YMMV / The Big Chill

• Awesome Music: This spawned not just one but two hit soundtrack albums, repackaging several hits from the '60s and making them popular for a new generation (though The Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want", which is critical to the funeral scene, isn't included on either album, presumably due to licensing issues). However, thanks to this movie, soundtracks like that became a trend, and became decried for merely being nostalgia tools.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • As discussed on '80s All Over, Jeff Goldblum plays the one principal character whom no one wants to sleep with, but in the decades since this film gave his career a leg up (prior to Jurassic Park, this and The Fly (1986) were the cornerstones of his reputation) he's become Mr. Fanservice to several generations of fangirls and boys through subsequent roles, a sort of sweet Revenge.
  • When Sam admits to playing video games to relax, Meg says it's moronic. Fast forward 20 or 30 years, and almost everyone does it.
• Spiritual Successor: While there was a (short-lived) direct TV adaptation called Hometown, it could be argued that thirtysomething is a better example.
  • The film itself could be seen as one of these to John Sayles' 1980 independent film Return of the Secaucus Seven, which similarly depicts a group of former Sixties radicals reuniting in the same house over a weekend. Kasdan has gone on record as saying he hadn't seen the movie before writing the script.
  • About Alex is perhaps the most transparent one in history.

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