TSPDT

Key Production Country: USA
Key Genres: Comedy, Drama, Family, Teen Comedy, Coming-of-Age, Comedy Drama, Romance, Teen Movie, Buddy Film, Romantic Comedy, Farce, Buddy Comedy
Key Collaborators: John W. Corso (Production Designer), Ira Newborn (Composer), Anthony Michael Hall (Leading Actor), Edie McClurg (Character Actress), John Candy (Character Actor), Molly Ringwald (Leading Actress), Tom Jacobson (Producer), Donald Peterman (Cinematographer), Paul Hirsch (Editor), Kevin Bacon (Leading Character Actor), Paul Gleason (Character Actor), William Windom (Character Actor)

"A former writer for National Lampoon magazine, this fabulously successful filmmaker, arguably the most facile chronicler of the baby boom zeitgeist, has tapped into middle-class suburban life and sensibilities with considerable skill." - Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopaedia, 1995

"John Hughes became an influential producer, writer and director, and the driving force behind the teen-comedy boom of the mid-1980s. With a light touch and sharp eye, Hughes wrote and directed colourful films that both celebrated and dissected the American adolescent experience. A prolific filmmaker until his untimely death in 2009, Hughes’ back catalogue is a mix of enduring nostalgia and timeless comedy." - Nikki Baughan (BFI, 2017)

"Writer-director John Hughes merits consideration particularly in relation to the status of genre filmmaking in late-twentieth-century Hollywood… By the 1980s few filmmakers were content to make just plain genre films (as opposed to revisionist or reflexive or hybrid works) and even less to carve out a niche, an identity, as genre filmmakers. Hughes was an exception. In the mid-1980s he directed a series of "teen" films - among them Sixteen Candles (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985), and Pretty in Pink (1986) [actually directed by Howard Deutch] - that depicted the perennial struggles of teenage life in the setting of affluent suburbia. Then, in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), which became his biggest box office success, Hughes stepped over to the reflexive mode, treating teen fantasies and anxieties both seriously and as farce comedy." - Robert Sklar (Film: An International History of the Medium, 1993)

"Hughes's widely adored protagonists could range from a misfit in thrift-shop threads (Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink) to a slick Jack-the-Lad outwitting the teacher who would thwart his truancy (Matthew Broderick in Ferris Bueller's Day Off). What united these figures was the spirit of individuality and defiance they retained in the face of a stifling, conformist adult world. No wonder the films were prized by audiences of equivalent age, who felt both understood and flattered by these celebratory snapshots of their generation." - Ryan Gilbey (The Guardian, 2009)

"John Hughes' films are set in the familiar mid-American landscape of well-lit shopping malls, neat two-story houses, and - most especially - locker-lined high school corridors. Peopled by the denizens of middle- and upper-middle-class suburbia, they focus on the discontented children of baby boomers… At his best, Hughes deftly blends comedy and drama, digging beneath the superficial tranquility of suburbia to examine the restive quality of modern American life." - The Hollywood.com Guide to Film Directors, 2004

"Many filmmakers portray teenagers as immoral and ignorant, with pursuits that are pretty base. But I haven't found that to be the case. I listen to kids. I respect them. Some of them are as bright as any of the adults I've met." - John Hughes