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15 Jan 2026 4:03
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  •   Home > News > International

    Rob Reiner's classic films and the lines that have endured

    Rob Reiner directed some classic films, many of which contained quotable lines that stuck around long after he yelled "cut!"


    "They just don't make movies like that anymore."

    That is the common refrain uttered by many since the suspected murders of celebrated Hollywood filmmaker and political activist Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner.

    Their son Nick Reiner has been arrested in connection with their deaths.

    Rob Reiner was himself born to show business royalty.

    His father was comic Carl Reiner, who created The Dick Van Dyke Show, and his mother was actor and jazz singer Estelle Reiner.

    Reiner was born in 1947 in the Bronx and was initially raised in New York before his family moved to Los Angeles in 1959.

    In 1971, Reiner married director and actor Penny Marshall. They divorced in 1979.

    He married Michele Singer in 1989 after they met on the set of When Harry Met Sally...

    Reiner's big break came when he was cast as Michael "Meathead" Stivic in the sitcom All in the Family. The role earned him Emmy Awards for best supporting actor in a comedy in 1974 and 1978.

    As an actor he also played Jordan Belfort's (Leonardo DiCaprio's) dad in the Martin Scorsese film The Wolf of Wall Street and acted opposite Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle.

    His production company, Castle Rock Entertainment, was behind movies such as In the Line of Fire, The Shawshank Redemption and Miss Congeniality.

    He cut his teeth in directing on the 1974 television movie Sonny Boy and his first notable success was the faux rock-and-roll documentary This is Spinal Tap.

    Here's a look at that film and other classics and the quotable lines they delivered.

    This is Spinal Tap

    Reiner made his directorial feature film debut in 1984 with This is Spinal Tap, a mockumentary about a fictional heavy metal band. Reiner played Marty DiBergi, the director of the documentary.

    The deadpan humour in the film and improvised dialogue turned it into a cult classic.

    He created the feature with the comics Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael McKean.

    Reiner was also involved in the sequel released this year, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.

    One of the most notable scenes in the original movie was when guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) shows documentarian DiBergi his custom Marshall amps, explaining that, while normal amps stop at 10, his are louder as they go to 11.

    When Harry Met Sally …

    Reiner was a divorcee when he was filming When Harry Met Sally … but meeting Singer on set resulted in him hastily changing the end of the film.

    "Originally, Harry and Sally didn't get together," Reiner told The Guardian in a 2018 interview.

    "But then I met Michele and I thought: OK, I see how this works."

    The most famous scene in the movie has got to be when Sally (Meg Ryan) explains to Harry (Billy Crystal) that women quite often fake orgasms, faking a rather convincing one right there at lunch.

    A woman in the bustling New York deli responds with that infamous line to a server: "I'll have what she's having."

    A Few Good Men

    When Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) relentlessly questions Colonel Nathan Jessup (Jack Nicholson) in a climactic courtroom confrontation in A Few Good Men, we get another of those classic lines that even if you haven't seen the film, you'll be aware of.

    Lt Kaffee ultimately gets Colonel Jessup to confess he ordered a "Code Red" (extrajudicial punishment) that led to a marine's death, but which he considered necessary for national security.

    The Princess Bride

    Described as a wry fantasy that mocked many of the tropes it employed, The Princess Bride is about Buttercup, a princess, who is madly in love with a farm boy, Westley.

    Westley's common refrain to Buttercup when responding to her many requests is "as you wish", a line that defines his affection for her also.

    Misery

    Misery is proof Reiner could take on any genre.

    Based on the novel by Stephen King, Misery stars Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes, a woman who imprisons writer Paul Sheldon (James Caan), whose work she adores.

    Wilkes tries to reassure Sheldon that she'll take good care of him because she's his "number one fan". Meanwhile, she tortures him.

    © 2026 ABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved

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