History Film / TheBreakfastClub

* FiveManBand:
** TheHero: Bender
** TheLancer: Allison
** TheBigGuy: Andrew
** TheSmartGuy: Brian
** TheChick: Claire

* BlackAndGrayMorality: Bender is a protagonist and sympathetic character, but also a relentless bully who steals, vandalizes, and harasses the other students, but also deliberately gets himself in trouble to save everyone else from it. Andrew physically assaulted a nerd. Claire belittles and looks down on other people. Brian comes off as an InsufferableGenius at times. Allison trolls the rest of the group. Vernon is a particularly corrupt and rabid principal, but has hints of a FreudianExcuse. Carl has no qualms with bribing Vernon after he catches him looking at confidential files. The parents we see in the beginning are outright dog-kickers. In summation, there are no clear "good guys" in the movie, only varying levels of dysfunction and vice.

* ExtremelyShortTimespan: The movie takes place over a single day.

** This is Allison's most defining feature, although she never admits to it. Her parents ignore her, so much her behavior seems as if it's both meant to ward people off and draw as much attention as possible to herself. It become very apparently midway through the movie, when she starts butting into conversations and all but demanding that people listen to what she has to say.

->'''Brian Johnson: '''Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong, but we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us ... in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is [[{{Nerd}} a brain]] ...\\
'''Andrew Clark: '''... and [[JerkJock an athlete]] ...\\
'''Allison Reynolds: '''... and [[LonersAreFreaks a basket case]] ...\\
'''Claire Standish: '''... [[AlphaBitch a princess]] ...\\
'''John Bender: '''... and [[{{Delinquents}} a criminal]].\\
'''Brian Johnson:''' Does that answer your question? ... Sincerely yours, [[TitleDrop the Breakfast Club]].

One of the most defining teen movies, it came to represent the genre and launch the careers of its stars, leading to the Creator/BratPack. ''The Breakfast Club'' follows the journey of [[FiveManBand five teenagers]] who have all landed themselves a Saturday detention. The main characters are characterized by their cliques, harassed by angry principal Richard "Dick" Vernon, and aided by Carl, the friendly neighborhood janitor.

* AttentionWhore:
** Bender. He's always insulting somebody (whether it be the principal, the janitor or his peers), and it's obviously for attention. There's also his thorough, speculative impression of Brian's household, and the way he announces it out of nowhere without being asked and just assumes (correctly) they'll all watch.

* TheBGrade: Brian gets a low mark in shop class, meaning he can't get the perfect A's he was striving for.

* BookEnds: The opening and closing narration are alternate versions of the letter Brian writes for Vernon (though the opening is only read by Brian, the ending has all five talking).
* [[BottleEpisode Bottle Movie]]: Every single hijink that the kids partake in is permanently set within Shermer High.
* CerebusCallback: Brian talking about how he failed shop because he couldn't make a ceramic elephant, which leads into a bit of joking on the part of the others. A few minutes later when the entire discussion has gone a bit more dramatic, Brian reveals [[spoiler:he brought a gun to school because he couldn't get the elephant to work, implying he wanted to kill himself]]. It gets subverted when they all end up laughing about it anyway.

* DeanBitterman: Principal Vernon, who as Carl points out, wanted an easy job where children respected him, but couldn't handle the reality and lashed out against the children. At the same time, his mannerisms and facial expressions in many of his individual scenes indicate that he himself doesn't like coordinating the gang's Saturday detention.

** Claire, the AlphaBitch, is a Type A StepfordSmiler who feels that her life is empty, and that her parents only use her as a tool in their endless arguments. And she's hardly the "queen bee"--in fact, it's peer pressure that essentially molded her into the snobbish bitch that she is, and she feels miserably forced into it.

** Playing the trope as straight as can be, all five characters have Coke with their lunch.
** They also have a variation of the trope -- their lunches represent their parents (who packed them) as much as it does the kids. Claire has expensive Japanese food that working-class Bender has never even heard of; Andy has a massive lunch loaded with carbs; Brian has a typical "mama's boy" lunch complete with crustless PB&J; Allison has two slices of white bread and a single piece of bologna, which she ditches to make a Pixy Stix and Cap'n Crunch sandwich on Wonder Bread; and Bender, who neither brought a lunch or was made one by his parents, makes out like he's going to forcibly share Brian's, although he doesn't in the end.

* DysfunctionJunction: Even the apparently happy and popular students have some serious issues (usually stemming from their parents) that they [[StepfordSmiler keep hidden below the surface]].

* PantyShot: Shoved right in your face, too.

* HollywoodDressCode: Downplayed, Brian does not wear glasses to signal that he is a nerd, and Bender does not wear a leather jacket. It has been mentioned on the [=DVD=] they wanted the character to have some originality from their cliques.

* CrapsackWorld: The vast majority of parents and authority figures are [[HumansAreBastards borderline sadists, apathetic, hypocritical, and completely selfish]]. Judging from the great disrepair that Shermer High is in, the faculty isn't so different. These adults cannot be reasoned with, [[MightMakesRight only defied]], and even then, [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption it will inevitably lead to more trouble]]. True happiness in life cannot be achieved, as it is but a fleeting dream, and at the end of the day, the only thing you can really hang on to are people in similar situations as you, but ultimately, this is only temporary. The crazy thing is, for a John Hughes film, this is still ''upbeat''.

* DoWrongRight: Andrew's father in the beginning chastises him not for screwing up, but for getting caught.

* CrapsackWorld: Or rather Crapsack Town, as the adults, aside from Carl, and Bender's mother, aren't very nice to say the least.

* HumansAreBastards

* [[BottleEpisode Bottle Movie]]: Every single hijink that the kids partake in is permanently set within Sherman High.

--> '''Brian:''' What I said is I'm in the Math Club, the Latin Club, and the Physics Club.

* JerkAss:

* AlmightyJanitor

* CrapsackWorld

* LovableAlphaBitch: Claire.

* SuckySchool

* WellDoneSonGuy: Andy.

* BlackAndGrayMorality: The parents of the Club are downright bad people, but the Club themselves operate in lighter shades. Bender is a protagonist and sympathetic character, but also a relentless bully who steals, vandalizes, and harasses the other students, but also deliberately gets himself in trouble to save everyone else from it. Andrew physically assaulted a nerd. Claire belittles and looks down on other people. Brian comes off as an InsufferableGenius at times. Lastly, Allison trolls the rest of the group.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Zigzagged throughout the film. It paints a very cynical portrayal of teen life, as the film's version of Shermer is strongly implied to be a WretchedHive, given all the child abuse. However, the ending is the kids finding some measure of inner peace and self-awareness, learning to make the most of their harsh environments. Some feel it wasn't executed well enough to achieve any manner of hopefulness.

''The Breakfast Club'' was a 1985 film written and directed by the late Creator/JohnHughes, a legend in the teen genre. The five principal actors in the film (MollyRingwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Emilio Estevez, JuddNelson and Ally Sheedy) became part of the "Creator/BratPack", a group of actors whose careers in the 1980s revolved around playing teens in popular movies with each other. This group also included Rob Lowe, Andrew [=McCarthy=] and Creator/DemiMoore.

* DeanBitterman: Principal Vernon, who as Carl points out, wanted an easy job where children respected him, but couldn't handle the reality and lashed out against the children.

'''Andrew Clark: '''... [[JerkJock an athlete]] ...\\
'''Allison Reynolds: '''... [[LonersAreFreaks a basket case]] ...\\

** The dialogue suggests that, come Monday, everything is going back to Status Quo, and no, they won't still be friends.
--->'''Claire:''' "Oh, be honest, Andy...if Brian came walking up to you in the hall on Monday, what would you do? I mean picture this, you're there with all the sports. I know exactly what you'd do, you'd say hi to him and when he left you'd cut him all up so your friends wouldn't think you really liked him!"
*** And yet at the same time, it suggests that it doesn't mean that. It's ''that'' vague.

* DrugsAreGood: Bender brings some grass he had stashed in his school locker and the kids have an eighties montage over smoking it in the school library during detention.

* HollywoodDressCode: Slightly averted, Brian does not wear glasses to signal that he is a nerd, and Bender does not wear a leather jacket. It has been mentioned on the [=DVD=] they wanted the character to have some originality from their cliques.