years old today. In 2009, Hughes died of a heart attack at only 59 years old, but his legacy continues to live on in the hearts of teen movies and television shows — which he helped establish as a genre.
Without Hughes’ work to pave the way, it’s unlikely we would have movies such as Heathers, Dazed & Confused, or Superbad. Judd Apatow sourced Hughes as an inspiration to Huffington Post back in 2008. "John Hughes wrote some of the great outsider characters of all time," said Apatow. “It’s pretty ridiculous to hear people talk about the movies we’ve been doing, with outrageous humor and sweetness all combined, as if they were an original idea. I mean, it was all there first in John Hughes’ films.”
The Breakfast Club just celebrated its 35th anniversary this week. Hughes’ portrait of misunderstood high schoolers has proven to be a coming-of-age staple. It also solidified Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, and Judd Nelson as members of the “Brat Pack,” a term coined in a New York magazine article.
In honor of Hughes’ would-be birthday, you can revisit some of his best work on streaming platforms. The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, and Weird Science are available on Hulu, and you can watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Home Alone on Netflix.
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