Saturday detention · Des Plaines, Illinois · spring 1984
A school that had closed, playing a school that never existed. Look up, then go and stand outside it.
Three tiles are already out. Push the next one.
Harrison Street, 2017: police, lottery prizes and 911 calls.
7:06am · 9511 Harrison Street
Government offices now, with no tours. Look from Harrison Street and photograph the front, as the building’s manager asks visitors to.
9:00am · Above the library
Bender goes into the ceiling. Follow him: each tile lifts on its hinge and shows what was really above you.
Twelve tiles over the library. Push one.
The library was built here, two storeys high.
So was Vernon’s office.
The gymnasium was the soundstage.
The school held the editing rooms too.
And a screening room.
And the production offices.
The Chicago Blitz had practised in this gym.
Michael Jordan shot commercials in it.
Thirty-two days of shooting, from 28 March 1984.
Hughes shot more than a million feet of film.
By 2015 it stored boxes for a state department.
No trace of a library is left.
11:30am · Lunch on the library table
Open a bag.
The film opened in Los Angeles on 15 February 1985 and runs 97 minutes.
Emilio Estevez, Paul Gleason, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy and John Kapelos lead the cast.
1:00pm · Arguing about the last shot
Bender crosses a football field and raises a fist. Four fields say it was theirs. Raise a fist on each, then ask the man who shot it.
Pick a field.
3:00pm · Northbrook and Winnetka
Shermer, Illinois is made up. Shermer Road is not: the town around it was Shermerville until 1923, and Hughes went to school at its southern end.
Shermer Road at the Metra station, 1401 Shermer Road
Northbrook was the Village of Shermerville until 1923, when it changed its name.
The railroad stop here was Shermer Station, renamed Shermerville Station in 1882.
A public street, free at any hour. Metra’s Milwaukee District North line stops here from Chicago.
The former Northfield Inn, 1776 Walters Avenue, Northbrook
The inn was moved from the corner of Shermer and Waukegan to the Village Green in 1975.
Its upper floor is a re-created Shermerville home of 1890 to 1910.
Open on Sundays from 2 to 4pm, or by appointment.
2300 Shermer Road, Northbrook
John Hughes based the film on his years as a student here.
The end credits thank Glenbrook North High School.
A working high school, not open to visitors. See it from Shermer Road.
385 Winnetka Avenue, Winnetka
The detention plot comes from New Trier, where weekday morning detention was nicknamed The Breakfast Club for decades.
In 2015 Saturday detention still ran here, from 8:30 to 11:30am, and staff could ask students to write what they had learned.
A working high school, not open to visitors. See it from Winnetka Avenue.
Chicago’s North Shore suburbs · 3 hours · From $640 for up to five
A private three-hour drive round the suburbs’ film sites with your own guide, the Breakfast Club football field among them, for up to five people.
See the tourChicago and the North Shore
Live marketplace results for John Hughes and film-location tours around Chicago. Check each itinerary for the stops.
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1985 → 2025
All five of the main cast reunited here at C2E2, 11–13 April 2025, for the film’s 40th anniversary: the first full reunion in Chicago.
Fans’ photographs with the cast were taken against a row of red lockers.
Chicago’s convention centre, open for shows and fairs such as C2E2; check what is on before you go.
8 places you can visit. Four are working schools and one is a government building: look from the street, and go to the museum on a Sunday afternoon.
Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.
General reference · Restricted access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Government offices now, with no tours. Look from Harrison Street and photograph the front, as the building’s manager asks visitors to.
General reference · Restricted access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A working high school, not open to visitors. See it from Dee Road.
General reference · Restricted access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A working high school, not open to visitors. See it from Wolf Road.
9511 Harrison Street, Des Plaines
Maine North High School was open from 1970 through the 1980–81 school year.
Government offices now, with no tours. Look from Harrison Street and photograph the front, as the building’s manager asks visitors to.
1111 South Dee Road, Park Ridge
ABC7 Chicago says the film’s stadium scene was filmed at Wilson Stadium, the school’s field.
A working high school, not open to visitors. See it from Dee Road.
1755 South Wolf Road, Des Plaines
Online speculation has placed the fist-pump field here too.
A working high school, not open to visitors. See it from Wolf Road.
255 East Illinois Road, Lake Forest
Not a filming location. A 57-room English Tudor-style inn on the North Shore, a train ride from downtown Chicago and a short drive from Winnetka and Northbrook.
Check roomsStay
An old Tudor-style inn in Lake Forest, a short drive from Winnetka and Northbrook.
255 East Illinois Road, Lake Forest
Not a filming location. A 57-room English Tudor-style inn on the North Shore, a train ride from downtown Chicago and a short drive from Winnetka and Northbrook.
Check roomsGo there
A private suburbs tour that stops at the football field, and the marketplace.
Chicago’s North Shore suburbs · 3 hours · From $640 for up to five
A private three-hour drive round the suburbs’ film sites with your own guide, the Breakfast Club football field among them, for up to five people.
See the tourChicago and the North Shore
Live marketplace results for John Hughes and film-location tours around Chicago. Check each itinerary for the stops.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare toursChicago
Live marketplace results for film and TV location tours in Chicago.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare toursWhat’s on
No screening or reunion is announced for the months ahead.
No current dated events are listed. Check providers for the latest programme.
Take it home
Original 1985 posters from our store, the soundtrack LP and two books on Hughes’s films.
Original 1985 US one-sheet, 27 × 41 in (68.5 × 104 cm), rolled, previously folded, near mint.
Sold out · archive reference
View posterOriginal 1985 French grande, 47 × 63 in, rolled, previously folded, near mint.
Sold out · archive reference
View posterVarious Artists · 12-inch LP, 1985
Songs produced by Keith Forsey, with Simple Minds’ Don’t You (Forget About Me).
Live marketplace search · listings and condition change
Find a copySusannah Gora
The Brat Pack, John Hughes and their impact on a generation. Crown, 2010.
Find the bookHadley Freeman
The lessons of eighties films, John Hughes’s among them. 2016.
Find the bookDates, prices, rooms and stock change: confirm with the provider before you travel or buy. A stay or tour is described as a filming location only where the card says so.
Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.
8 of 8 places · 8 of 8 Moments
9511 Harrison Street, Des Plaines
Principal photography begins at the closed Maine North High School on 28 March 1984, on a 32-day schedule.
The two-storey library and Vernon’s office are sets built in the school gymnasium.
The five sprint through the school’s hallways, which are yellow and lockerless now.
Bender crosses a football field and raises a fist; the cinematographer, Thomas Del Ruth, says it was shot behind the same school.
1111 South Dee Road, Park Ridge
ABC7 Chicago places the stadium scene at Maine South’s Wilson Stadium.
1755 South Wolf Road, Des Plaines
2300 Shermer Road, Northbrook
John Hughes bases the film on his years as a student at Glenbrook North.
Shermer Road at the Metra station, 1401 Shermer Road
The former Northfield Inn, 1776 Walters Avenue, Northbrook
385 Winnetka Avenue, Winnetka
New Trier’s morning detention, nicknamed The Breakfast Club for decades, gives the film its title and its plot.
2301 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago
All five main cast members reunite at C2E2 at McCormick Place in April 2025.
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