

The Great Outdoors
This is no holiday… this is war!
It's vacation time for outdoorsy Chicago man Chet Ripley, along with his wife, Connie, and their two kids, Buck and Ben. But a serene weekend of fishing at a Wisconsin lakeside cabin gets crashed by Connie's obnoxious brother-in-law, Roman Craig, his wife, Kate, and the couple's two daughters. As the excursion wears on, the Ripleys find themselves at odds with the stuffy Craig family.
TMDB
6.5/10
648 votes
IMDb
Not rated yet
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- Status
- Released
- Budget
- $24M
- Box office
- $43.5M
- Language
- English
- attachment to nature
- holiday
- roommates
- wisconsin
- grizzly bear
- cabin
- best friend
- family holiday
Top billed cast















Behind the camera
Where to watch
All optionsAvailability for India. Provided by JustWatch through the TMDB API.
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Release dates
United StatesUS
- TheatricalPG17 Jun 1988
United KingdomGB
- PremierePG26 Jun 1989
AustraliaAU
- TheatricalPG15 Sept 1988
BrazilBR
- Theatrical1217 Jun 1988
DenmarkDK
- Physical1117 Jun 1988
FranceFR
- Physical6 Jan 2004
GermanyDE
- Theatrical617 Apr 1990
NorwayNO
- Theatrical1217 Jun 1988
Frequently asked questions
The Great Outdoors was released on 17 June 1988.
Audience reviews
3- K4/10
Kamurai
2/24/2021
Decent watch at best, probably won't watch again, but can recommend for those on a late-eighties nostalgia kick. Sometimes it is good to get in "The Way Back Machine" and see some of the movies that made people famous, and I liked Dan Aykroyd and John Candy. The duplicitous plot and character choices just didn't sit great with me. Having recently seen "Brother Nature", it is interesting to see a movie that cou…
- K5/10
kevin2019
8/2/2024
"The Great Outdoors" is only a moderately entertaining film, although it does feature the unforgettably spectacular sight of John Candy water skiing. The grizzly bear action also works well and there is always an enthusiastic energy about this film which every member of the cast effortlessly maintains, but in terms of John Hughes's output this entry is not one of his more memorable outings and some of it does feel li…
- P4/10
Phills2
8/8/2026
If you took a Vacation film and filled in the blanks with different character names and places, you'd have a movie like this. It has all of the same ingredients but the emotional feeling behind them is lost. John Candy could play the Griswold part, Dan Ankryd the Cousine Eddie part, a different girl plays Rusty's girlfriend he meets in Europe, and so forth. I don't even recognize who plays the part of John Candy's sc…
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