It was 30 years ago this July when Harry Burns and Sally Albright met, fought, became friends, traded ideas about life and love, performed impromptu karaoke in a department store, dabbled in phony accentry, and exhibited a flare for feigning bouts of euphoria. The three decades to follow When Harry Met Sally‘s 1989 release have cemented it as not just a romantic comedy staple, but that which so many modern love stories are measured against. The film is notably absent of remarkable gimmicks or flashy twists on its well-worn genre; instead, it stands out precisely because it is a simple, earnest story of two people who spend years really liking, and then really loving, one another.
Though When Harry Met Sally‘s most referenced (and, often to tragic ends, imitated) sequence is undoubtedly the above Katz Deli scene, in which Meg Ryan demonstrates the ease with which she can fake an orgasm, the film is packed throughout with quotable and otherwise laugh-out-loud instances, from the central pair’s ill-timed double phone call with pals Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby, right up to Harry’s New Years Eve speech at the very end of the story. In short, it’s always worth a rewatch.Images: Columbia Pictures