Metascore

Mixed or average reviews - based on 12 Critics What's this?

User Score

Universal acclaim- based on 67 Ratings

  • Starring: Alan Ruck, Matthew Broderick, Mia Sara
  • Summary: Ferris Bueller. Larger than life. Blessed with a magical sense of serendipity. He's a model for all those who take themselves too seriously. A guy who knows the value of a day off. Ferris Bueller's Day Off chronicles the events in the day of a rather magical young man, Ferris (Broderick). One spring day, toward the end of his senior year, Ferris gives into an overwhelming urge to cut school and head for downtown Chicago with his girl (Sara) and his best friend (Ruck), to see the sights, experience a day of freedom and show that with a little ingenuity, a bit of courage and a red Ferrari, life at 17 can be a joy! (Paramount) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 12
  2. Negative: 1 out of 12
  1. Reviewed by: Richard Schickel
    100
    Ferris and his adventures represent a teen's dream of glory: 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. [23 June 1986]
  2. 80
    This is John Hughes' best teen film, and it's a call to arms to everyone in the world who doesn't want to follow society's lame-ass rules at the expense of living a cool life.
  3. Reviewed by: Nina Darnton
    60
    In this film [Hughes] has created a character who is every teen-ager's fantasy, but in the process he has lost some of the authenticity of his other films - leaving several slow transitions or awkward moments.
  4. One of the least appealing movies I've seen in a while.... When a member of the audience belched loudly, that got the biggest laugh of the day. [17 June 1986, p.26(E)]

See all 12 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 23 out of 28
  2. Negative: 4 out of 28
  1. PhilL
    9
    FUNNY, FUNNY and did I mention that it's FUNNY?
  2. Love or hate this movie It`s an obvious classic. The only reason I give it a 8 instead of a 10 is I don`t really like the main character, hes kind of annoying but some how this is still one of those movies that live forever. Expand
  3. John Hughes's youthful relatability and humor clearly shine in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," an adventurously charming love letter to being young and living in Chicago. Expand
  4. 1
    I cannot understand how a filmmaker so ruthlessly dedicated to finding the true heart of the tortured teenage soul could create the most deceptive, commercial teenager in the history of film without giving him a heart or a soul. Expand

See all 28 User Reviews