Director-writer-producer John Hughes died on 6 August while taking a walk in New York City.  He was 59.

Ben Stein calls John Hughes “the poet of human exaltation, the poet of human happiness” — and it’s impossible to imagine a more infectiously joyous cinematic moment than the parade Ferris crashes at the end of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  Impressively choreographed —literally and figuratively— it is the ultimate crowd scene filled with striking and telling and endearingly human personal details.