When Harry Met Sally…

Screening as part of These Go to 11: The Films of Rob Reiner

“I’ll have what she’s having.” – Katz Deli Customer

The defining romantic comedy of the 1980’s belongs to director Rob Reiner and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Nora Ephron, who reshaped the entire genre with one enduring question – can men and women can ever truly be “just friends”? 

Starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, the film follows Harry Burns and Sally Albright over twelve years of chance encounters, evolving friendship, and unresolved romantic tension. Set against a seasonal array of New York City backdrops, the film blends wit, vulnerability, and candid conversations about love, sex, and companionship. Its iconic performances (including supporting turns from Carrie Fischer and Bruno Kirby, highly quotable dialogue, and enduring set pieces—including the legendary Katz deli scene—cemented its place in pop culture history. 

These Go to 11: The Films of Rob Reiner

Rob Reiner emerged as one of Hollywood’s most versatile and influential directors during a remarkable decade-long run beginning in the mid-1980s. Reiner, the son of iconoclastic author/comedian/director and screenwriter Carl Reiner, transitioned from acting (famously as Mike “Meathead” Stivic on CBS’ All in the Family) to directing in 1984. 

That year, Reiner broke through with the pioneering mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, redefining screen comedy with an absurdist take on rock star puerility. He followed with a string of genre-defining hits: the road trip teen movie The Sure Thing (1985), the nostalgia-fueled classic Stand by Me (1986), the ultimate storybook-story The Princess Bride (1987), and the “I’ll have what she’s having” touchstone When Harry Met Sally… (1989). Reiner continued to defy categorization with the chilling adaptation of Stephen King’s Misery (1990) and the courtroom drama A Few Good Men (1992) for which he received a long-overdue Oscar® nomination (as Producer). Together, these films cemented Reiner’s reputation as a director capable of mastering tone, character, and genre with an unheard-of consistency. 

In many ways Reiner occupies a strikingly similar place in the legacy of American film as that of Frank Capra (It Happened One Night, It’s a Wonderful Life…).  Both function as chroniclers of national character, using popular genres to articulate what America believes about itself at any given moment. Capra focused on an aspirational landscape often by reflecting the child-like innocence of his protagonists. Reiner’s heroes are rarely naïve; they are wounded, ironic, and self-aware with Reiner serving as a post-Vietnam Capra: not as a builder of national myths, but as a custodian of them, revisiting America’s stories after innocence has faded and asking what still remains at the twilight’s last gleaming.

_{1989, 95 minutes, USA, Directed by Rob Reiner, Rated R}