- Award Snub: One of the most beloved and enduring films of 1989, its only Oscar nomination was for Nora Ephron's screenplay.
- Base-Breaking Character: Harry Burns. See Values Dissonance below.
- Comedy Ghetto: The likeliest explanation for the lack of awards love despite love on every other front.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: Harry is seen reading Misery by Stephen King. Guess what Rob Reiner's next film was?
- Memetic Mutation:
- "When ______ Met ______" . The movie was released in 1989, and people will still recognize this as a riff on its title.
- Being the movie's Signature Line, "I'll have what she's having." is used and referenced in countless other movies and TV shows.
- One-Scene Wonder: Rob Reiner's mother saying "I'll have what she's having" is remembered maybe even more so than the film is.
- Signature Scene: Sally's very public and very loud Fake Orgasm, widely considered the film's funniest scene, has been parodied so often even people who have never watched it have quoted Estelle Reiner's famous punchline: "I'll have what she's having."
- Super Couple: The titular Harry and Sally are considered by some to be one of the great Rom Com pairings due to the comedic acting talents of Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan.
- By others, not so much. (See Values Dissonance below)
- Tear Jerker: Harry and Sally's coping with their failed relationships can hit close to home for people who have gone through that kind of grief. Both claim to be "over it" until innocuous events trigger their sadness and it all just comes pouring out at once.
- Technology Marches On: The Casablanca scene. Nowadays, instead of tuning into the same station at the same time, Harry and Sally would have just had a Zoom, Skype or even Discord call, while streaming the movie.
- Values Dissonance:
- Today's audience often takes issue with Harry's dominating, mansplaining, verbally accusative and aggressive, creeping, and slut-shaming behavior toward Sally. While Harry was seen in the late-1980s as the Designated Hero of the story, but with "typically boorish manchild behavior", his interactions with Sally are viewed today as those of a controlling, demeaning, and abusive jerk.
- Likewise, the film's final scene where Harry and Sally get together was considered sweet, and worth the rest of the film in the 1980's. Today, it's seen as either unrealistic or pathological, with many audience members seeing Sally as an idiot to accept Harry after all he put her through.
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