John Hughes was probably my first favorite filmmaker, or at least the first I really knew by name and reputation. So I’m especially saddened by his death from heart attack today, at age 59. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off may no longer be my favorite movie of all time — actually attending high school somewhat ruined the teen mythology that exists in Hughes’ films for me — but it forever remains in my top ten list of titles I enjoy watching over and over again (even if I am critical of the musical number).

Because many of us film bloggers grew up religiously watching his movies, including those he scripted but did not direct, there’s a lot of shared memories and tributes popping up around the web this evening. Check out what people are saying about the legacy of the iconic filmmaker after the jump:

• Dustin Rowles at Pajiba reminds us of a line from Ferris Bueller:
  

  The man may be dead, but for so many of us, those movies will never die. Without lamps, there’d never be light. Without John Hughes, there’d never be Neo-maxi-zoom-dweebies.

  Hughes will be missed, but his premature death offers this heady reminder: “Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

• Kevin Kelly at Cinematical recognizes how important he was to our lives:
  

  John Hughes left an indelible mark on the childhood of most people who grew up in the 1980s. It was impossible to get through most days without hearing a quote from one of his movies…His words, characters, and song selections all made up the soundtracks of so many of our lives

• Rodney at The Movie Blog recognizes a more personal importance:
  

  This man shaped my teenage years. He gave me the films that formed my sense of humour and informed me that girls didn’t have coodies. He also made me fall in love with Molly Ringwald (and my obsession with redheads ever since) as well, he firmly planted me on the road to ubergeekdom, because I knew one day I would just wear a bra on my head and frankenstien me a supermodel with full lips and a flirty fashion sense out of a personal computer, some lightning and a Barbie Doll.

• Alison Wilmore at IFC’s Indie Eye shares a favorite title and addresses another significant one:
  

  Of his films, “The Breakfast Club” will always come first in my heart, but it’s “Bueller” that seems the richer text. At least, no other film in Hughes oeuvre has inspired anything like the the “Fight Club” theory

• Noel Murray at A.V. Club wonders what Hughes could have become had he kept directing:
  

  Had Hughes stuck it out, he could’ve been this generation’s Frank Capra or Preston Sturges or Frank Tashlin. At their best–and the best was all-too-rare, given what Hughes was capable of–his films were noteworthy for their quotable lines, eye-popping style and thick streak of sentiment. Not for nothing has the phrase “like something out of a John Hughes movie” become something that any reasonably pop-literate person will understand. His work will continue to be enjoyed for a good long while.

• Joe Leydon at MovingPictureBlog also wonders what could have been, with specific reason:
  

  I smile as I remember a conversation I had with Hughes back in 1988 during the New York junket for his under-rated She’s Having a Baby. After some gentle prodding, he admitted that, yes, the movie was partly autobiographical — in spirit, if not in fact — and that, sure, he was kinda-sorta using actor Kevin Bacon as his on-screen alter ego, just as Francois Truffaut used Jean-Pierre Leaud to represent himself in the Antoine Doinel movies…if Baby had been a hit, would Hughes have continued directing movies in that vein? Would he have continued directing, period?

• The Playlist is upset that we’ll never know what could have been:
  

  Man, this sucks and pour one out. If you were hoping for ’80s comedy maestro John Hughes — who in recent years had sort of pulled a J.D. Salinger — to ever make a comeback you can sadly forget it…All his films generally contained kick-ass soundtracks which we always adored as a kid and were nice gateway drugs to better music. We suppose, we’ll always have the films. RIP.

• Ray Pride at Movie City Indie forwards a question:
  

  An interesting question the filmmaker Matthew Ross posed on Facebook a little bit ago: “Besides Spielberg, was there any filmmaker in the past 25 years who had a bigger impact on American culture than John Hughes?”

• Sean at Film Junk recognizes the general and personal impact Hughes had:
  

  For anyone who grew up in the ’80s, John Hughes has undeniably left an impression on them in some way, having directed such teen classics as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Weird Science, in addition to two of my favourite comedies of all time, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Planes, Trains & Automobiles.

• Mali Elfman at ScreenCrave mourns for a decade gone and celebrates Hughes’ legacy:
  

  Wow. It really is the end of the 80’s. First MJ and now we’ve just heard that sad news that Writer, Director, Producer John Hughes…has died of a heart attack…He was a man who brought smiles to many and in a way defined 80’s cinema. Would life be the same without Ferris Bueller? I think not. It’s rare that a Director has so many hits that resonate so strongly with audiences some 20 years later.

• Seth Abramovitch at Movieline shares a melancholy clip from Ferris Bueller “in loving memory” of Hughes:
  

  …for the time being, I’d just like to be sad for a bit. You can be sad with me. Ironically enough, the first scene that occurred to me was one with no dialogue in it at all. I like to imagine it as a glimpse inside the movie in Hughes’ own mind, with art direction by George Seurat and score by Johnny Marr.

• The scene is also a favorite of Ryan Adams at Awards Daily, who shares a few other clips, as well:
  

  My favorite scene and song from any John Hughes film…Perfect expression of teenage epiphany…(The Smith’s “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want”, as performed by The Dream Academy)

• David Poland at The Hot Blog offers some punny headlines for the news as homage to Hughes’ beginnings:
  

  My first instinct, as we discussed MCN headlines for this story, was in the National Lampoon tradition that Hughes came out of, to come up with as many bad puns based on his movies to describe his passing as possible. Tomb Alone, Some Kind of Dead, Carrion Opportunities, etc. But his sweetness, which became something to be mocked by the hip, but was at the heart of why his work was so lovingly remembered, suggests a different attitude altogether.

• American Aquarium Drinker is playing some Thompson Twins in Hughes’ honor while also acknowledging personal impact:
  

  Rest in peace, John Hughes, and thanks for making me want to do what I do.

• Adam Rosenberg at MTV Movies Blog shares how much Hughes has meant to him:
  

  This is a sad, sad day for fans of young love, adolescent hijinx and fine film…It’s not an exaggeration for me to say that his work had a significant impact on my childhood, and that the bulk of his films are chestnuts that I continue to return to time and again as comfort viewing. That’s not going to ever change, but I am grief-stricken at the thought that new Hughes will never again grace the silver screen.

• Jason Guerrasio at Filmmaker Blog shares a favorite scene that’s surprisingly not from a teen movie:
  

  Growing up on all his films I have numerous favorite scenes, but the one that comes to mind is John Candy flipping that huge pancake in Uncle Buck. That always killed me.

• Craig Kennedy at Living in Cinema shares his favorite Hughes and has positive things to say about his other works, too:
  

  Of all his movies either as a writer, producer and/or director, The Breakfast Club was my favorite. It was the first movie I’d seen that really seemed to get how horrible it could be to be a teenager and I wanted to believe the ray of hope it offered that high school didn’t have to be that way.

  Sixteen Candles, Weird Science and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off were special in their own right, each one putting a different spin on the travails of growing up. They were teen movies that didn’t pander to their audiences or talk down to them. You felt smart watching them. You felt like you weren’t a little kid anymore and that your problems mattered.

• Pareene at Defamer expands on what made Hughes’ teen comedies great yet seems to forget a certain gratuitous locker room shower scene from Sixteen Candles:
  

  …he’ll obviously be best remembered, forever, for his still-beloved high school comedies. They were, and are, remarkable for a few reasons: strong female leads or supporting characters, a focus on a slightly idealized and exaggerated reality instead of peeking-in-the-girls-locker-room outrageousness, and, as we mentioned, class.

• Anne Thompson at Thompson on Hollywood also addresses Hughes’ strength with the teen genre:
  

  Based in Chicago, John Hughes had a huge impact on 80s film culture with a series of teen comedies that had an edge of authenticity; they rang true. The Breakfast Club, especially, will be the film he is most remembered for, starring the so-called Brat Pack.

• Craig Phillips at Notes from Underdog continues the celebration of Hughes’ writing talent:
  

  The stories and character development were often predictable — but satisfying in their predictability — but the films were full of true characters, often young, dorky, oddly dressed characters. They were also a study in adolescent semiotics (Breakfast Club is of course made up of teenage archetypes) coded with clothing, language, styles, behaviors, meant to reflect class differences and confidence differences.

• Josh Tyler at Cinema Blend recognizes the triumph of Hughes’ career:
  

  Hughes leaves behind a legacy of incredible, game changing films. Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Planes, Trains & Automobiles. Has any one filmmaker ever directed such a string of instant classics? John Hughes did. He defined an entire generation and today film fans everywhere mourn with his family, at the passing of a giant.

• Quint at Ain’t It Cool News defends Hughes against those who attack his later career:
  

  I’ve read some snarky comments about his output post-early ’90s, but honestly I think that misses the point. John Hughes gave us more great films than most writer/directors in recent memory and when he was on fire the dude was unstoppable. Name me another comedy filmmaker who is chased as much as Hughes is. Every teen comedy these days tries to capture the same magic he delivered time after time and none have come close.

• Glenn Kenny at Some Came Running wasn’t a huge fan but at least gives Hughes credit for something:
  

  …without John Hughes, no Molly Ringwald. Without Molly Ringwald, a very different, and possibly lesser, Godard’s King Lear. If at all.

  I know. I’m an incorrigible snob. But please, at least allow that I come by it honestly.

• Jeff Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere notes that Hughes allegedly didn’t take good care of himself before sharing a single favorite:
  

  I love/loved one Hughes film in his whole canon — Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

• The Superficial focuses on something negative:
  

  He also launched the career of Macaulay Culkin which enabled him to grow up in Hollywood and date Mila Kunis. …. I’m going to say “rest in peace” now, but I might not entirely mean it.

  Rest in Peace, Mr. Hughes. I guess.

• Big Hollywood comments on ten favorites:
  

  Here are some Big Hollywood favorites:

  1. Vacation (1983) — Funny when you’re a teen, funnier when you’re an adult. We all have more Clark Griswold in us than we care to admit to.

  2. Sixteen Candles (1984) — Anthony Michael Hall’s mouthy, gutsy “Geek” won the hottest girl in school and gave hope to geeks everywhere. He still does.

  3. The Breakfast Club (1985) — John Hughes was 35 and understood the world of high school better than any high schooler.

  4. Pretty in Pink (1986) — Twenty-three years later you say “Duckie” and everyone smiles.

  5. Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) – Touching, romantic, and underrated. NetFlix it now.

  6. Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) — On par with the Marx Brothers when it comes to building up rolling, convulsive laughter. Steve Martin’s blow up at the car rental counter is epic comedy.

  7. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) — No explanation necessary.

  8. Uncle Buck (1989) — If this was the only film Hughes or John Candy had ever made…

  9. Christmas Vacation (1989) – Warm, funny and containing more quotable lines than any film in recent memory. Nothing since has ever topped, “Shitter’s full.”

  10. Home Alone (1990) — Hollywood’s last Christmas perennial.

• Will Harris at Premium Hollywood shares his 16 favorite Hughes movie quotes:
  

  John Hughes, the man responsible for capturing teen angst with more humor than anyone else in the 1980s, has died, and as a tribute, I offer up sixteen of my favorite quotes from the man who gave us “Sixteen Candles.”

• Josh Wigler at MTV Movies Blog highlights five fantastic characters created by Hughes. Here’s one of the less-recognized who deserves the respect:
  

  CLARK GRISWOLD (”National Lampoon’s Vacation”): The Griswold patriarch and stalwart “Vacation” hero is easily one of Hughes’ most memorable characters. Whether in Europe, at Wally World or spending Christmas at home, accompanied by his nuclear family or his imbecile of a brother-in-law (Randy Quaid), Clark Griswold — played flawlessly by Chevy Chase — is the everyman father that every man wants to be nothing like, but most are at one point or another.

  Crowning Achievement: Successfully convincing Frank Shirley to reinstitute his Christmas bonus policy. Sure, it took a harrowing hostage situation to accomplish, but all’s well that ends well!