Writer-director John Hughes having many underrated movies that deserve more love.

Following some success as a writer, Hughes didn’t make his directorial debut until his fifth film, Sixteen Candles. This kicked off an iconic stretch of coming-of-age films in the mid-to-late 1980s, but it wasn’t his only focus at the time. The 1980s were also the start of Hughes’ famous Vacation franchise, inspired by his time writing for National Lampoon magazine. Hughes, who sadly ed away at 59 in 2009, often took inspiration from his own personal experiences for his films, making them relatable and timeless.

15 She's Having A Baby (1988)

Written By John Hughes

While John Huges has made some of the most iconic teen movies of all time that deal with the struggles of that time in a person's life, She's Having a Baby is an interesting look at young adulthood. Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern star as a recently married couple navigating this stage in their lives with the complications of married life and the financial anxieties of being a grown-up only to add to the hectic life with plans of starting a family.

The movie was met with somewhat mixed reviews and it sometimes gets lost in its insistence on including silly gimmicks and jokes. However, She's Having a Baby is most charming and effective when it is simply telling smaller stories about this young couple's life. Bacon is particularly effective as a young man who is struggling with what is expected of him as a married man. It makes for a different type of Hughes movie that speaks to an older audience.

14 Some Kind Of Wonderful (1987)

Written By John Hughes

John Huges created some terrific love triangles in his movies over the years, but Some Kind of Wonderful delivers perhaps the most underrated of them all. The movie stars Eric Stoltz as a blue-collar and non-conforming young man who works at a garage and has a crush on the most popular girl in school, Amanda (Lea Thompson). While he is thrilled that Amanda agrees to go out with him, it causes issues when Keith realizes his childhood friend, Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson), has feelings for him.

The love triangle offers an engrossing romance aspect to the movie, with all three of the principal actors creating interesting and strong characters to build these relationships. However, the romance is just one aspect that makes this film work; it is also one of Hughes' best movies about teens looking ahead to the rest of their lives. Some of the best moments in the movie are the simple conversations between Keith and his father (John Aston) about his future.

13 Mr. Mom (1983)

Written By John Hughes

Before Michael Keaton was Batman, he was one of the best comedic actors in Hollywood, with Mr. Mom being one of the movies that helped solidify that reputation. Keaton stars as Jack, a family man who loses his job during the recession. As his wife is able to re-enter the workforce, Jack then takes over the duties at home, discovering that maintaining the house and looking after the kids is a far more complicated job than he anticipated.

He is hilarious and grounded as his man juggles his new job, making mistakes, and learning along the way.

The idea of a man staying home and taking care of the domestic duties is not as novel of a concept as it was in the early 1980s when such a premise was an immediate setup for a comedy. Despite that, Mr. Mom remains a comedy that works many decades later thanks largely to the performance by Keaton. He is hilarious and grounded as his man juggles his new job, making mistakes, and learning along the way.

12 The Great Outdoors (1988)

Written By John Hughes

While John Hughes' Vacation movies steal the spotlight as the great family vacation adventures, The Great Outdoors should also not be overlooked. John Candy stars as a man who takes his family out of the big city in order to spend some time at a rented cabin in the wilderness. However, their perfect getaway is ruined when his obnoxious broker brother-in-law (Dan Aykroyd) shows up with his family uninvited to take part in the fun of nature.

Like Vacation or the Home Alone movies, the film relies on a lot of slapstick moments and goofy misadventures. However, these are pulled off well with big laughs. The main reason for watching the movie is to see Aykroyd and Candy working together as two of the best comedy stars of the era. Their chemistry, even as these antagonist characters, is endlessly fun and it would have been nice to see them in more projects together.

11 Home Alone 2: Lost In New York (1992)

Written By John Hughes

Given the massive success of the original Home Alone, it is not surprising that a sequel was quickly put together. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York continues to show that Kevin's family as the most forgetful family in the world as Kevin is accidentally put on the wrong flight and ends up spending the holiday season alone in New York City. To make matters worse, his old enemies, Harry and Marv, have escaped prison and also wind up in the Big Apple.

Home Alone 2 cannot get much credit for originality as it follows the formula of the first movie quite closely. However, the bigger scale and seeing the various locations used for Home Alone 2 made it better than the original in the eyes of many fans. It still delivers Christmas fun and slapstick humor as well as some great new cast , especially Tim Curry.

10 Weird Science (1985)

Written & Directed By John Hughes

In the year of The Breakfast Club and National Lampoon’s European Vacation, Hughes ended 1985 with a change of genre. Weird Science was his first and only science fiction fantasy comedy film outside 1997’s Flubber, which he only produced. In Weird Science, Anthony Michael Hall (Gary) and Ilan Mitchell-Smith (Wyatt) play two teenage boys who use a computer program to bring their AI dream woman, Lisa (Kelly LeBrock), to life. The film was based on the 1951 comic “Made of the Future” by Al Feldstein.

Hughes’ ability to bring the strange, hilarious comic to the screen makes Weird Science one of his greatest films. One of the best descriptors for Weird Science is in its title: weird. So much of Weird Science probably shouldn’t have worked. The horny teenage boys are likable, Bill Paxton's main villain Chet is entertaining, Lisa has some real depth, and even the 1980s special effects didn’t age too poorly. Hughes didn’t just make it work, he excelled. Weird Science may have been made for teenage boys, but its comedy makes it enjoyable beyond its demographic.

9 Uncle Buck (1989)

Written & Directed By John Hughes

John Hughes ended the 1980s strong with Uncle Buck and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation back-to-back in 1989. Of the films he both wrote and directed, Uncle Buck is Hughes’ highest-grossing movie, beating out other hits like The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The comedy is about Buck (John Candy), a lazy bachelor who babysits his brother’s teenage daughter and two younger children, including their only son, Miles (Macaulay Culkin).

Despite Uncle Buck being Hughes’ most successful film as a writer-director, it can be considered underrated as it isn’t one of his teen comedies and is occasionally overshadowed by other collaborations Hughes had with Candy and Culkin. Still, Uncle Buck is one of Hughes’ funniest films. Candy was one of the greatest comedic talents of his time, and Uncle Buck shows why. Like other Hughes films, it also has a great deal of heart, with a story about growing up–for both the kids and the titular character himself.

8 Sixteen Candles (1984)

Written & Directed By John Hughes

As aforementioned, Sixteen Candles was John Hughes’ directorial debut, and the start of the collaborations between Hughes and Molly Ringwald and his many teen coming-of-age comedies. Ringwald plays Sam Baker, a girl whose parents forget her 16th birthday because her older sister is getting married the next day. It’s one of Hughes’ wildest films, with big party sequences, ridiculous scenarios, and an ensemble of talented comedic actors.

Sixteen Candles is rated PG because it was made before the MPA introduced the PG-13 rating. With nudity, vulgar language, and underage drinking, it is a teen/adult comedy and should be regarded as such.

While Sixteen Candles hasn’t aged as well as some other 1980s films, it remains a classic for good reason. Even in its problematic moments, it highlights how hard it is to be a high schooler who just wants to fit in and find love–or in some cases, have sex to impress your geeky friends. Sixteen Candles is a product of its time and exists as a great time capsule for viewers to either relive their 1980s high school years in all their cringey glory or learn what life and school might have been like for those high schoolers.

7 National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)

Written By John Hughes

John Hughes has a few Christmas classics in his filmography, with National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation being one of the most beloved. Christmas Vacation is the third of five movies in the main Vacation series and widely regarded as one of the best. As the name suggests, the movie sees Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) and his family trying to have the perfect Christmas. Like all Vacation movies, things go hilariously wrong along the way.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation was Juliette Lewis' first major film role. She earned an Academy Award nomination for Cape Fear (1991) a few years after Christmas Vacation.

With a revolving cast playing most of Cousin Eddie in Christmas Vacation. Despite this, the family aspect at the heart of the film is what makes it so heartwarming. There are multiple quotable and memorable comedic scenes, but the ability to watch with your family every Christmas makes National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation one of Hughes’ best.

6 Pretty In Pink (1986)

Written By John Hughes

Pretty in Pink was one of multiple Hughes’ movies that touched on social cliques and class differences. Ringwald played Andie Walsh, a high school student who was classified as an outsider because of her working-class status. When she started dating one of the “richies,” Blane (Andrew McCarthy), her socioeconomic standing became a problem for him. All the while, Andie’s best friend, Duckie (Jon Cryer), harbored a crush on her.

Ringwald’s performance in Pretty in Pink is arguably the best of her three films with Hughes, and Cryer was perfectly cast as Duckie. Both characters are relatable and feel very grounded in a world where high school films can be unrealistic and exaggerated. Though the Pretty in Pink ending is somewhat controversial, it’s a great display of friendship as Duckie lets Andie go. Regardless of whether you were team Blane or team Duckie, the image of Blane and Andie (in her pink dress) kissing in the parking lot remains iconic.