(Almost) All the Ferris Bueller's Day Off Characters, Ranked by Coolness
As the comedy classic turns 30, we roll back the odometer and determine which characters deserve an "Oh, yeaaah", and which deserve to be danke-shamed.
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Thirty years ago this week, a Chicago-area teenager named Ferris Bueller woke up with phantom stomach pains and a very real dream: To skip school for the day. That's the remarkably fat-free plot of John Hughes' Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the 1986 comedy that became one of the biggest hits of the year, turned its titular hero—played by Matthew Broderick—into a proto-slacker hero for the ages, and made "Danke Schoen" one of the biggest semi-ironic hit songs of the decade. But while it has aged far better than many of its comedy contemporaries, it's also a very different movie than you remember: Unless we're just being too cynical here, Ferris Bueller, once a poster child for coolness, now seems kind of like ... a little a-hole? In fact, a lot of the characters in Ferris feel ripe for re-evaluation. Which is why we decided to take our own day off and come up with this definitive ranking of the movie's many characters. And right or wrong, we're going to defend it!
Paramount Pictures39. Principal Edward R. Rooney
Neither prince nor pal, Ferris' flustered stalker would be the worst even if he weren't weirdly obsessed with catching a few truant high-schoolers. For starters, he thinks speaking in French and quoting Faulkner make him a charming intellectual, and not an uncool boor. Plus, he doesn't seem to know the difference between baseball and football, which in Chicago is a Class A misdemeanor. But Rooney's biggest offense is his sheer dunderheadedness: For all his sneering insults toward others, he's repeatedly fooled by Ferris and Cameron's sophomoric ruses—*everyone* knows George Peterson's voice doesn't [sound like that](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm5fVx8vbu0)!—and he's constantly getting his cheese left in the wind, whether he's tangling with a dog or chasing down a tow-truck driver. If Ferris really *does* have a first-class ticket to nowhere, the first person he'll meet there is Rooney.
Paramount Pictures38. The Dude in the Police Station
Admittedly, being played by future misogynihilist Charlie Sheen doesn't do much to help this dude's cool-quotient. No matter *who's* portraying him, though, this guy is a full-on creep—a raccoon-faced scumbag who says stuff like "People think \[my sister's\] a whore," and uses it as a pick-up line. Maybe he *should* have lost a testicle, after all.
Paramount Pictures37. The Guy Slow-Ogling Sloane in the Restuarant
The patriarchy never takes a day off, apparently. Uncool.
Paramount Pictures36. The Kid Who Spills All His Papers in the School Hallway
Someone call Alice Cooper, because cool's out forever!
Paramount Pictures35. The Chez Quis Maitre D'
With an arched tone and even archier eyebrows, this snoot in a suit treats Ferris and his friends like peons—which would be bad enough, if it weren't for the fact that he apparently also doesn't know what Abe Froman looks like! If the gatekeeper of one of Chicago's swankest eateries isn't intimately familiar with such a high-powered pork peddler, we weep for the future.
Paramount Pictures34. The Kid Drooling on His Desk During Class
Someone call Alice Cooper, because drool's out...wait, are we already repeating jokes, just a few entries in? Sorry! It's just that there are a lot of cool-ish characters in *Ferris Bueller's Day Off*.
Paramount Pictures33. The Easily Duped Freshmen
Okay, so they've seen *Alien*, which makes them *kinda* cool. But how could they be gullible enough fall for Ferris' clearly synthesized fake-mucus sound effects? Is it possible their shared last name is ... Rooney?
Paramount Pictures32. The Dummy Dressed Up as Ferris
If [this movie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6gpndlepiM) hadn't come along the next year, Ferris' dummy would have been the coolest mannequin of the '80s.
Paramount Pictures31. The Girl Who Offers Rooney Some Gummy Bears
Sigh. We want to root for her, we *really* do, but *Ferris Bueller* came out just as Gummy Bears became fully assimilated into the mainstream, leading candy-fanatics (or "fandys," as they're known) to brand the multi-colored treats as total sell-out sweets. If she'd come equipped with something a little edgier—Nerds, Big League Chew, even a then-still-shocking Zagnut—she'd be ranked higher. But Gummy Bears? Sheesh. That's like offering a Glass Tiger cassette to someone wearing a Replacements shirt!
Paramount Pictures30. The Rando Girl Who Asks Ferris How His Bod is Doing
Like those freshman, she also falls for those fake-o sound effects. But she's pretty chipper about the whole Ferris-might-be-dying thing, which is cool. Also, ["bod"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZspUyvG-ZA) will never not be a cool, cool word.
Paramount Pictures29. The Men's Room Attendant
He looks like he either just watched *The Shining,* or just escaped from *The Shining.* Either way: Cool.
Paramount Pictures28. The Pizza Guy Who Thinks Rooney is an Idiot
When he's not fighting turtles and crabs in the sewer with his brother Luigi, this guy is preoccupied with being cool.
Paramount Pictures27. The English Teacher
Look, it's not easy to sell a bunch of persnickety teens on the virtues of literary symbolism. But this guy tries, and besides, he's played by improv legend Del Close, so he's de facto cool.
Paramount Pictures26. The Nurse Who Tells Simone Her Grandmother's Dead
She seems very sweet and empathetic—so much so, you feel bad that she got duped by one of Ferris' lies. And in case you were wondering, empathy = coolness.
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