John Hughes Films: Ranked From Worst To Best

6. Sixteen Candles

Okay, now we're getting into what John Hughes did best: the coming-of-age teen film. Curly Sue and She's Having a Baby failed to resonate with critics and audiences in part because they dealt with adult characters and themes. Hughes undoubtedly excelled when writing dialogue for teenagers and young people. He just had an ear for it. That talent is on full display in Sixteen Candles, the first film directed by Hughes.

Another talent on display is that of his young cast, notably eighties teen queen Molly Ringwald, who cuts a very sympathetic figure as the unlucky in love Sam, who struggles with her chaotic adolescent existence (and her crush on a popular senior) on her sixteenth birthday - which her preoccupied family have forgotten about. The dialogue is good, but the plotting is a bit haphazard and the film has also retroactively been criticised/condemned for supposed racial stereotyping with the character of Long Duk Dong, as well as an unsettling scene that seems to implicitly condone date rape.

Those negatives aside (and there is no getting around them when watching the film in 2015), Sixteen Candles is an enjoyable film thanks in large part to the performances and Hughes' knack for writing believable, funny dialogue for teenagers.