When Harry Met Sally … (1989)

American Comedy Awards: Billy Crystal – Funniest Actor in a Motion Picture (Leading Role)
American Comedy Awards: Meg Ryan – Funniest Actress in a Motion Picture (Leading Role)
British Academy Film Awards: Nora Ephron – Best Original Screenplay
Online Film & Television Association: OTA Hall of Fame

Harry: Would you like to have dinner?… Just friends.
Sally: I thought you didn’t believe men and women could be friends.
Harry: When did I say that?
Sally: On the ride to New York.
Harry: No, no, no, I never said that… Yes, that’s right, they can’t be friends. Unless both of them are involved with other people, then they can… This is an amendment to the earlier rule. If the two people are in relationships, the pressure of possible involvement is lifted… That doesn’t work either, because what happens then is, the person you’re involved with can’t understand why you need to be friends with the person you’re just friends with. Like it means something is missing from the relationship and why do you have to go outside to get it? And when you say “No, no, no it’s not true, nothing is missing from the relationship,” the person you’re involved with then accuses you of being secretly attracted to the person you’re just friends with, which you probably are. I mean, come on, who the hell are we kidding, let’s face it. Which brings us back to the earlier rule before the amendment, which is men and women can’t be friends.

Sally: Most women at one time or another have faked it.
Harry: Well, they haven’t faked it with me.
Sally: How do you know?
Harry: Because I know.
Sally: Oh. Right. That’s right. I forgot. You’re a man.
Harry: What was that supposed to mean?
Sally: Nothing. It’s just that all men are sure it never happened to them and all women at one time or other have done it, so you do the math.

Harry: The fact that you’re not answering leads me to believe you’re either (a) not at home, (b) home but don’t want to talk to me, or (c) home, desperately want to talk to me, but trapped under something heavy. If it’s either (a) or (c), please call me back.

Sally: Amanda mentioned you had a dark side.
Harry: That’s what drew her to me.
Sally: Your dark side?
Harry: Sure. Why? Don’t you have a dark side? I know, you’re probably one of those cheerful people who dot their “i’s” with little hearts.
Sally: I have just as much of a dark side as the next person.
Harry: Oh, really? When I buy a new book, I read the last page first. That way, in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side.

Harry: I love that you get cold when it’s 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.

Sally: You see? That is just like you, Harry. You say things like that, and you make it impossible for me to hate you.

Marie: Tell me I’ll never have to be out there again.
Jess: You will never have to be out there again.

Harry: I miss her.
Sally: I don’t miss him. I really don’t.
Harry: Not even a little?
Sally: You know what I miss? I miss the idea of him.
Harry: Maybe I only miss the idea of Helen… No, I miss the whole Helen.

Harry: We’re talking dream date compared to my horror. It started out fine, she’s a very nice person, and we’re sitting and we’re talking at this Ethiopian restaurant that she wanted to go to. And I was making jokes, you know like, “Hey I didn’t know that they had food in Ethiopia? This will be a quick meal. I’ll order two empty plates and we can leave.” Yeah, nothing from her, not even a smile.

• The segments of married couples telling the stories of how they met are real stories that Nora Ephron and Rob Reiner collected for the film. Then they hired actors to relay the stories.
• The orgasm scene was filmed at Katz’s Deli, an actual restaurant on New York’s E. Houston Street. The table at which the scene was filmed now has a plaque on it that reads, “Where Harry met Sally…hope you have what she had!”
• The concept of Sally being a picky eater was based on the film’s screenwriter, Nora Ephron. Years after the movie came out, when Ephron was on a plane and ordered something very precise, the stewardess looked at her and asked, “Have you ever seen the movie When Harry Met Sally?”
• In the museum scene, Billy Crystal (Harry) ad-libbed, “But, I would be proud to partake of your pecan pie.” Meg Ryan (Sally) laughed and looked to her right where director Rob Reiner silently prompted her to go with it.
• The film is based on director Rob Reiner’s experiences after his divorce and as a single man. Coincidentally, Reiner met his current wife while making the film.
• Nora Ephron supplied the structure of the film with much of the dialogue based on the real-life friendship between Rob Reiner and Billy Crystal. For example, in the scene where Sally and Harry appear on a split screen, talking on the telephone while watching their respective television sets, channel surfing was something that Crystal and Reiner did every night.
• At a test screening, director Rob Reiner reported that during the fake orgasm scene, all of the women in the audience laughed uproariously, while all of the men were silent.
• Harry is shown reading the Stephen King novel “Misery”. The film adaptation Misery (1990) would be the next film directed by Rob Reiner.
• Prior to the wedding, Marie tells Sally that Harry was seeing an anthropologist. Sally asks her what she looks like and Marie responds with “Thin. Pretty. Big tits. Your basic nightmare.” This line also appears in Nora Ephron’s book “Heartburn”, published in 1983.
• In addition to Rob Reiner’s mother, Estelle Reiner, appearing in the film, so does his adopted daughter, Tracy Reiner, whose birth mother was Reiner’s wife, Penny Marshall.