Meg Ryan in the iconic New Year’s Eve scene in “When Harry Met Sally.” Fans of the 1989 movie, directed by the late Rob Reiner, appreciate its hopeful message about finding romance. Watching the movie has become a New Year’s Eve tradition for some.
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The late Rob Reiner directed one of the most iconic and beloved New Year’s Eve movie moments in “When Harry Met Sally,” the tale of two longtime friends who realize after years of on-again/off-again friendship that they are actually, truly, surprisingly in love with each other.
On the last night of the year Harry Burns, played by Billy Crystal, runs down the streets of New York to declare his love to his longtime gal pal Sally Albright — the adorable Meg Ryan — who is suffering through a bad date at a glitzy New Year’s Eve affair.
“I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible,” Harry excitedly proclaims after listing every quirk about Sally that he loves.
Cue “Auld Lang Syne” and a passionate kiss. New Year’s Eve goals.
“When Harry Met Sally” was the first thing Lori Chapman thought of when she heard that Reiner and his wife, Michele Reiner, had been stabbed to death in their California home on Dec. 14. Their son was later arrested and charged with murder.
Since 1989, when the movie debuted, Chapman has spent New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day either watching the movie or listening to its soundtrack. She owns the DVD.
She is divorced and finds hope in Harry and Sally’s story that love can be as close as the best friend you’ve known for years.
“The last time I watched it was last New Year’s Day,” said Chapman, who lives in the Northland and works in the trucking industry. “I’d gone out the night before with some new friends. I live alone and I made a blanket fort and watched it from under the blanket fort and ate black-eyed peas for good luck. It was so fun.”
These days, Melissa Haerer feels like she’s living this rom-com about besties falling in love. It happened to her in real life.
“I connect with this movie in so many ways. I can relate to Sally. She’s picky, rigid in certain situations, and prissy,” said Haerer, a sales director for Schulte Hospitality Group who lives in the Northland.
“I became friends with a gentleman later in life, earlier this year, actually. For months we had so many great conversations and really got to know each other and became great friends.
“We became friends first. That was the key. We tell each other everything. We’ve cried, we laughed, we shared heartbreaking experiences. And then I started to fall for him, romantically.
“He’s not someone I thought I would be falling for. He’s a nerd. An academic. But he’s genuine, very kind, amazing wordsmith and makes me happy. In a way, he reminds me of Harry.”
After Reiner died, Chapman told the Screenland Armour Theatre folks on Facebook they should show the movie on New Year’s Eve. But the theater in North Kansas City had other plans.
The Screenland will celebrate Reiner’s work by showing some of his films in January. First up Saturday: “When Harry Met Sally.”
“There’s never been a friendship quite like Harry and Sally’s,” the theater posted on Facebook last week. “Sex always gets in the way of friendships between men and women. At least, that’s what Harry Burns believes.
“So when Harry meets Sally Albright and a deep friendship blossoms between them, Harry’s determined not to let his attraction to Sally destroy it.
“Rob Reiner’s When Harry Met Sally is without a doubt one of the most honest and beautiful romantic comedies of all time.”
Like Chapman, Screenland owner Adam Roberts is a fan of the movie.
“For me, it’s the two New Year’s Eves we get in the film … the messy, boil-over first New Year’s Eve where neither of them knows how to adequately explain their feelings and instead become estranged yet again,” Roberts told The Star.
“But then a year later, when they are still lonely and the thought of not having someone to kiss on New Year’s presents itself … the perfect monologue of bottled up feelings explodes and just makes your heart swoon.
“You feel like you’ve lived this relationship for over a decade with these two people who are frustratingly perfect for one another. It’s a movie about multiple chance meetings that feels real and adult.”
Kansas City couple Melissa Haerer and Miles Gleaton plan to watch “When Harry Met Sally” to ring in the New Year. Courtesy Melissa Haerer
We’ll have what she’s having
Last year, mayonnaise maker Hellmann’s tapped into the nostalgia surrounding the 35th anniversary of “When Harry Met Sally.”
The company worked with advertising and marketing giant VML, based in Kansas City, to create what became one of the most talked-about commercials of Super Bowl LVIII in February, which the Chiefs lost to the 49ers.
The 30-second spot recreated the movie’s famous Katz’s Deli scene where Ryan ate a sandwich with orgasmic gusto. She and Crystal returned to the famous New York City deli for another sandwich, this time made with Hellmann’s.
Gen Z star Sydney Sweeney delivered the iconic punchline: “I’ll have what she’s having.”
“’When Harry Met Sally’ is love at its best and at its worst. That is the film’s superpower,” Susan Golkin, VML executive creative director, told The Star. “It doesn’t just show you the romance of a relationship, but the reality.”
Harry’s face says it all when he and Sally sleep together for the first time: what just happened? Fox
The movie “lays it all out on that proverbial wagon wheel table. The good, the bad and the ugly of relationships and friendships,” Golkin said, referencing a scene where Harry and Sally’s best friends fight over a coffee table when they move in together.
“And the brilliant actors and director brought so much of themselves to the finished product, from their own lives and their own relationships. That can’t be scripted (although it is a brilliant script).
“At a time where very few people actually meet in the real world, it’s also refreshing to see people being set up, meeting at parties, vs. swiping left or right.”
Left to right, Rob Reiner, Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal attend the 30th anniversary screening of “When Harry Met Sally” in April 2019. Emma McIntyre Getty Images for TCM
The movie, with a screenplay by Nora Ephron, came close to ending very differently, literally with Harry and Sally walking away from each other.
But then love found Reiner during the making of the movie.
At the time he had been single for 10 years since divorcing actress/director Penny Marshall of “Laverne & Shirley.”
The first version of the movie’s ending had Harry and Sally running into each other on a New York sidewalk, then walking away in opposite directions after a brief conversation.
But during production Reiner met and fell in love with Michele Singer, who later became his wife.
Inspired by Reiner’s newfound happiness, Crystal wrote Harry’s now-famous declaration of love, giving test audiences — and Reiner himself — a happy Hollywood ending.
New Year’s Eve movie hacks
“When Harry Met Sally” is hardly the only movie involving New Years’s Eve, Roberts noted.
In “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” for instance, “Bridget (Renee Zellweger) is seen making resolutions for the new year,” Roberts said. “The futuristic thriller ‘Strange Days’ is an underrated gem, as is the ‘90s comedy, ‘200 Cigarettes.’
“For New Years Day, I personally like to watch a few classics that have nothing to do with the holidays. Taking a trip into space with ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ a heartbreaking romance like ‘Phantom Thread’ or a fun film that will take away your hangover like ‘Airplane.’”
Watching a movie on New Year’s Eve is such a popular way to ring in the new year that film lovers have hacked their favorites to time climactic scenes to the stroke of midnight. Note that these countdowns are based on standard versions of films shown on streaming services.
For instance, if you start watching “When Harry Met Sally” at 10:30:28 — that’s 30 minutes, 28 seconds after 10 p.m. — Harry’s profession of love coincides with the midnight scene.
If you start “Ghostbusters II” at 10:38 p.m., Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) says “Happy New Year” at midnight.
Start up “Back to the Future” at 10:19 p.m. and Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) returns to 1985 in the DeLorean at the stroke of midnight.
One of the holidays’ most popular movie-watching customs: Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby will raise his memorable toast at midnight if you begin playing “The Great Gatsby” at 11:29:57 — about 30 minutes and 3 seconds before midnight.
For sports fans, fire up “Hoosiers” at 10:07:48 and Jimmy Chitwood will nail the winning shot at midnight.
As for Chapman, she won’t be at home, or alone, at midnight this New Year’s.
Lori Chapman, who celebrates every New Year by watching “When Harry Met Sally” directed by the late Rob Reiner. Courtesy Lori Chapman
Like last year she’s celebrating at a big gala in town with a local singles group.
“It’s just a big New Year’s celebration, kind of like the one in ‘When Harry Met Sally,’” she said. “Last year was the first time I really did that in a big experience and I’m going to do it again.”
But come Thursday, she’ll be watching the movie.
Haerer plans to watch it on New Year’s Eve with her boyfriend, Miles Gleaton. He saw it for the first time this year when the Rooftop Cinema Club in the Crossroads showed it.
“He enjoyed it over the summer when I introduced it to him. And he is the ultimate romantic,” said Haerer. “It may not have taken years of friendship for me and Miles to fall in love, but we will share the love of a great romantic movie!”
This story was originally published December 30, 2025 at 5:45 AM.
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