Its Middle American cast of plastic females and self-regarding males look and behave like delegates to a Republican convention. The slight plot is strung out on a series of gross jokes.

| May 3, 2022

Sixteen Candles is a genuinely funny film with plenty of throwaway gags that betray Hughes' Lampoon origins.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 26, 2020

At times it's laugh-out-loud funny, highlighting the awkwardness of adolescence through alternations of clumsiness, low self-esteem, and misadventures of maturation.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Sep 7, 2020

Meandering and kind of dull and doesn't quite manage to be as sweet as its romantic final scene.

| Jul 30, 2020

To try to explain Sixteen Candles as a person who was there for it in first run today is to helplessly shrug and say, 'I don't know, man, it was a different time.'

| Jan 18, 2020

Watch with compassion.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 22, 2019

Sixteen Candles is a genuinely funny and touching coming-of-age story.

| Jul 4, 2019

High school is high school no matter what the date, and Hughes ensures that the constancies of that age remain unchanged.

| Original Score: A- | May 5, 2014

[UPDATED 2025 REVIEW] The plotting is crude and haphazard, but the dialogue is amusing and the cast is appealing.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 13, 2012

...a sporadically amusing yet hopelessly uneven endeavor that simply isn't in the same league as Hughes' later classics.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 13, 2012

A high school film just smart enough to be special and bad enough that it could be improved upon.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Sep 25, 2011

Racy, drunken, hilarious '80s high school comedy.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 2, 2011

Candles is a brazenly mischievous, consistently uproarious comedy that christens the devastating Hughes-fu with vivacious results.

| Original Score: A- | Sep 8, 2008

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 23, 2008

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 20, 2007

There's also a darkly handsome high school heartbreak kid (Michael Schoeffling), a merciful brisk pace, some quick humor (visual and verbal), and a solid music track.

| Jul 18, 2007

This funny, unpretentious film marked writer John Hughes's first time out as a director. The premise is ordinary, but the film is distinguished by funny gags and excellent performances.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 18, 2007

As the girl, Molly Ringwald is natural and appealing, but she's lost in a world of blunt, vicious caricatures.

| Jul 18, 2007

Sly humour and an appreciative ear for the demotic improv of teenage chat completes an attractive package.

| Jun 24, 2006

The first effort by writer/director John Hughes on his way to becoming the William Shakespeare of teenage angst. One really has to be aware of the climate of the early '80s to truly understand the impact that this film had among teens.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 6, 2005