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The Breakfast Club poster

Movies that feel likeThe Breakfast Club (1985)

Five high school students from different walks of life endure a Saturday detention under a power-hungry principal. The disparate group includes rebel John, princess Claire, outcast Allison, brainy Brian and Andrew, the jock. Each has a chance to tell his or her story, making the others see them a little differently -- and when the day ends, they question whether school will ever be the same.

If you loved The Breakfast Club, the closest films we have are Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), Rushmore (1998) and Breaking Away (1979). All three share The Breakfast Club's witty and playful feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Slums of Beverly Hills (1998).

🍅 87% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.8 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. John Hugheswittyplayfulcontemplativewistful
7 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · Disney Plus · Apple TV

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If The Breakfast Club hit the spot, these will too

Ferris Bueller's Day Off poster
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
1986 · dir. John Hughes
🍅 85%★ 7.8comedyApple TV+Paramount+

The same director's warm sense of teenage rebellion against dull authority

The difference: A joyride caper through one day, not five strangers stuck in one room

After high school slacker Ferris Bueller successfully fakes an illness in order to skip school for the day, he goes on a series of adventures throughout Chicago with his girlfriend Sloane and best friend Cameron, all the while trying to outwit his wily school principal and fed-up sister.

Rushmore poster
Rushmore
1998 · dir. Wes Anderson
🍅 90%★ 7.6comedy · drama

An oddball teen's inner life gets taken seriously instead of dismissed

The difference: A love-triangle comedy centered on one eccentric student's obsessions

When a beautiful first-grade teacher arrives at a prep school, she soon attracts the attention of an ambitious teenager named Max, who quickly falls in love with her. Max turns to the father of two of his schoolmates for advice on how to woo the teacher. However, the situation soon gets complicated when Max's new friend becomes involved with her, setting the two pals against one another in a war for her attention.

Breaking Away poster
Breaking Away
1979 · dir. Peter Yates
🍅 95%★ 7.7drama · comedy

A wistful look at teenagers figuring out who they are outside labels

The difference: A cycling-underdog story about class, not a single day of confinement

Dave, nineteen, has just graduated high school, with his three friends: the comical Cyril, the warm hearted but short-tempered Moocher, and the athletic, spiteful but good-hearted Mike. Now, Dave enjoys racing bikes and hopes to race the Italians one day, and even takes up the Italian culture, much to his friends' and parents' annoyance.

The Squid and the Whale poster
The Squid and the Whale
2005 · dir. Noah Baumbach
🍅 91%★ 7.3comedy · dramaNetflix

A wry, wistful look at how kids carry family baggage into adolescence

The difference: A divorce drama seen through two brothers, sharper and more painful

Based on the true childhood experiences of Noah Baumbach and his brother, The Squid and the Whale tells the touching story of two young boys dealing with their parents' divorce in Brooklyn in the 1980s.

Slums of Beverly Hills poster
Slums of Beverly Hills
1998 · dir. Tamara Jenkins
🍅 82%★ 6.7comedy · drama

The same preoccupation in both: growing up

In 1976, a teenage girl struggles to cope while living with her neurotic lower-middle-class family of nomads on the outskirts of Beverly Hills.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl poster
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
2015 · dir. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
🍅 81%★ 7.7drama · comedyRent or buy

A guarded teenager forced into connection he didn't expect to want

The difference: A friendship drama shadowed by illness, gentler and more melancholy

Greg is coasting through senior year of high school as anonymously as possible, avoiding social interactions like the plague while secretly making spirited, bizarre films with Earl, his only friend. But both his anonymity and friendship threaten to unravel when his mother forces him to befriend a classmate with leukemia.

3 Idiots poster
3 Idiots
2009 · dir. Rajkumar Hirani
🍅 94%★ 8.4drama · comedy

Friends challenging a rigid system that reduces them to their labels

The difference: A college-set Bollywood comedy-drama, broader in scope and musical

Rascal. Joker. Dreamer. Genius... You've never met a college student quite like "Rancho." From the moment he arrives at India's most prestigious university, Rancho's outlandish schemes turn the campus upside down—along with the lives of his two newfound best friends. Together, they make life miserable for "Virus," the school’s uptight and heartless dean. But when Rancho catches the eye of the dean's daughter, Virus sets his sights on flunking out the "3 idiots" once and for all.

Eighth Grade poster
Eighth Grade
2018 · dir. Bo Burnham
🍅 99%★ 7.3comedy · dramaNetflix

An anxious teenager's inner world gets treated with real empathy

The difference: A middle-schooler's solo social-media struggle, not group confession

Thirteen-year-old Kayla endures the tidal wave of contemporary suburban adolescence as she makes her way through the last week of middle school — the end of her thus far disastrous eighth grade year — before she begins high school.

Superbad poster
Superbad
2007 · dir. Greg Mottola
🍅 88%★ 7.6comedyApple TV+Paramount+

Awkward teenagers thrown together for one unpredictable, bonding day

The difference: A raunchier booze-fueled teen comedy, cruder and less introspective

Two co-dependent high school seniors are forced to deal with separation anxiety after their plan to stage a booze-soaked party goes awry.

Booksmart poster
Booksmart
2019 · dir. Olivia Wilde
🍅 96%★ 7.1comedyRent or buy

Overachievers realizing there's more to high school than the rules they followed

The difference: A one-night party chase comedy, louder and more frantic in pace

Two academic teenage superstars realize, on the eve of their high school graduation, that they should have worked less and played more. Determined to never fall short of their peers, the girls set out on a mission to cram four years of fun into one night.

Big poster
Big
1988 · dir. Penny Marshall
🍅 98%★ 7.3fantasy · drama · comedyDisney+

A wistful look at the gap between who you are and who you're expected to be

The difference: A magical body-swap fantasy, not a single day of forced honesty

When a young boy makes a wish at a carnival machine to be big, he wakes up the following morning to find that it has been granted and his body has grown older overnight, but he is still the same 13-year-old boy inside. Now he must learn how to cope with the unfamiliar world of grown-ups, including getting a job and having his first romantic encounter with a woman.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles poster
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
1987 · dir. John Hughes
🍅 93%★ 7.6comedyParamount+

The same director's gift for mismatched people wearing down each other's walls

The difference: An adult road-trip comedy about travel chaos, not teenage self-discovery

An irritable marketing executive, Neal Page, is heading home to Chicago for Thanksgiving when a number of delays force him to travel with a well meaning but overbearing shower curtain ring salesman, Del Griffith.

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The best-reviewed films that share The Breakfast Club’s defining feeling.