Barnes & Noble

This tender and often painfully funny 1984 comedy introduced John Hughes, the producer-director-writer destined to own and operate the world of cinematic teen angst for the rest of the decade. A voice from Chicago's suburban North Shore, Hughes deftly captured the reveries, rhythms, and rationalizations of young adulthood while delivering enough big laughs to score in the box office. The movie opens with Samantha Baker (Molly Ringwald) on the eve of her 16th birthday, skulking in the shadows as her family gears up for older sister's wedding the next day. Even more depressing, she's invisible to the man of her dreams, Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling), while the school Geek (Anthony Michael Hall) has become smitten with her, and she's obligated to take an equally geeky exchange student, Long Duk Dong (Gedde Watanabe), to the school dance. The night that follows turns that hallowed high school tradition, the social pecking order, on its head. Featuring early appearances by siblings John and Joan Cusack, Sixteen Candles is a testament to that singular anticipation and frustration that make every night in a teenager's life feel like the longest, most important night in the history of the world. And while Hughes went on to even greater successes (The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and the Home Alone series), Sixteen Candles will endure as his most natural and satisfying film. Matthew Johnson

All Movie Guide

On the eve of her sister's wedding, suburban teenager Samantha (Molly Ringwald) suffers silently as her family forgets her birthday. Even worse, some total dork (Anthony Michael Hall) keeps propositioning her with sophomoric innuendo when she really craves romantic attention from high-school hunk Jake (Michael Schoeffling). Moving from Samantha's family home as it's invaded by outre relatives to a high-school dance where nothing seems to go her way, this bittersweet teen comedy traces the hopes and disappointments of not only Samantha, but also a host of incidental but memorable characters, from a hapless Japanese exchange student to a prom queen and a posse of barely pubescent nerds. A climactic party scene at which these various strata of young America overcome their rigid hierarchies sets the stage for resolutions both tender and torrid. Brian J. Dillard

Product Details

• UPC: 025192028236
• Source: UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• High School Flashback Collection