- Award Snub: One of the most beloved and enduring films of 1989, its only Oscar nomination was for Nora Ephron's screenplay.
- Comedy Ghetto: The likeliest explanation for the lack of awards love despite love on every other front.
- Fridge Logic: After Sally's Signature Scene, Harry might have asked, "Were you pulsing your pelvis?"
- 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.
- 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.
- The central debate over whether (heterosexual, or hetero-attracted, in the case of bisexual) men and women can be "just" friends has some staying power but these days the film's suggested answer of "No, they can't" raises a few eyebrows. These days, as women have entered the working world, and women are far less expected to be "barefoot and pregnant" homemakers, it is increasingly common for men and women to share platonic friendships with no romantic or sexual element.
- Today's audience often takes issue
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