Film

St. Elmo's Fire

Name: St. Elmo's Fire
Genre: Drama, Romance, Comedy
Released: 1985
Cast: Andrew McCarthy, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson

Coming-of-age

A 1985 ensemble about seven Washington D.C. friends colliding with real adulthood after graduation. It's glossy, romantic, sometimes clumsy, shot through with genuine affection for its characters' small catastrophes. Made for anyone who's ever felt unready to stop being young, or who watches their college friendships shift under the weight of rent, ambition, and love.

TMDb rating

3.1

If you liked this

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Also directed by Joel Schumacher and built on the same DNA: beautiful misfits in a confined space, bonding over vulnerability. Raw, funny, and genuinely about what it costs to be seen.

But Its high school setting and that particular '80s earnestness hasn't aged for everyone. Some find it saccharine on repeat.

About a Boy2002

Same theme, older characters: two people learning that growing up doesn't mean losing the parts of you that made you worth knowing. Warm, funny, and lucid about male emotional damage.

But More mellow and introspective than St. Elmo's glamorous chaos. If you want sparkle over substance, it won't deliver.

Diner1982

Male friendships holding on to something golden. Barry Levinson's portrait of Baltimore guys in the early '60s clinging to each other as life scatters them. Funny, sad, lived-in.

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Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from St. Elmo's Fire

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

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Both are about the afterlife of youth—St. Elmo's shows the moment it begins, Rodanthe shows what remains when glamour's worn away. Same question: what do we carry forward?

Richard Gere and Diane Lane, a hotel in a storm, one weekend to remember. Romance as the thing that saves you, not the thing that defines you. Honest about desire and second chances in middle age.

But Melodramatic. Two beautiful people having feelings in a beach house. If sentimentality bores you, this will bore you.

The Big Chill1983

Reunion of college friends in their thirties, grieving and reassessing. Smarter and sadder than St. Elmo's, with a terrific ensemble cast and a funeral that becomes a reckoning.

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Steel Magnolias1989

Six women bound by friendship, beauty, stakes, and genuine love for each other. Funny and devastating by turns. Julia Roberts, Dolly Parton, and Sally Field at peak warmth.

But Pitched toward female friendships rather than mixed groups. Heavier on tragedy than St. Elmo's maintains.

Four Rooms1995

Another Schumacher ensemble set in one night, a hotel, and a ticking clock. Ridiculous, affectionate chaos. Tim Roth at the center of beautiful weirdness.

But Deliberately silly and slight. If you wanted substance from St. Elmo's, this is all gesture.

Metropolitan1990

Whit Stillman's debut: privileged New York debutantes debating morality and friendship over cocktails. Funny, smart, observant about class and belonging without ever being unkind.

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St. Elsewhere1982

Hospital ensemble with the same DNA: beautiful people in scrubs learning that competence and caring don't always line up. Serious one moment, soap-opera the next, human throughout.

But Six seasons is a commitment. The early episodes are rougher than later ones, and '80s medical drama can feel dated.

thirtysomething1987

Married couples and their friends navigating careers, infidelity, parenthood, and mortality in Philadelphia. Intimate, ambitious, genuinely about what grows harder, not just sadder, with age.

But Deliberately interior and introspective. Aired in the late '80s on prime time and it shows. Can feel self-absorbed on first viewing.

Celeste & Jesse Forever2012

Both interrogate what happens when the group has to absorb a break. St. Elmo's tests friendship against adulthood; this one tests it against romantic dissolution. Same thing, inverted.

Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg as best friends trying to stay best friends after divorce. Hilarious and devastating, about the friendships we don't know how to end. Modern, funny, genuinely original.

But Very Los Angeles, very indie-adjacent. If you find millennials insufferable, the target will annoy you. No glamour—all awkwardness.

Prick Up Your Ears1987

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Stephen Frears' biography of Joe Orton and his lover John Halley. Hilarious, obscene, tragic. Gary Oldman and Alfred Molina as the most electric doomed friendship in '60s London. Pure theatrical life.

But Very gay, very crude, very violent in its ending. Based on a true murder. Not a feel-good story about friendship—it's about the friendship that eats itself.