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As you will see in the list below, these seven films didn’t just go on to become beloved and iconic pieces of cinema; they also helped pioneer entire forms of filmmaking and genre, while also helping to launch an entire generation of talent onto the big screen. It was also a run that gave us some of cinema’s most indelible moments, which will live on long after Rob Reiner.
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
Do you like The Office, Parks and Rec, or the newer generation of mockumentary workplace comedies (The Paper, Saint Dennis Medical)? Well, thank Rob Reiner and a cast and crew of unbelievable comedic talent for pioneering the genre with This Is Spinal Tap. Reiner wrote, directed, and starred as a documentary filmmaker named Marty Di Bergi, who followed the UK band Spinal Tap during their American tour. Like The Office, the film mixes irony, satire, dry-wit dialogue, and clever sight gags to poke fun at the music industry as it transitioned from the heyday of counter-culture ’70s rock into the ’80s era of hair bands and Glam Rock. Along the way, the entire music industry and concept of celebrity get skewered pretty well.
Spinal Tap features a long list of talent that are well known if not iconic now, inlcuding filmmaker Michael McKean (Better Call Saul), Christopher Guest (Best in Show), Fran Drescher (The Nanny), Dana Carvey (Wanye’s World), Billy Crystal (City Slickers), Paul Shaffer (David Letterman), Fred Willard (A Mighty Wind), and Anjelica Houston (The Addams Family, John Wick). You can stream it (and its long-awaited sequel) on HBO Max.
The Sure Thing (1985)
The Sure Thing was another trend setter: a romantic comedy where the male and female leads start as “friends” or “rivals,” only to discover through comedic hijinks and heartbreaks that the “perfect” person has been in front of them, all along.
College student Walter “Gib” Gibson (John Cusack) has been trying to impress a girl, Alison Bradbury (Spaceballs’ Daphne Zuniga), and failing. When his buddy in California tells Gib that a girl out there is eager to meet him, the young man decides to make the cross-country trek. Through a series of coincidences, Gib ends up sharing a ride with Alison, who is going to Cali to visit her boyfriend. The tension between the two gets them stranded, and together they have to hitchhike to the West Coast, gradually falling for one another along the way.
Stand by Me (1986)
The film tells the story of writer Gordon Lachance (Richard Dreyfuss), who learns one of his childhood friends has died from a newspaper obituary. That sparks a vivid memory of a summer at the end of the 1950s, where Gordon (Wil Wheaton) and three of his friends (played by River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O’Connell) set out on an adventure. The boys get wind of where to find the body of a missing boy and set out to make themselves local heroes. Instead, they find their own personal issues coming to the surface, as well as running afoul of a local gang, led by the crazy Ace Merrill (Kiefer Sutherland).
For boys of the 1980s and 1990s, Stand by Me was the coming-of-age movie that left an indelible mark. From seeing some of Gen X’s biggest stars get their break, to scenes and quotes that still live on (the pie-eating contest, “Do you want to see a dead body?”), Stand by Me is a true classic.
The Princess Bride (1987)
A sick grandson (Fred Savage) is read a fairy tale book by his grandfather (Peter Falk). The book plays out onscreen, chronicling the epic love of a stable boy named Westley (Cary Elwes), who falls for a princess named Buttercup (Robin Wright). Wesley leaves to be a sailor and earn a fortune that will make him worthy of Buttercup; instead, he vanishes, and five years later, the princess is forcibly engaged to a prince of her stature. Wesley returns for his bride, but he’s very much changed, having grown into the most infamous pirate on the seas. That man in black, “The Dread Pirate Roberts,” embarks on a quest to beat all of Prince Humperdinck’s (Chris Sarandon) challenges and get back Buttercup before her wedding day.
With The Princess Bride, Rob Reiner once again helped pioneer the kind of comedic subversion of fairy tales, legends, and myths that are now so common. The same goes for the ‘story-within-a-story’ framework, which allows for comedic interplay between the characters in the story, and the narrator telling the story (and/or listening audience). It’s also another Reiner film that helped establish a lot of stars, including Elwes, Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Wallace Shawn, Carol Kane, Billy Crystal, and an unforgettable appearance from WWE icon André the Giant.
