WISE Score
Avg. Tomatometer
A teenager flunks his driver's exam but steals his grandfather's mint-condition Cadillac to impress a girl, sparking a night of peak 80s vehicular chaos.
6.424%
36
License to Drive is a B-tier 80s relic that survives mostly on the charm of Corey Haim and Corey Feldman. It's a movie about a kid who fails his driver's test and decides that grand theft auto is the logical next step to impress a girl.
It’s not a 'must-watch' classic like Back to the Future, and modern kids might find the ' Mercedes is drunk and unconscious' plot point more weird than funny. Watch it if you're feeling nostalgic for 1988, but don't expect it to be your kid's new favorite movie.
Best for kids 12 and up who can handle the 'drunk date' subplot and understand that the reckless driving is strictly for the movies. Younger kids might find the pacing slow compared to modern blockbusters.
The entire plot is built on a foundation of lying to parents and stealing a car. While it's framed as harmless teen rebellion, the 'Mercedes sneaking booze and passing out' subplot is a bit darker than standard PG-13 hijinks.
Standard 80s teen comedy tropes. It doesn't break new ground or invite much creative thought beyond 'how would I hide a dented car from my dad?'
Includes reckless driving, underage drinking (a character passes out drunk), and a general disregard for safety laws. It's slapstick, but the vehicular mayhem is constant.
Very little to take away here other than 'don't do what these kids do.' It's pure brain-off entertainment from a very specific era of filmmaking.
To understand License to Drive, you have to understand the 1988 cultural context. Corey Haim and Corey Feldman were the undisputed kings of the teen market. This movie was engineered specifically to capitalize on their chemistry following The Lost Boys. If your kid is interested in the history of teen idols, this is a prime example of that engine at work.
Watching this in 2026 is a trip. The central conflict—Les failing his test on a computer glitch and then driving anyway—is played for pure laughs, but the actual stakes are pretty high. The movie treats a 1972 Cadillac Sedan de Ville like a character itself, and the punishment it takes is the real source of tension.
However, the subplot involving Heather Graham’s character, Mercedes, is the part that has aged the most poorly. She’s essentially a prop for the second half of the film because she’s passed out from drinking. It’s a trope that was common in 80s 'wild night' movies but feels significantly more uncomfortable now.
Honestly, probably not unless you're doing a deep dive into 80s comedies. It’s a bit slow, the logic is thin even for a slapstick movie, and it lacks the heart of a John Hughes film. If you want a 'one crazy night' movie to watch with your teen, Adventures in Babysitting (1987) or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) are much stronger picks that have aged more gracefully.
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