During that span Reiner made an extraordinary mockumentary (This Is Spinal Tap), an iconic coming-of-age movie (Stand By Me), an Oscar-winning Stephen King adaptation (Misery), a pitch-perfect legal drama (A Few Good Men) and, for good measure, the single greatest romantic comedy of all time (When Harry Met Sally), The Washington Post has noted.<\/p>\n
![\"Rob](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/787fdfbef2623b1cf59aa86aaf4c9dd5c27df279.jpeg\")
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Rob Reiner had a remarkable run of movies between the mid-1980s and early 1990s.Credit: Brian Ach\/Invision\/AP<\/p>\n
These are not just hit movies; they\u2019re cultural touchstones, with an influence that lingered long after their box office success.<\/p>\n
When we use the phrase \u201cup to eleven\u201d, we\u2019re quoting an idiom coined in the 1984 film This Is Spinal Tap, which paved the way for other mockumentary movies and TV series, including The Office. When we say, \u201cI\u2019ll have what she\u2019s having\u201d, we\u2019re quoting a well-known scene in When Harry Met Sally. (That line was uttered by Reiner\u2019s mother, Estelle, who made a cameo appearance .)<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t handle the truth!\u201d entered the lexicon in 1992, thanks to A Few Good Men. When my partner calls me \u201cAnnie Wilkes\u201d \u2013 having just caught me nudging decorative knickknacks back to their \u201ccorrect\u201d positions \u2013 he\u2019s referring to the obsessive character played by Kathy Bates in Misery. (\u201cAnnie Wilkes had her faults,\u201d I\u2019ll reply, \u201cbut keeping an untidy home was not one of them.\u201d)<\/p>\n
My editor tells me that, as a girl, she and her siblings played their VHS copy of the 1987 fantasy adventure comedy The Princess Bride so often, they wore out the tape. And although it drew mixed reviews from critics, the title of Reiner\u2019s 2007 film The Bucket List remains shorthand for \u201cthings I want to do before I die\u201d.<\/p>\n
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What makes these achievements even more astonishing is that Reiner was already a successful actor in his own right, becoming widely known in the 1970s for playing Michael Stivic, Archie Bunker\u2019s liberal son-in-law on Norman Lear\u2019s sitcom All in the Family. He is also the son of comedy legend Carl Reiner, whose career spanned seven decades.<\/p>\n
If he started out today, Reiner would be dismissively referred to as \u201ca nepo baby\u201d. But Reiner more than earned his place as one of Hollywood\u2019s most successful directors.<\/p>\n
Among those to pay tribute are former US president, Barack Obama, who said, \u201cRob\u2019s achievements in film and television gave us some of our most cherished stories on screen. But beneath all of the stories he produced was a deep belief in the goodness of people \u2013 and a lifelong commitment to putting that belief into action.\u201d Journalist Maria Shriver, the former First Lady of California, said, \u201cWe had dinner [with Rob and Michele] this past week, and they were in the best place in their lives: loving one another, their friends, their family, their country. They never gave up on our country. They always wanted to make our world better and were willing to fight to make it the country they loved.\u201d Stephen King, who wrote the novels Stand By Me and Misery, referred to Reiner as a \u201cwonderful friend, political ally, and brilliant filmmaker\u201d.<\/p>\n
The fact the US president was so unsettled by Reiner\u2019s criticisms speaks to his influence.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump was less generous when he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.<\/p>\n
\u201cA very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood,\u201d Trump wrote, before turning his guns on the late director. \u201cRob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding and incurable affliction with a mind crippling diseases known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME. He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Of course, in posting such a deranged statement himself, Trump inadvertently cemented Reiner\u2019s status as a Hollywood great. After all, the fact the US president was so unsettled by Reiner\u2019s criticisms speaks to his influence.<\/p>\n
Here, Washington Post staffers list their own favourite movies from the peak of Reiner\u2019s career:<\/p>\n
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s pretty funny that in his filmmaking debut, Reiner plays a gasbag director \u2013 in this case, a riff on Martin Scorsese\u2019s self-insertions into his own rockumentary work. The deliciousness goes to 11. So does the influence of this faux documentary of an ambitious\/pretentious rock band, which is quotable to this day (\u201cYou can\u2019t really dust for vomit\u201d), poignant in its bottling of desperation and delusion, and as monumentally hilarious as a Stonehenge stage prop. – Jonathan Fischer<\/p>\n
The Sure Thing (1985)<\/p>\n
Scruffily charming, The Sure Thing is under-rated Reiner: a road trip rom-com, riffing on Frank Capra\u2019s It Happened One Night. It was the screenwriters\u2019 debut, and only Reiner\u2019s second feature. John Cusack was so young he had to be legally emancipated to work on it! It\u2019s a movie about, for and by young people; maybe that\u2019s why it still feels so fresh. As of this writing, it\u2019s unavailable to stream, but physical discs are on sale \u2013 and worth it. – Sophia Nguyen<\/p>\n
Stand by Me (1986)<\/p>\n
What an eye for talent. Reiner\u2019s dazzling first five films launched the stars who would shape the multiplex experience of the 1980s and 1990s: John Cusack, Meg Ryan, Billy Crystal and most poignantly, River Phoenix, not yet 15 when this coming-of-age story was filmed. It would have been so easy for this movie to surrender either to nostalgia for a 1950s free-range childhood or the jump scares of its darker layers, but Reiner and Phoenix \u2013 a golden boy comfortable with darkness \u2013 deftly handled both. Phoenix would die of a drug overdose just seven years later, lending an emotional wallop to later viewings of a movie that hasn\u2019t aged a bit. – Amy Argetsinger<\/p>\n
The Princess Bride (1987)<\/p>\n
When my brothers and I first experienced video on a computer, our most-played clip was Vizzini (Wallace Shawn): \u201cNo more rhymes now, I mean it.\u201d While the book and script came from legendary writer William Goldman, Reiner perfectly balanced the comedy and the stakes, while assembling an anomalous collection of watchable actors and disparate elements \u2013 \u201cfencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles\u201d, as the grandfather reading the story explains, plus, of course \u201cmarriage\u201d, a word that we will never hear the same way again. – Zachary Pincus-Roth<\/p>\n
When Harry Met Sally (1989)<\/p>\n
In lesser hands, the Katz Deli scene would have been a disaster. Would any woman really fake an orgasm in a bustling restaurant just to prove to her male companion that she could? Probably not. But Reiner knew subtle direction would make Nora Ephron\u2019s wacky screenplay sing. He films Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal\u2019s neurotic New Yorkers in a warm, nostalgic light that makes you want to hop in a time machine to this cosier era. I\u2019ll have what they\u2019re having. – Sonia Rao<\/p>\n
A Few Good Men (1992)<\/p>\n
Has anyone ever come upon A Few Good Men while perusing cable and not stopped to watch? The stacked cast, taut storytelling and spellbinding climactic court scene (which permanently entered Jack Nicholson\u2019s \u201cyou can\u2019t handle the truth\u201d line into common parlance) made for a perfect piece of entertainment. One amazing piece of trivia that attests to Reiner\u2019s inventiveness as a director \u2013 unable to satisfactorily cast the part of Lance Corporal Dawson, Reiner plucked the right man directly from the set: Wolfgang Bodison, a non-actor who was working as the film\u2019s location scout and went on to turn in a memorable performance. – Jenny Rogers<\/p>\n
Sleepless in Seattle (1993)<\/p>\n
Reiner has two short scenes in Sleepless in Seattle, but he still managed to deliver the film\u2019s most memorable line, and with only one word: \u201ctiramisu\u201d. Sitting at a bar over lunch, Reiner\u2019s job is to matter-of-factly coach a mystified widow (Tom Hanks) on re-entering a much-changed dating world. And who better? We need no backstory to trust Reiner as the best friend who will always give it to you straight. \u201cFirst you have to be friends,\u201d he says. \u201cYou have to like each other. Then you neck. This could go on for years. Then you have tests and then you get to do it with a condom.\u201d Reiner stops, beer in hand, and introduces the concept of tiramisu with a sidelong glance, as if it were a secret code. \u201cWhat is it?\u201d Hank asks. \u201cYou\u2019ll see,\u201d Reiner responds. \u201cSome woman is going to want me to do it to her and I\u2019m not going to know what it is,\u201d Hank protests. \u201cYou\u2019ll love it,\u201d Reiner insists. And we did, of course. But mostly we just loved him. – Ellen McCarthy<\/p>\n
With The Washington Post<\/p>\n