Saturday, March 24, 1984. Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois. Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was that we did wrong…
Thus begins The Breakfast Club, widely considered one of the most iconic teen films of all time. Selected for preservation in the US Library of Congress’s National Film Registry as a “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” film in 2016, The Breakfast Club was written, directed, and produced by legendary filmmaker John Hughes. The film follows a group of high school students from different cliques who must serve a Saturday detention together, starring an ensemble cast of popular teen actors of the 1980s commonly referred to as members of the “Brat Pack”: Molly Ringwald, Emilio Esteves, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall, and Judd Nelson.
The Breakfast Club was released theatrically on February 15, 1985—exactly forty years ago today—and grossed $51.5 million against a $1 million budget at the box office. To celebrate this landmark anniversary, here’s a list of 1980s teen films to watch based on your favorite Jane Austen novel.
Pride and Prejudice
Although I’ve encountered many people who (erroneously) categorize John Hughes’s Pretty in Pink (1986) as an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, it’s not the film I would recommend to fans of the novel’s love-to-hate-and-hate-to-love-you romance. While Pretty in Pink does rank as my favorite movie of all time, it has little in common with Pride and Prejudice besides an emphasis on class commentary. Alternatively, Rob Reiner’s The Sure Thing (1985) tells the hilarious story of two Ivy Leaguers who must re-evaluate their horrible first impressions of one another when they are forced to travel cross-country together to visit their respective love interests at UCLA during winter break. This charming film is half coming-of-age drama, half screwball road trip comedy, and perfect for fans of Elizabeth and Darcy’s slow-burn, opposites-attract love story.
Sense and Sensibility
If you love the strong, sisterly bond that Marianne and Elinor share in Sense and Sensibility, look no further than Donald Petrie’s Mystic Pizza (1988). Daisy and Kat are two sisters who couldn’t be more different: Daisy is wild and fun-loving, while Kat is serious, subdued, and future-focused. Alongside their goofy, commitment-phobe friend Jojo, they’ll learn a lot about love, life, maturity, and pizza in the summer after their senior year of high school.
Mansfield Park
For fans of Mansfield Park, you can’t go wrong with Sixteen Candles (1984), John Hughes’s first teen-focused film, released just one year before The Breakfast Club. Sixteen Candles recounts the tale of Samantha Baker’s sixteenth birthday, chronicling the average American teenager's awkward transition from adolescence to young adulthood with Hughes’s signature humor. Like Fanny Price, Sam is hopelessly in love with a guy—the cooler, older Jake Ryan—who doesn’t seem to know she exists. But like Fanny, whose patience and devotion eventually win the love of Edmund Bertram, Sam eventually sails off into the sunset with her Prince Charming (in his shiny red Porsche 944, to boot!).
Persuasion
Although Say Anything (1989) doesn’t follow the exact narrative trajectory of Persuasion, it comes pretty darn close. In the summer after their senior year of high school, beautiful and remarkably intelligent class valedictorian Diane falls for Lloyd, a middle-class goofball who avoids planning for the future at all costs. Diane’s wealthy father disapproves of the match and initially convinces Diane to break up with him; however, when her father is convicted of a serious crime, Diane rekindles her relationship with Lloyd, who helps her cope with the fallout. Much like Persuasion, which is Austen’s most mature novel, Say Anything is one of the heaviest teen films of the eighties, and the two complement each other nicely.
Northanger Abbey
Austen’s satire of popular seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Gothic fiction meets its match in Fright Night (1985), a delightfully fun horror flick parodying melodramatic vampire films of the 1950s and 60s. Like Northanger Abbey’s Catherine Morland, whose obsession with Gothic novels leads her to believe her new husband’s estate is full of ghastly secrets, Fright Night’s Charley Brewster is convinced that his new neighbor is a bloodsucking creature of the night—but unlike Catherine, Charley is right!
Emma
Okay, I’m totally cheating here since Amy Heckerling's iconic teen film Clueless (1995) didn’t actually come out in the eighties, but how could I pass up the opportunity to highlight one of the most beloved Austen adaptations of all time? Especially when it also happens to be a dazzling nod to 1990s pop culture and the Californian craze of the late twentieth century. I can forgive its lack of teased hair and a bombastic rock soundtrack in favor of Cher’s tech-savvy outfit pairing software, totally terrific Valley Girl slang, and young Paul Rudd's face (duh).
If you’re venturing into the world of 1980s teen cinema for the first time, or if you're just looking to revisit a few old favorites, some of my other recommendations include Pretty in Pink (of course), Just One of the Guys, Weird Science, Better Off Dead, The Lost Boys, Valley Girl, Can’t Buy Me Love, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and naturally, The Breakfast Club.
Did I leave out any of your favorites? Let us know in the comments below!
Author’s Note: Some films appearing on this list include language, cultural stereotypes, and sexual content that are inconsistent with today’s standards of inclusion and tolerance and may offend some viewers. Such prejudices and behaviors, although a product of their time, were wrong then and remain unacceptable today. The Jane Austen Summer Program does not condone discrimination, harassment, or bigotry of any kind; nor does this author.
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