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Best John Hughes Movies: 10 Classic Films And Their Soundtrack Highlights

With memorable soundtracks that reflect their characters’ innermost feelings, the best John Hughes films remain touchstones of teen cinema.

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Jeanette Leech

06 August 2024

“I think people are more interesting than plot,” the late director John Hughes said in 1986. “My movies aren’t so much what happens, but how it happens.” The best John Hughes movies don’t have labyrinthine storylines nor sweeping cinematography. Instead, these films tell of minutiae and barely-perceptible peer dynamics – and they do so with a heart that’s unique in US cinema, while also using music in a way that makes many song choices as memorable as the scenes they soundtrack.

John Hughes was a writer first, and this list of the best John Hughes movies contains works that he has written as well as those he has directed. Hughes would often write quickly – especially during the 80s, the decade in which he built his fame. “When I did Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” he said in 1985, “I had the idea on Monday and the following Tuesday it was in budget at Paramount.” He wrote the script in less than a week.

Although John Hughes has made films aimed at adult and family audiences, it will always be his teen-oriented work that is most beloved. “It can be hard to remember how scarce art for and about teenagers was before John Hughes arrived,” Molly Ringwald, who starred in many of these films, has said. The candour of these movies, and their respectful tone towards adolescents, changed the portrayal of teenagers on screen forever.

This was matched by the music used in the best John Hughes movies. Often featuring alternative or new-wave artists – exactly the kind of songs his characters would have listened to – they soundtracked some memorable moments throughout his films. Tarquin Gotch, Hughes’ music supervisor during the 80s, has said that this was very personal to Hughes. “Having import music and alternative music in high school gave him a credibility that the jocks didn’t have,” Gotch revealed in 2023. “So it very much was his badge. And that stayed throughout his life.”

Here, then, are the best John Hughes movies – and the musical moments that became pop-cultural touchstones.

Best John Hughes Movies: 10 Classic Films And Their Memorable Songs

10: ‘Sixteen Candles’ (1984)

John Hughes’ first film as director, Sixteen Candles, ushered in a new era of teen movie – one in which anxieties, sexual insecurity and the outsized impacts of what your friends think were writ large on the cinema screen. “I was not Jake,” Hughes said in 1984, when discussing his own teenage past, as compared to the characters he created. “I was much more geek-like. Did not have a car. Did not have those cheekbones. I had to make my way by moving fast and lying a lot.”

However, watching Sixteen Candles today – despite its respect for the awkward and compassion for the nerds – is uncomfortable. The exchange-student character Long Duk Dong is perilously close to a stereotype, and date rape is treated as a punchline. Molly Ringwald, who plays Sam in Sixteen Candles, has reflected on watching the film more recently. “Times were different and what was acceptable then is definitely not acceptable now and nor should it have been then, but that’s sort of the way it was,” she has said. “I feel very differently about the movies now, and it’s a difficult position for me to be in because there’s a lot I like about them.”

Soundtrack highlight: David Bowie: Young Americans

Music suffuses Sixteen Candles, accurately representing how all-encompassing pop can feel to teenagers. The title track from the Young Americans album, David Bowie’s “plastic soul” masterpiece, plays during the build-up to the marriage of Sam’s sister.

9: ‘Home Alone 2: Lost In New York’ (1992)

John Hughes was pleased, yet not surprised, at the triumph of the first Home Alone movie. Its record-breaking success created “a fair amount of pressure”, as he said in 1992: “The first movie sets a standard that you have to at least achieve and hopefully surpass.” He tackled this by creating four possible scenarios for a sequel, eventually settling on New York City as a location that would offer the most scope for the franchise’s signature brand of physical comedy.

With a bigger budget and using Manhattan as its playbox, Home Alone 2: Lost In New York was a ferociously popular sequel to what was already one of the best John Hughes movies. For the second and final time, Macaulay Culkin played Kevin McCallister; in this movie, he accidentally boards a flight to New York and revisits mayhem on his old adversaries, Harry and Marv. It’s a tribute to Culkin’s precocious acting skill that, despite now being two years older, he still completely and brilliantly inhabits the role of Kevin.

“I think every boy, every girl is Kevin,” Hughes said. “Kids are far more clever than we give them credit for. And that’s a big part of the appeal.”

Soundtrack highlight: Darlene Love: All Alone On Christmas

Darlene Love is a powerhouse singer, and was one of the featured vocalists on A Christmas Gift For You, the 1963 Christmas album produced by Phil Spector. All Alone On Christmas is similar in style to her work with Spector and is the perfect accompaniment for Kevin exploring the wonder of the Big Apple.

8: ‘Uncle Buck’ (1989)

John Hughes wrote, directed and produced Uncle Buck, his first film under a new contract with Universal Studios. It proved a solid move into family-friendly comedy, although the sensitivity towards teenagers remained via the character of Tia (played by Jean Louisa Kelly). “I really identified with the character,” Kelly said in 2016. “She has just moved from her home to a new town. She’s feeling alienated and isolated, on top of being a teenager, which is alienating and isolating in and of itself.” Hughes never forgot those feelings and, even when young adults weren’t the focus of a movie, he portrayed them with care.

Hughes had worked with Uncle Buck’s star, John Candy, before – their relationship dated back to Hughes’ National Lampoon days in the early 80s – and their rapport was strong. “John Hughes really just let John Candy take the ball and go with it,” Kelly remembered, reflecting on how the organic nature of the movie – notably the pivotal scene in the bowling alley – created a rare authenticity and energy.

Soundtrack highlight: Tone Loc: Wild Thing

Spewing exhaust fumes, Uncle Buck’s car pulls up to Winona Elementary School to the beat of this hip-hop classic. Buck struts the halls before being confounded by the little-kid urinals.

7: ‘Weird Science’ (1985)

A curious mix of Frankenstein, WarGames and Revenge Of The Nerds, Weird Science is about two teenage boys constructing their perfect female. “So,” says Lisa, the woman they brought into being, addressing her creators, “what would you little maniacs like to do first?”

The story was based on a 50s comic and, despite all the 80s technology on show, it retains a strong retro camp sensibility. Kelly LeBrock, who plays Lisa, is also outstanding; in a lesser actor’s hands, an adolescent-created sexpot would be as one dimensional as that descriptor suggests. Instead, the film punctures masculinity, celebrates female intellect and is kind towards the frustrations of its central geek characters.

Soundtrack highlight: Cheyne: Private Joy

Written by Prince and previously released on his 1981 album, Controversy, Private Joy is reworked by R&B singer Cheyne, whose twist on the original lyrics – about a jealously-guarded perfect partner – expertly fit Weird Science’s themes.

6: ‘She’s Having A Baby’ (1988)

Despite the title, and its status as a romantic comedy, She’s Having A Baby actually deals with a lot of the (unromantic and unfunny) issues around not having a baby. Low sperm counts, fertility treatment and birth trauma all feature in this tale of a young couple struggling with the narrow path to adulthood.

Among the best John Hughes movies, this one is is often cited as the director’s most personal work, as it is a semi-autobiographical reflection on the early married relationship between Hughes and his wife, Nancy Ludwig. “We see a lot of movies about courtship, and the breakup of relationships,” Hughes said at the time of the film’s release. “You know, a good marriage is about hammering at it every day, and working on it, and that’s what this film is about.”

Soundtrack highlight: Kate Bush: This Woman’s Work

Used at the film’s climax, during the scene in which Kristy (Elizabeth McGovern) gives birth and Jake (Kevin Bacon) waits anxiously for news, This Woman’s Work was written by Kate Bush especially for the film. Bush said she “really enjoyed doing it”, and even thanked John Hughes in the sleevenotes to her 1989 album, The Sensual World (which featured a new edit of This Woman’s Work).

5: ‘Planes, Trains And Automobiles’ (1987)

An odd-couple road-movie comedy, Planes, Trains And Automobiles was a big success and retained a sharp edge thanks to the performances of John Candy (as Del) and Steve Martin (as Neal). “This movie is based on an incident that actually happened to me,” Hughes has said. “When I was an advertising copywriter I set out from New York to Chicago on Thanksgiving weekend and, after a five-day delay, ended up in Phoenix, Arizona, via Wichita, Kansas.”

Planes, Trains And Automobiles became notorious for one scene in particular. A very frustrated Neal confronts a car-rental organisation in a potty-mouthed microcosm of how individuals feel when up against the uncaring face of corporations. “The F word is used in one sequence,” Hughes said of the controversy at a 1987 press conference. “But only 19 times,” added Steve Martin.

Soundtrack highlight: Ray Charles: Mess Around

Del, driving, smoking, hand-jiving, playing air piano and clearly having a ball to this boogie classic by Ray Charles, veers all over the highway while Neal attempts to sleep.

4: ‘Home Alone’ (1990)

“There’s a fear that children have of being left behind, and there’s a fear that adults have of leaving them behind,” Hughes said in 1990. “I thought that would be a good emotion to build a movie on.” Written by Hughes when he was on holiday – and wondering what would happen if he accidently forgot his own children – Home Alone was an enormous hit. Thanks to its snappy script, perfect casting and anarchic energy, the movie captured the spirit of modern Christmas and remains not only one of the best John Hughes movies, but also one of the most beloved family films of the era.

John Hughes had previously directed Macaulay Culkin in Uncle Buck, and therefore had an inkling that the young actor would make an unforgettable Kevin. “I’m going to have to write like a seven-year-old boy thinks,” Hughes said. “[Culkin] was in the back of my mind. I had just finished Uncle Buck and had a wonderful experience with him there. He was a great deal of fun to work with.”

Soundtrack highlight: John Williams: Somewhere In My Memory

This gently lilting festive tune (with its mischievous musical motifs) features throughout the tale of Kevin’s valiant homestead defence. The track is now something of a standard for children worldwide at school concerts, keeping the “little jerk” as a proud part of every Christmas.

3: ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ (1986)

Bueller. Bueller. Bueller. Bueller. The joyful Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was a paean to friendship, freedom and looking around once in a while. Although the charismatic Bueller, played by Matthew Broderick, is the charm magnet, Hughes’ sympathy lies with Bueller’s anxious best friend, Cameron. Hughes based Cameron on someone (“a lost person”, as Hughes described him) that he went to high school with.

The urge for breaking out is such a universal one that, for most of the adults, too, there is a desire to have their own unauthorised day off. “When I was writing the script, I said, if I was a teacher, and it was a beautiful day in May, it hit 70 for the first time, I don’t think I’d want to be in there either,” Hughes said in 1987. “The teachers must want out, too. So I did these classroom scenes where the teachers are almost as bored as the kids.”

Soundtrack highlight: Yello: Oh Yeah

“Ferris,” says a half-nervous, half-excited Cameron. “My father loves this car more than life itself.” Ferris, leaning against the gleaming bonnet of his friend’s dad’s Ferrari, says that “a man with priorities so far out of whack doesn’t deserve such a fine automobile”. Clearly, Ferris and Cameron do deserve it, so they fire the car up to the strains of this German new wave classic.

2: ‘Pretty In Pink’ (1986)

Although the story of Pretty In Pink centres on the love triangle between Blaine (Andrew McCarthy), Andie (Molly Ringwald) and Jon Cryer (Duckie), the movie has an astonishing wider cast that elevates the film into an all-time classic among the best John Hughes movies. There’s Harry Dean Stanton, as Andie’s struggling dad; Annie Potts playing Iona, the coolest record-store manager of all time; and James Spader as the incredibly spiteful Steff, who spits out some of the best lines of all (“Why don’t you take a shower? You look like shit”).

Pretty In Pink started with a song – The Psychedelic Furs’ track of the same name, which was originally released in 1981. John Hughes was inspired by its lyrics and its use of the colour pink more generally; pink was Molly Ringwald’s favourite colour at the time, and the part of Andie was written especially for her. Ringwald’s performance in the film is one of her best-ever, as a broke and motherless teenager trying to navigate hostile class and classroom dynamics.

“Everybody’s a little damaged in this film,” Annie Potts said of Pretty In Pink in 1986. “Everybody has little chinks taken out of their heart.”

Soundtrack highlight: The Smiths: Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want

This gem, originally released as a B-side to William, It Was Really Nothing, plays while a lovelorn Duckie tries in vain to accept Andie’s romantic disinterest in him. The Smiths also appear in poster form in the record shop, Trax, where Iona works.

1: ‘The Breakfast Club’ (1985)

“I had many a studio executive say, well, there’s no story. They come in the morning, and then they leave,” John Hughes said in 1987 of The Breakfast Club. “But it’s not that kind of story. It’s about, who are these people, what are they like, and why are they acting the way they’re acting?”

Topping this list of the best John Hughes movies, The Breakfast Club redefined teen cinema. The film, set in just a single day, depicts a detention for five high-school stereotypes: the brainbox, the popular girl, the rebel, the athlete and the misfit. Together, the five argue and bond and cry and laugh, but they suspect that their new understanding is ephemeral and won’t survive contact with school’s realities on Monday morning. It’s a film that takes seriously the parental and peer pressures that teenagers are under, no matter what their high-school standing or the pigeonholes they feel forced in to.

“What the picture is saying to adults, what those characters are saying to adults, is ‘please listen to me’,” Hughes said. “And I think a lot of adults took issue with that.”

Soundtrack highlight: Wang Chung: Fire In The Twilight

Although Simple Minds’ Don’t You (Forget About Me) is the most famous song used in the film, this 80s power-pop number by Wang Chung accompanies one of the most exciting moments: the detainees scrabbling down the hallway to avoid the Vice Principal.

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Best John Hughes Movies: 10 Classic Films And Their Soundtrack Highlights