St. Elmo's Fire

1985
R
1h 50m

IMDb RATING

6.4/10

49K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

1,828

Demi Moore, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, and Mare Winningham in St. Elmo's Fire (1985)

Play trailer1:31

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99+ Photos

Coming-of-Age Drama Romance

A group of friends, just out of college, struggle with adulthood.A group of friends, just out of college, struggle with adulthood.A group of friends, just out of college, struggle with adulthood.

Director
- Joel Schumacher
Writers
- Joel Schumacher
- Carl Kurlander
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.4/10

49K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

1,828

Director
- Joel Schumacher
Writers
- Joel Schumacher
- Carl Kurlander
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 win & 1 nomination

Trivia
The street that the St. Elmo bar is on is in the Universal back lot. Two or three buildings to the left is the Hill Valley Clock Tower from Back to the Future (1985).

Goofs
The film takes place at and around Georgetown University. However, various characters in the film are seen wearing red/white varsity letter jackets, the colors of the University of Maryland, where the campus scenes were filmed. Georgetown's colors are blue, gray, and white.

Quotes
Billy: Jules, y'know, honey... this isn't real. You know what it is? It's St. Elmo's Fire. Electric flashes of light that appear in dark skies out of nowhere. Sailors would guide entire journeys by it, but the joke was on them... there was no fire. There wasn't even a St. Elmo. They made it up. They made it up because they thought they needed it to keep them going when times got tough, just like you're making up all of this. We're all going through this. It's our time at the edge.

Connections
Featured in At the Movies: D.A.R.Y.L./Cocoon/Return to Oz (1985)

Soundtracks
Love Theme from St. Elmo's Fire
Written by David Foster
Produced by David Foster and Humberto Gatica
Performed by David Foster

Too bad the soundtrack theme is better than the movie.

Too bad the actual movie isn't as big as the soundtrack wants this to be. Like CHARIOTS OF FIRE this has a very memorable and emotional theme music, but it's hard to care about these brats. Yeah, it was most of the famous 80's BRAT PACK (why wasn't Molly Ringwald in this??).

Georgetown as a backdrop is unusual. It's hard to believe these mostly goofballs went to a near Ivy League college (particularly Billy, c'mon. He's not rich and not intelligent. Was there a scholarship for good looking males??)

It's pretty pretentious and I think I always thought that, but it's polished and gives a sense of the era. Good for the idea of the urban tribe and post college challenges. I first watched this on HBO as a high school freshman and it was on heavy HBO rotation, but still, it's just OKAY.