Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it!”

Speaking is Ferris Bueller, one of the most talked-about American teenagers of the 1980s. Today, exactly forty years after John Hughes introduced this rebellious teen, he still captivates our imagination. And that is hardly surprising: Hughes—who defined the 1980s with iconic teen comedies like PRETTY IN PINK and THE BREAKFAST CLUB—perfectly captured the adolescent longing of the era in the bon vivant Bueller.

Upon the release of FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF in 1986, Time Magazine already noted that Hughes articulated the ultimate teenage dream: “…to have, at one’s fingertips, the technical skills to sabotage the adult world’s machinery of oppression and, at the tip of one’s tongue, the perfect squelch for grownups’ moralistic blather.”

Even as an adult, it is good to be reminded of that rebellious dream every now and then. That is why podcast host and film nerd Fokke van der Meulen looks back on this personal favorite on his birthday. During a brief introduction in Dutch (max. 20 min), he explains why this is not only the best movie of 1986, but perhaps of the entire 1980s.