There are several acting “packs” throughout Hollywood history — before the Brat Pack, there was the Rat Pack with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. After both of those, though, came the comedy-based Frat Pack with Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, and Owen Wilson.
With regard to the Pack at hand, the “Brats”, they defined the term “teen star” and channeled the archetypes of adolescence in their characters. With some of the movies under their belt viewed among the most popular of the 1980s, this group of young stars rose to quick prominence in this decade, and although some of them have fallen off the public radar, others are still among the most famous actors living today.
The Brat Pack's Core Members
This is the only one of the aforementioned acting groups that featured females to any official degree — Molly Ringwald, Demi Moore, and Ally Sheedy. Three of the most iconic thespians of the 1980s. And what’s more is that they’re perhaps the most prominent of this entire group, particularly Ringwald and Sheedy who starred in a respective five total films that are associated with the Brat Pack.
On the opposite end of the gender spectrum, the guys from the group included Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Andrew McCarthy, Judd Nelson, and Rob Lowe. Some familiar names for modern audiences like Estevez and Lowe, and some perhaps more obscure ones such as McCarthy and Nelson.
The major titles often attributed to this group are The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo’s Fire — two coming-of-age dramas from 1985. But it all started with Emilio Estevez and Rob Lowe appearing in The Outsiders back in 1983. Any given pair of those names listed above went on to appear in exactly one dozen films between ’83 and 1990, culminating in a project called Betsy’s Wedding (1990) with Ally Sheedy as Connie and Molly Ringwald as the titular Betsy.
And, seriously: aside from those, their two most popular projects, only two of the actors starred in a given film from a list of their collaborations — Class (1983) only featured Rob Lowe and Andrew McCarthy, while Blue City (1986) just had Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy. But no matter the number of collaborators it takes within a given cast for the respective film to be considered part of the Brat Pack’s catalog, several of these associated titles made tremendous money at the box office and garnered impressive reviews from critics.
Critical and Commercial Responses
While St. Elmo’s Fire made decent money at the box office — $37.8 million on a $10 million budget — it didn’t exactly make waves with critics. It holds a meager 42% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and Rob Lowe actually won a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor for his work herein.
However, earlier that same year, John Hughes released The Breakfast Club to great critical response, and it made $51.5 million on a greatly disparate $1 million budget. Plus, it's since been deemed "historically, culturally, or aesthetically relevant" enough to be selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. There really is no overstating the importance of this John Hughes classic — not regarding the work of the director, the cast, or anyone else even remotely involved. Everyone reading this knows its impact, and it's the reason the group has lived on this long.
But that's not to say it's the only quality film delivered by the Brats. Other critically popular films associated herein are Sixteen Candles (1984) with Anthony Michael Hall and Molly Ringwald, and Pretty in Pink (1986) with Ringwald and Andrew McCarthy. Both were well-received and made decent money at the box office, but in the end, the quintessential Brat Pack film will always be The Breakfast Club.
The Brat Pack’s Legacy
The 1980s are a beloved decade for movies replete with cult classics that all harness a distinctly "eighties" style, as if every single movie from this decade was made by the same director. And the Brat Pack helped mold that legacy. However, as a group of associated actors, their reputation was damaged toward the end of their eighties run due to a series of individual blunders within the professional and personal lives of a few specific actors.
A sex scandal for Rob Lowe, alcohol issues for Andrew McCarthy, and drug abuse for Ally Sheedy — these are among the most prominent issues associated with the Pack after the 1980s. The nineties and beyond were a make-or-break decade for the Brats. Many of them broke, while others like Demi Moore continued to make names for themselves as individual entities of Hollywood.
The bulk of their legacy will forever revolve around The Breakfast Club, and aside from that, the only film that truly starred multiple core actors of the group was St. Elmo's Fire. However, with other films under their collective belt like The Outsiders, Sixteen Candles, and Pretty in Pink, the well-known group of former teen stars will forever live on thanks to their indelible contributions to Hollywood.