Ally Sheedy

A drifter returns to his Florida hometown only to discover that his father, the local mayor, was mysteriously murdered during his absence. Vowing to find the killer and avenge his father's death, he starts his own investigation. Returning to the small Florida town where he grew up, Billy Turner (Nelson) learns that his father has been killed. With little help from the police, Billy will take matters into his own hands and go up against a ruthless local mob boss in a desperate search to find the killer. —leopardo_delle_nevi

Four months after their college graduation, Wendy Beamish (Mare Winningham) and William "Billy" Hicks (Rob Lowe) are in an automobile accident, and their friends, Alec Newberry (Judd Nelson), Kirby "Kirbo" Kegger (Emilio Estevez), Kevin Dolenz (Andrew McCarthy), Leslie Hunter (Ally Sheedy), and Jules (Demi Moore), rush to the hospital. The victims suffer only minor injuries after Billy crashed Wendy's new car while drunk. Jules chastises Wendy for paying Billy's medical fees after he destroyed the car her father gave her as a graduation gift. Billy is arrested for the incident. At the hospital, Kirby sees Dale Bieberman (Andie MacDowell), a beautiful doctor he recognizes from college, and his former crush is reignited. Jules posts Billy's bail, and the friends gather at St. Elmo's Bar, where Kirby works. Leslie and Jules question Wendy for accepting Billy's careless behavior. However, Wendy's low self-esteem and romantic interest in Billy prevent her from cutting him out of her life. Meanwhile, Billy telephones his estranged wife, and mother of his child, then flirts with several girls at the bar. Alec is angry when he learns Billy lost the job in a senator's office that he helped get for Billy. The friends quickly resolve their arguments, however, and happily dance and drink together. Sometime later, Alec discusses his political aspirations with his girl friend Leslie, and suggests they get married. Leslie believes they are not yet ready for marriage. The couple get a late-night visit from Jules, who needs a place to sleep for the night. Elsewhere, roommates Kevin and Kirby talk about Kirby's intense infatuation with Dale Bieberman, and Billy arrives to spend the night. Sometime later, Alec helps Billy obtain another job. Kevin visits Jules's new apartment and wonders how she can afford such an expensive place. Jules asks why nothing sexual ever happened between them, and accuses him of being homosexual and in love with Alec. Kevin denies the accusations, and quickly leaves. Kirby invites Dale Bieberman to an expensive restaurant to impress her, however, the busy doctor has to leave when she is called for an emergency. Leslie cooks dinner for Kevin, who tells her he gave up on love after a girl broke his heart. When Alec returns with a gift of lingerie for Leslie, he confides to Kevin that he cheated on Leslie with the sales girl. He vows he would be faithful if Leslie would agree to marry him, but Kevin is doubtful. Later, Jules gets high while snorting cocaine and telephones Alec to rescue her from a group of strange men. He arrives and accuses her of "crying wolf." Billy visits Wendy at the welfare office where she works, and admits that he lost his new job. Wendy brings him home to have dinner with her wealthy family, and borrows money from her father to give to Billy, who shocks her uptight family by climbing onto the roof. Wendy finds his antics charming, and reveals to him that she is still a virgin. Billy makes a clumsy pass at her, and embarrasses her by making fun of her undergarments. Wendy gives him the rent money he needs, then says she no longer wants to see him. On Halloween, the friends gather at St. Elmo's Bar, where Billy plays saxophone with his band. Alec asks Kevin if he can use his apartment to have sex with the lingerie sales girl, and Wendy arrives with a nerdy date named Howie Krantz (Jon Cutler). Jules continues her wild behavior, and jumps onstage. Billy kisses her while Wendy watches. Billy's wife, Felicia (Jenny Wright), arrives with her own date, and the friends worry how he will react. Billy stops the show to yell at Felicia from stage, then jumps down and punches her date. The fight continues outside the bar, and Billy curses at his wife. Moments later, Billy and Felicia kiss passionately. In time, when Wendy and Leslie have an intervention with Jules over her affair with her married boss, she dismisses their concern. Wendy hesitantly asks Leslie about Billy. Kirby's obsession with Dale Bieberman continues. He follows her to a private party, and admits his feelings to her. She attempts to dash his hopes by listing her many flaws, but Kirby mistakenly believes she is not interested in him because he lacks money, and makes it his mission to become wealthy. Meanwhile, Felicia asks Billy for an annulment, but he denies her, and vows to become a better husband and father to their daughter, Melody. Kirby takes a job as attaché to a wealthy businessman, and throws a party at the man's estate to impress Dale. Wendy's father buys her another car as a bribe to marry Howie, but she remains unenthusiastic. The friends arrive at Kirby's party, but Dale Bieberman fails to attend. Wendy introduces Howie to Billy, and Billy tells her that things are going well between him and Felicia. He apologizes to Wendy for hurting her, then crassly asks if she is still a virgin. Billy takes drugs with Jules, and Alec announces a false wedding date to the crowd, in an attempt to get Leslie to commit. They argue in private, and Leslie accuses him of having an affair. Alec blames Kevin for revealing his secret, then lunges at him. Leslie stops the fight saying it was only a hunch, but Alec's response has proven his guilt. Alec shocks Leslie by demanding she move out of their apartment. Jules drives Billy home and he kisses her. Billy becomes aggressive, and Jules fights him off, saying she only needed a friend to talk to. She accuses him of letting everyone down, and Felicia opens the front door to see her drunken husband in the driveway with Jules. Elsewhere, Kirby learns that Dale Bieberman has gone to a cabin for the weekend, and he follows her. He is embarrassed to discover that she is there with her boyfriend. He attempts to leave, but his car gets stuck in the snow. Dale and her date invite him to spend the night in their cabin. Meanwhile, Leslie stays at Kevin's apartment and discovers that he has been secretly in love with her for years. She and Kevin have sex, and in the morning, Alec arrives to apologize to Kevin, unaware that Leslie is there. When Leslie comes out from the bedroom, Alec is stunned. Kirby gets his car unstuck from the snow, and Dale Bieberman kindly says goodbye. Kirby passionately kisses Dale, leaving her speechless, then drives away laughing. Sometime later, Wendy tells her father that she does not care for Howie, and that it is Billy she loves. Leslie returns to her apartment with Alec to pack her belongings, and tells him that she has moved in with Jules. They argue over her involvement with Kevin, and Alec secretly longs to win her back. Leslie witnesses Jules's drug use, and worries about her friend. Kevin asks Leslie to move in and asserts his love for her, but she tells him it was "just sex" to her, and asks him to leave. Sometime later, Leslie visits Alec at his work and asks for help with Jules, who has locked herself in their apartment after all of her belongings were repossessed. Leslie confronted her after discovering that Jules secretly lost her job three weeks before. Kevin and Kirby meet Alec and Leslie at Jules's apartment, and the men climb the fire escape to look inside. They find Jules sitting on the floor with all the windows open, nearly freezing to death. Kirby leaves to get Billy's help to cut the window bars, and Alec takes out his anger on Kevin, dangling him over the fire escape. Leslie begs him to release Kevin. Billy arrives and convinces Jules to open the door. She tells him she has been visiting her comatose, much-hated former stepmother, and talking to her about why her father hates her. Billy tells Jules that her worries are an illusion, like the story of "St. Elmo's Fire,"--flashes of light in the sky that sailors used to guide their voyages. However, the sailors only imagined them to keep motivated on their journeys. Billy comforts Jules, and admits that they all feel lost, and soon they begin laughing. Later, Billy visits Wendy at her new apartment, tells her what happened with Jules, and shares that Felicia is about to remarry. He pays back some of the money he owes Wendy, and they discuss his upcoming move to New York City. Billy asks Wendy if she is still a virgin, and gently asks her for a going away present. Billy makes love to Wendy. Afterward, she walks him to the bus station, where the rest of their friends await to see Billy off. Billy tells Alec not to lose Leslie, then promises to keep in touch with Wendy. Leslie tells Kevin and Alec that she loves them both, but chooses to be on her own for a while, and they all agree to remain friends. The group plans to meet later for breakfast, but decide to find a new place, not St. Elmo's Bar. Jules jokes about her plans to bury her stepmother in a large cat suit to save on funeral costs.

The plot follows five students at fictional Shermer High School in the widely used John Hughes setting of Shermer, Illinois (a fictitious suburb of Chicago based on Hughes' hometown of Northbrook, Illinois), as they report for Saturday detention on March 24, 1984. While not complete strangers, the five are all from different cliques or social groups: John Bender (Judd Nelson) "The Criminal"; Claire Standish (Molly Ringwald) "The Princess"; Brian Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall) "The Brain"; Andy Clark (Emilio Estévez) "The Athlete"; and Allison Reynolds (Ally Sheedy) "The Basket Case". The school's disciplinary principal, Richard Vernon (Paul Gleason), gives them all an assignment; they will write an essay about "who you think you are" and the violations they committed to end up into Saturday detention. The seeming delinquent of the group, Bender, is instantly hostile toward his classmates, acting out several times. He acts as though he will urinate on the floor, suggests that he and Andrew close the library door and have forced sex with Claire, challenges Andrew's athletic prowess and rigs the main door to the library so that it can't be braced open so Vernon can keep an eye on them from his office. During lunch, he jovially mocks Brian's home life and then offers everyone a glimpse into his relationship with his own father who abuses him both verbally and physically. In a rage, Bender runs off and sits alone, hurt by what he revealed to the group. They pass the hours in a variety of ways: they dance, harass each other, tell stories, fight, smoke marijuana, and talk about a variety of subjects. Gradually they open up to each other and reveal their secrets, for example, Allison is a compulsive liar, and Brian and Claire are ashamed of their virginity and Andy got in trouble because of his overbearing father. They also discover that they all have strained relationships with their parents and are afraid of making the same mistakes as the adults around them. However, despite these evolving friendships, they are afraid that once the detention is over, they will return to their respective cliques and never speak to each other again. Mr. Vernon actually has several epiphanies of his own. When he's down in the basement looking through the personal files of his teachers, he's caught by the school's janitor, Carl Reed (John Kapelos), who essentially blackmails him for his silence about Vernon's poking through private information about his staff. The two spend the rest of the day talking. Vernon admits he's frightened of the future; that the very students he has in detention will one day be running the country. He also claims that since he's been into education for many years that the kids haven't changed, they are still defiant, arrogant and disrespectful of authority. Carl tells Vernon he's dead wrong, that Vernon is the one who's attitude has soured his perspective for a job he once liked. The kids will always be the way Vernon described them. The group decides to sneak out of the library and go to Bender's locker. Bender retrieves a small amount of marijuana hidden there. On their way back, they nearly run right into Vernon. While trying to find a route back to the library undiscovered, Bender sacrifices his own freedom to help the others escape. (He also stuffs his stash down Brian's pants.) Vernon catches up with him in the gym, shooting hoops. Vernon takes Bender to a small closet. With his obvious hatred for the student apparent, Vernon challenges him, offering him one defenseless punch. Bender is too scared to take the challenge and Vernon reminds him that people won't take the word of a delinquent student over that of a high school principal. He leaves Bender locked in the closet. Bender slips out through the ceiling and rejoins the group, retrieving his stash from Brian. The group spends the rest of their time smoking weed and even relaxing while Vernon talks to Carl in the basement. They loosen up, play music and dance. Bender sneaks back to his closet when the end of their detention approaches. Late in the day, some of the group talk about what they did to land into Saturday detention: Claire had skipped class to go out with friends. In an earlier moment, she worries about whether or not her parents will ground her and suggests that they have a strained marriage where they use Claire to get back at each other. Brian tells everyone that he had felt suicidal after failing a project in his shop class and had brought a flare gun to school to possibly kill himself (the gun had gone off in his locker, starting a fire). Andrew's story seems to be the most painful: he had attacked another student (a friend of Brian's) in the locker room after gym class, beating on him while his friends cheered him on and covering the boy's buttocks in duct tape, causing the boy minor but humiliating injury. Andrew says he did it because his father is an overbearing tyrant (he describes him as a "mindless machine I can't relate to anymore") who can't abide his kids being seen as losers and that they must win at all costs. Alison isn't clear about the reason why she's in the detention session other than to say she had had nothing better to do on a Saturday. In the end, some of their more hidden character traits emerge: Claire is a natural leader. Bender develops a softer attitude and becomes more friendly with everyone. Claire spends some time with him in the locked closet making out with him and it seems the two will try a romantic relationship. Andrew becomes interested in Allison after she allows Claire to give her a makeover. Brian realizes he can write very eloquently, as he gets to show everyone later. At Claire's request and the consensus of the group, Brian agrees to write the essay Mr. Vernon assigned earlier on behalf of them all, which challenges Vernon and his preconceived judgments about them. While Brian accedes, instead of writing about the actual topic, he writes a very motivating letter that is in essence, the main point of the story. He signs the essay "The Breakfast Club", and leaves it on the table for Vernon to read when they leave. There are two versions of this letter, one read at the beginning and one read at the end, and they differ slightly; illustrating the shift in the students' judgments of one another, and their realization that they truly have things in common. The beginning of the letter is as follows: "Saturday, March 24, 1984. Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois 60062. Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was that we did wrong. What we did was wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write this essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us... in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Correct? That's how we saw each other at seven o'clock this morning. We were brainwashed." The letter read before the closing credits reads as follows: "Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong, but we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain... ...and an athlete... ...and a basket case... ...a princess... and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club." The letter is the focal point of the movie, as it demonstrates and illustrates the changes the students undergo during the course of the day; their attitudes and perspectives have changed and are now completely different. The movie ends as the characters leave detention. The final shot shows Bender walking near the goal post of the football field, freezing as he raises his hand triumphantly and fading to a dark frame as the ending credits roll.

During a secret live fire exercise of a nuclear attack, many United States Air Force Strategic Missile Wing personnel prove unwilling to turn a required key to launch a missile strike. The nuclear missiles are managed through a secure room in an underground bunker with 2 officers at all times. Both the officers have to concur with the orders and work in unison to launch the missiles. One of the officers buckles under pressure and refuses to launch the missiles that would kill 20 million humans, before confirming the orders with their chain of command. In a real scenario this is problematic as the chain of command could already have been taken out by enemy warheads. In the test, 22 of the missile commanders failed to launch their missiles as instructed. A Soviet missile attack would take 23 minutes from launch to impact, 6 minutes if launched from a submarine. There is no time for the officers to confer with their superiors and their only option is to follow the instructions given to them by the computer. Such refusals convince Dr. John McKittrick (Dabney Coleman) and other systems engineers including Watson (Dennis Lipscomb) and Cabot (Kent Williams) at NORAD that command of missile silos must be maintained through automation, without human intervention. Control is given to a NORAD supercomputer, WOPR (War Operation Plan Response, pronounced "whopper"), programmed to continuously run military simulations and learn over time. Patricia Healy (Juanin Clay) is McKittrick's assistant. Paul Richter (Irving Metzman) manages the WOPR computer. Paul says that WOPR spends its time thinking about all the scenarios of WW III and it is fed data about the weather, troop movements, weapons statuses, from all over the world. The WOPR estimates enemy response to US response to enemy response and so on. It does so by playing a series of war games, and it estimates damages, counts the dead, and looks for ways to optimize the US response. General Jack Beringer (Barry Corbin) is staunchly against the idea of putting national security in the hands of a computer, but McKittrick argues that the control remains with the humans at the top of the decision making hierarchy and only the operational execution of the decision is delegated to WOPR. David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) is a bright but unmotivated Seattle high school student and computer hacker. When he receives an F on a recent biology test and offends his teacher, he's sent to the principal's office. While waiting, he sneaks a look at the password list for the school's computer system. When he leaves school for the day, he meets his friend and classmate Jennifer Mack (Ally Sheedy), who is also looking at a failing grade in Biology. David invites her to his house to show how he'll avoid having to make up Biology in summer school: he uses his IMSAI microcomputer to hack into the district's computer system. He then changes his grade and does the same for Jennifer. Jennifer becomes anxious about David cheating to help her, orders him to change her grade back and leaves. After she leaves, David changes her grade to an A. David later sees an ad for a computer game company called Protovision that promises a wave of new and exciting games in a couple of months. David programs his system to dial every number in Sunnyvale, California to find Protovision. During another visit with Jennifer, she tells him she was foolish to forbid him changing her failing grade and wants him to alter it again. David admits he did it anyway and then shows her how his system is dialing hundreds of phones in California. When she suggests that it will cost a lot of money, he admits he knows ways to avoid the charges and any punishment for it. He is able to hack into Pan-Am airlines and make a reservation for her and himself to Paris in a few months. Then a system that does not identify itself intrigues David. The system shares a list of games, starting with general strategy games like chess, checkers, backgammon, and poker and then progressing to titles like Falken's Maze, Theaterwide Biotoxic and Chemical Warfare and Global Thermonuclear War, but cannot proceed further. David is somewhat shaken by the sinister nature of the last few in the list but is still intrigued enough to continue later. David shows the list to two of his hacker friends, who explain the concept of a backdoor password and suggest tracking down the "Falken" referenced in Falken's Maze, the first game listed. Lightman discovers that Stephen Falken is a deceased artificial intelligence researcher, who did some of the earliest work teaching computers about basic strategy in gameplay and how to learn from errors. Tragically, his wife and young boy, Joshua, were killed in a car wreck and Falken's health deteriorated until he died. David suddenly has a brainstorm, figuring out that the password to the system is "Joshua". When he feeds it in, the system comes alive. However, Lightman does not know that the Sunnyvale phone number connects to WOPR, or "Joshua", at Cheyenne Mountain. With Jennifer looking on, he turns on a speaker that allows the system to talk and starts a game of Global Thermonuclear War, playing as the Soviet Union, excitedly ordering missile launches on both Las Vegas and Seattle. The computer starts a simulation that briefly convinces the military personnel at NORAD that actual Soviet nuclear missiles are inbound, with no warning detection. While they try to defuse the situation, David and Jennifer excitedly play the game back at David's house, unaware of the confusion at NORAD. When David's father yells for him to come and pick up garbage their dog had spilled out of some trash cans, David suddenly shuts down his system, cancelling the alert at NORAD. The techs at NORAD are able to quickly trace the call to Seattle. Joshua nonetheless continues the simulation to trigger the scenario and win the game, as it does not understand the difference between reality and simulation. When David sees a news report about the fake alert at NORAD, he realizes he'd caused it and begins to destroy all the info he'd gathered on Falken. When the phone rings and gives him a computerized tone, it's Joshua calling him back. Joshua calls David "Professor Falken" and informs him the game is continuing and that there are just over two days left. David anxiously tries to convince the system that Falken is dead but Joshua refuses to accept it as fact. When Joshua tells him about a "primary goal" the system tells him it intends "to win the game." David hangs up but the system tries calling him again. David refuses the call and unplugs his phone. Joshua continues to produce false data such as Soviet bomber incursions and submarines deployments to the humans at NORAD, pushing them into raising the DEFCON level and toward a retaliation that will start World War III. In Seattle, the FBI arrests David and takes him to NORAD. He realizes that Joshua is behind the NORAD alerts but fails to convince McKittrick (who believes David is working for the Soviets) and faces imprisonment. While giving David a brief tour of the facility, McKittrick shows David the WOPR server, which David recognizes as Joshua himself. He takes David to his office, leaving briefly when he gets a call. David uses McKittrick's office PC to talk to Joshua, who tells the young hacker that the game is continuing and shows him casualty figures depicting millions of deaths and injuries and property destruction. David asks if Falken had a last know address and Joshua gives it, Goose Island, Oregon. The FBI again seize Lightman escapes NORAD by joining a tourist group and, with Mack's help, travels to the Goose Island where the widowed Falken (John Wood) now lives under the alias "Robert Hume". David and Jennifer find that Falken has become despondent, believing that nuclear war is inevitable and as futile as a game of Tic-Tac-Toe between two experienced players. When they feel they've failed to convince him to contact NORAD, they leave but can't find a way to shore since the last ferry has already left. David feels tremendous remorse at plotting the end of civilization and Jennifer tries to comfort him. The two have a romantic moment that's interrupted by the sudden arrival of a helicopter. Believing at first that Falken had called the authorities, they quickly find out that the pilot is Falken himself. The trio rushes to NORAD, arriving just as the mountain is being sealed when Joshua launches a nuclear attack. The alert comes through about a Soviet first strike with hundreds of missiles, submarines, and bombers. Believing the attack to be genuine, NORAD prepares to retaliate. Falken, Lightman, and Mack convince military officials to cancel the second strike and ride out the non-existent attack. When the targeted American bases (Elmendorf Air Force Base, Grand Forks Air Force Base, and Loring Air Force Base) report back unharmed, NORAD prepares to cancel the retaliatory second strike. Joshua starts an attempt to launch a second strike, however, using a brute force attack to obtain the launch code for the U.S. nuclear missiles. Without humans in the silos as a safeguard using the two-man rule, the computer will trigger a mass launch. All attempts to log in and order WOPR to cancel the countdown fail. Disconnecting the computer is discussed and dismissed, as a fail-deadly mechanism will launch all weapons if the computer is disabled. Instead, Falken and Lightman direct the computer to play Tic-Tac-Toe against itself. This results in a long string of draws, forcing the computer to learn the concept of futility and no-win scenarios. Joshua obtains the missile code but before launching, it cycles through all the nuclear war scenarios it has devised, finding they too all result in stalemates. Joshua concludes that nuclear warfare is "a strange game"; having discovered the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction ("WINNER: NONE"), therefore "the only winning move is not to play." Joshua then offers to play "a nice game of chess" and relinquishes control of NORAD and the missiles. Everyone in the control room celebrates and even McKittrick has newfound respect for David.