‘The Breakfast Club’ took place 40 years ago today on March 24, 1984: What are the actors doing now?

It was one of the biggest movies of 1985, grossing $46 million, featured an iconic soundtrack (which hit at No. 17 on the US Billboard 200) and helped to launch the careers of its young cast. The Breakfast Club is considered a classic of 1980s cinema, and four decades on, we take a look at what the cast members are doing today.

The movie begins on 24 March 1984, five high school students report for Saturday detention in the library at Shermer High School in downtown Chicago. They are each assigned to write a 1,000-word essay detailing how they see themselves by vice-principal Richard Vernon.

All five are different personalities who have landed in detention for different reasons. There’s Claire Standish (played by Molly Ringwald), who is the popular ‘princess’ prom queen; sport freak Andrew Clark (Emilio Estevez); John Bender (Judd Nelson), the unruly rebel; socially awkward Brian Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall); and Allison Reynolds (Ally Sheedy) is the shy loner.

As the day unravels, we learn more about each of them and why they’ve ended up being called for Saturday detention.

Fast forward 40 years since it was filmed, let’s look at where The Breakfast Club cast are today and how they have changed.

Judd Nelson (John Bender)

Portland-born Judd was 24 when he was cast as misunderstood teen John Bender who comes from a broken home. He had appeared in two films: Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotel and Making the Grade before getting his big break in John Hughes’ iconic teen movie. A member of the Brat Pack along with co-stars, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy, his next big role was playing Alec Newbury in another coming-of-age movie: Joel Schumacher’s St Elmo’s Fire.

Judd has enjoyed a varied, extensive career in film and television, appearing in productions such as Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Airheads. Most recently, he played Marcus Rainsford in 2022 thriller, The Most Dangerous Game.

He was once engaged to Shannon Doherty and was in a relationship with model Kelly Stafford but he prefers to keep his personal life private.

Emilio Estevez (Andrew Clarke)

Estevez also benefitted from his appearance as the athletic Andrew Clarke in The Breakfast Club although he was already relatively established having worked as a child actor in several films before being cast as Clarke, serving detention for taping another student’s butt cheeks together.

He was in demand in the 90s, starring in The Mighty Ducks, Young Guns, Freejack, Late Last Night and Wisdom. Lately, he has focused more on directing that acting - his last movie role was as Stuart Goodson in The Public in 2018.

He was briefly married to singer Paula Abdul and has two children to his ex-partner Carey Salley, a former model.

Molly Ringwald (Claire Standish)

Along with Anthony Michael Hall, Ringwald was the youngest member of the Breakfast Club, both being just 16 when filming began. An actress since childhood, she had already appeared in a number of movies and popular TV series Diff’rent Strokes.

She went on to enjoy similar success in classic 80s films Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles. She is believed to have turned down lead roles in Pretty Woman and Ghost because she didn’t like the script and revealed that she was rejected from The Silence of the Lambs and Working Girl.

Molly has never been short of work, landing roles in both film and television series. She also does translation work.

After relationships with musicians Dwezil Zappa and Dweezil Zappa and Beastie Boy, Adam Horovitz fizzled out, she married Valéry Lameignère in 1999 only for the marriage to end in divorce three years later. She married her second husband, Panio Gianopoulos in 2007. They have a daughter Mathilda and boy-girl twins.

Anthony Michael Hall (Brian Johnson)

Bostonian Anthony Michael Hall was also a child star, and the youngest member of the gang, starting out in commercials and plays before getting his first major break in Sixteen Candles. He went on to accept a variety of different roles as to not fall into the trap of being typecast as a typical geek. He worked on Saturday Night Live for a year, performing impersonations then starring in films including Out of Bounds (1986), Johnny Be Good (1988), Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Six Degrees of Separation (1993).

Since 2019, Hall has starred as security guard Rusty Perott in ABC’s The Goldbergs. His last film role was in action thriller Trigger Warning which is due for release this year. Hall turns 56 next month, he has been married to Lucia Oskerova since 2020 - they have one child, Michael Anthony Hall II, who came into the world last year.

Ally Sheedy (Alison Reynolds)

Alison Reynolds played shy loner Ally Sheedy, who disgusted her classmates with her revolting personal habits. However, she is the only one not to swear in the movie or smoke joints.

Reynolds was offered plenty of work after The Breakfast Club although she wasn’t keen on the Brat Pack tag which the media labelled the young cast members with. She turned down the role of Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Blackwood played by Kelly McGillis in Top Gun.

In 2022 she returned to television in the Freeform series Single Drunk Female. Her film credits include: Betsy’s Wedding, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Sugar Town, Welcome to the Rileys and X-Men: Apocalypse.

She married actor David Lansbury in 1992. The couple had one child, Rebecca (now Beckett) in 1994 but divorced in 2008.