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50 free The Breakfast Club trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
43 free The Breakfast Club trivia questions with answers. Five strangers, one Saturday detention, and a thousand-word essay nobody wanted to write. The Breakfast Club cost a million dollars, was shot in a closed-down Illinois high school, and became the film that defined the Brat Pack. This quiz covers the story and the making of it: why each student is in detention, what Vernon threatens Bender with, who was almost cast as Bender and Allison, the Annie Leibovitz poster, and how Simple Minds came to record a song they had turned down twice. The first questions are easy for anyone who has seen the film once; the later ones reward people who know it by heart and have read up on the production, from the original title to the lost director's cut. Every answer has been checked against the film's published production history and carries a linked source, so you can settle any argument about who kissed whom in the storage closet on the spot.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who wrote, produced and directed The Breakfast Club?
John Hughes
He wrote the script in 1982, before Sixteen Candles, and had to persuade sceptical investors that a one-room shoot on a $1 million budget was low-risk.
Q 02On what day of the week does the film's detention take place?
Saturday
The on-screen date is March 24, 1984, four days before principal photography began in real life.
Q 03What is the fictional Illinois suburb where the detention takes place, seen across Hughes's films?
Shermer
Shermer, Illinois is Hughes's fictional stand-in for the Chicago suburbs and turns up across his films.
Q 04What is the vice principal's name?
Richard Vernon
Paul Gleason later parodied the role in Not Another Teen Movie and in an A-Teens music video.
Q 05How long, at minimum, is the essay Vernon assigns the students?
1,000 words
Brian ends up writing it on everyone's behalf, signing off 'Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club'.
Q 06Which character is the 'brain' in the group?
Brian Johnson
Anthony Michael Hall was the first actor cast, and his real mother and sister play his character's family.
Q 07Which actress plays Claire Standish, the 'princess'?
Molly Ringwald
She was first offered Allison and was 'really upset', because she wanted Claire, who was called Cathy in the first draft.
Q 08Who plays the rebellious John Bender?
Judd Nelson
He stayed in character between takes and harassed Ringwald so persistently that the other actors had to talk Hughes out of firing him.
Q 09Which actor was originally cast as Bender before being moved to the role of Andrew Clark?
Emilio Estevez
He was recast because Hughes could not find anyone else to play the wrestler.
Q 10Which actress was considered for Allison Reynolds before Ally Sheedy was cast?
Joan Cusack
Foster, Wright, Lane and Dern all auditioned for Claire instead.
Q 11Which actor was originally cast as the janitor, then dropped for playing him as an over-the-top Russian?
Rick Moranis
John Kapelos took over as Carl, and later sat in the audience for the 2005 MTV Movie Awards reunion.
Q 12What was the film's working title before Hughes borrowed a friend's school nickname for detention?
The Lunch Bunch
A friend from another school had a detention class actually called 'The Breakfast Club', and Hughes took it.
Q 13The film was shot entirely at a closed-down high school in which Illinois town?
Des Plaines
Maine North High School had closed in 1981; the real library was too small, so a bigger copy was built in the gym.
Q 21Which class did Brian get an F in, the grade that pushed him to despair?
Shop
He failed on an elephant lamp that would not light, a detail fans quote to this day.
Q 22Why does Allison say she came to detention?
She had nothing better to do
She is compulsively dishonest and hoards stolen odds and ends in case she ever runs away from home.
Q 23Where do the students sneak off to after lunch?
Bender's locker
They go to fetch his marijuana stash; when Vernon reappears, Bender gets himself caught so the others can slip back.
Q 14Which other 1986 Hughes film used the same school for interior scenes?
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Hughes shot the two films concurrently to save money, and outtakes of each show the other film's crew at work.
Q 15Roughly what was the film's production budget?
$1 million
It went on to gross $51.5 million worldwide, debuting at number three behind Beverly Hills Cop and Witness.
Q 16How many additional weekends of detention does Vernon hand Bender during the day?
Eight
Bender racks them up by talking back; later, locked in a closet, he freezes when Vernon dares him to throw a punch.
Q 17Why is Claire in detention?
She skipped school to go shopping
Her bickering parents use her against each other, which is why she cannot say no to a day at the mall.
Q 18What did Bender do to earn his detention?
Pulled the fire alarm
He also reveals the cigar burns his father gave him, the film's rawest moment.
Q 19Andrew is in detention for taping a fellow student's buttocks together. Which sport does he compete in?
Wrestling
He did it to impress his teammates and a father who pushes him relentlessly to win.
Q 20Brian was sent to detention because of an incident involving what?
A flare gun in his locker
He had brought it to school intending to kill himself after failing shop class; it went off in his locker.
Q 24How does Bender get back into the library after being locked in a storage closet?
Through the ceiling panels
He falls through into the library and the others hide him from Vernon.
Q 25Which two characters bond over their fear of being virgins?
Brian and Claire
Meanwhile Andrew and Allison bond over their difficult parents.
Q 26What does Allison rip off Andrew's letterman jacket to keep as they part?
The state championship patch
It follows the makeover Claire gives her, the moment Andrew starts to look at her differently.
Q 27What does Claire give Bender at the end of the film?
One of her diamond earrings
He puts it on, then walks home across the football field and punches the air.
Q 28When the vice principal complains that students have grown arrogant, what does the janitor Carl suggest?
That he is the one who has changed
Vernon complains the kids have grown arrogant; Carl replies that he is the one who cares too much what they think of him.
Q 29How does the film end, in its most iconic shot?
Bender raising his fist on the football field
Judd Nelson tried several other gestures for the ending before landing on the fist pump.
Q 30Which actor was too embarrassed to do the scripted solo dance, so the others joined in?
Molly Ringwald
Ringwald was embarrassed about dancing solo, so Hughes let everyone join in.