182 of 1001 Movies: Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

With The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and among other writing credits, John Hughes shows he just knows how the teenage mind works, and instead of bashing or throwing off on it for being a different generation than his he instead commends a lot of the aspects of the fun of just being a teenager. To be honest, a lot of teen movies don't capture the true identity of being a teen anymore. They focus on all these very warped aspects that make it look as depressing as it is being a teenager. When I was a teen I didn't need to have a pity fest with the movie I was watching, I wish instead I just made myself live in a realm for a few hours where being a teen was actually cool, and not everyone had to look really pretty and hot, but for some reason you all still really despised authority.

Summary: Ferris wants a day out of school, so the best way to do that is fake sick and get his parents to believe him. There is one adult though who isn't going to be quite as easy to get rid of though, his principal, Mr. Rooney. He is now set up outside his home looking for proof that the days he's been absent are all lies. Ferris though is out living it up, and even persuades his friend Cameron to get out of his sick bed and join him, and makes a plan to get his girlfriend out of school so they can all live it up in the city for one day.

95 of 1001 Movies: The Breakfast Club (1985)

John Hughes is sort of like the voice of teenagers, especially if you lived in the 80s and grew up with movies like Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Sixteen Candles, and most popularly The Breakfast Club. Hughes knew how to capture the thoughts and emotions of teenagers that resonates with people who even aren't teenagers. If John Hughes was the translator of the teenage mind, as he also wrote many teenage films, than Molly Ringwald was the face of the 80s teen as she starred in plenty.

Five students are given Saturday School Detention, and to make matters more interesting they all come from different stereotypes. There is the jock, the nerd, the popular girl, the rebel, and the goth sort of weird girl. The detention starts out a little rough when John, the rebel, keeps trying to pull pranks on the principal, and bother the other students he is assigned detention with. As the five begin to talk to each other though they learn each has their own obstacles and pressure they feel from the outside world that has led them to this moment where they are sitting in detention together.