Metacritic Film

When Harry Met Sally...

Starring Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, Bruno Kirby, Steven Ford, and Lisa Jane Persky

MPAA RATING: R

Columbia Pictures
Romance
96 minutes | Color
USA
Released In Theaters July 12, 1989

Will sex ruin a perfect relationship between a man and a woman? That's what Harry (Crystal) and Sally (Ryan) debate during their travels from Chicago to New York. 11 years and 2,000 miles later, they're still no closer to finding the answer. And they've never ventured past their friendship to discover the love that's right in front of them. Will these two best friends ever accept that they're meant for each other... or will they continue to deny the attraction that's existed since the first moment When Harry Met Sally? (MGM)

WRITTEN BY
Nora Ephron

DIRECTED BY
Rob Reiner

Overall Metascore

This is a weighted, normalized average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

76 / 100

Critic Reviews

100 Los Angeles Times
The summer's uncorseted, unqualified delight. [14 July 1989, Calendar, p.6-1]
100 Rolling Stone
A ravishing, romantic lark brimming over with style, intelligence and flashing wit.
90 Washington Post
It's a movie that walks on air.
90 Time
Like Harry and Sally, the movie is hardworking, spot on; it winepresses its conversation into epigrams. No surprise here.[31 July 1999, p.65]
88 ReelViews
Together, Crystal and Ryan really click. Even though their characters are polar opposites (or perhaps because of it), their interaction has a charm and warmth that most motion picture pairings lack.
80 The New Republic
[Reiner] pulls everything together adroitly to make Harry Met Sally a real refreshment. It's what they call a summer picture, which means that, if it's good as this one is-it will seem summery even in winter. [21 Aug 1989, p.26]
80 Empire Staff (Not Credited)
The joy comes not from the will-they-won't-they romance between the two leads, but from the sharply written humour from the pen of writer Nora Ephron.
75 San Francisco Chronicle
The kind of little film you can get cozy with, laugh at in odd places even when nobody else is laughing - and yet people will not turn around to glower at you because they understand. [12 July 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]
75 USA Today
As a successful careerist who tries purging his neuroses in a coin-operated batting cage, Crystal is funny enough to keep Ryan from all-out stealing the film. She, though, is smashing in an eye-opening performance, another tribute to Reiner's flair with actors. [12 July 1989, Life, p.1D]
75 Chicago Sun-Times
What makes it special, apart from the Ephron screenplay, is the chemistry between Crystal and Ryan.
75 The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
The comedy is warm and witty and wafer-thin, as easy on the palate as a raspberry sorbet on a summer afternoon.
75 Chicago Tribune
From his long experience in television, [Reiner] has learned how to create characters with just enough depth to hold together but not so much that they become too individualized, too stubbornly complex. [12 July 1989, Tempo, p.1]
63 Christian Science Monitor
What he forgot to ask Woody [Allen] for was the keen insight into middle-class folkways that marks the best Allen pictures. [28 July 1989, Arts, p.10]
60 Variety Staff (Not Credited)
Rob Reiner directs with deftness and sincerity, making the material seem more engaging than it is, at least until the plot machanics begin to unwind and the film starts to seem shapeless.
60 TV Guide Staff (Non Credited)
The plot may seem anything but fresh (and the borrowings from Woody Allen certainly are stale), but director Rob Reiner has a killer instinct for setting up jokes and punchlines.
60 Chicago Reader
Very slickly and glibly put together, with a sharp eye for yuppie decor and accoutrements; even Woody's habitual, fanciful vision of an all-white New York is respected.
50 The New York Times Caryn James
Like the sitcom version of a Woody Allen film, full of amusing lines and scenes, all infused with an uncomfortable sense of deja vu.

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