Rob Reiner had a hell of a directing run through the 1980s and early 1990s. Just about every movie he made from This is Spinal Tap (1984) to A Few Good Men (1992) turned out to be an enduring classic. Arguably (and indeed strong arguments can be made for others), the best of them remains his nostalgic drama about adolescence and growing up, Stand By Me.

Reiner’s winning streak took a dive with North in 1994 (famously the cause of critic Roger Ebert’s hilarious rant: “I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it.”), but he seemed to rebound the following year with The American President. Unfortunately, his directing career fell off a cliff after that and never entirely recovered. With news that he’s now working on a belated Spinal Tap sequel, one can only hope that this once-great filmmaker finally regains his mojo.

Title:	Stand By Me
Year of Release:	1986
Director:	Rob Reiner
Watched On:	4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
Also Available On:	Blu-ray Max Roku Channel Various VOD rental and purchase platforms

Based on a Stephen King novella originally published as The Body, Reiner’s film adaptation transplants the author’s favorite fictional town of Castle Rock from its original home in Maine across the country to Oregon. The story is a reminiscence, told from the perspective of a grown-up writer (Richard Dreyfuss) looking back to his youth in 1959 – a time so distant it feels like an entirely different world, one where a group of Sixth Graders could simply disappear for a few days under the thinnest of excuses and hardly anyone would notice.

Between bookend segments set in the (then) modern day, the bulk of the film is a flashback to a childhood adventure the writer went on with a group of his 12-year-old friends. With no adults paying attention to anything they do, much less supervising their activities, Gordie (Wil Wheaton), Chris (River Phoenix), Teddy (Corey Feldman), and Vern (Jerry O’Connell) pack up some meager supplies and set off on a quest to find another kid who’d gone missing several days earlier. Specifically, they plan to find his corpse. They have reason to believe the missing boy was hit by a train near the woods a few miles outside Castle Rock, and that they’ll all be greeted as heroes if they can return home with information about the exact location where his body lies. However, doing so will require the boys to face unplanned perils, including a scary junkyard dog, a swamp full of leeches, a harrowing near-miss of their own on the train tracks, and a standoff with older bullies (led by Kiefer Sutherland) who have similar plans.

Through all of this, the majority of screen-time is spent with the kids simply being kids, and talking about the sort of dumb stuff kids think is important or meaningful in their lives, like debating whether Mighty Mouse could beat up Superman, or a gross-out revenge tale set at a pie-eating contest that Gordie writes and tells the others. The young actors all give emotionally affecting performances (even future burn-out Corey Feldman), and Reiner directs the picture with sensitivity.

Stand By Me is a nearly perfect movie about life, loss, friendship, and the moment a kid first starts to comprehend the concept of mortality. I thought it was great when I first watched it as a teenager, and my appreciation for the film has only grown as I’ve matured to the point where I can now see the story from grown-up Gordie’s point-of-view. River Phoenix’s death at too young an age just a few years later of course resonates strongly as well.

With that said, I had originally planned to watch this with one or both of my sons, but hesitated after realizing it was rated R. In addition to the fairly heavy subject matter, the movie features a considerable amount of swearing, including offensive slurs. The kids are also shown smoking extensively. While all of that is understandable within the context of the story, and I wouldn’t change a frame of it, as a parent I felt my own kids aren’t quite ready for this one yet. I think I’ll give it a couple more years before introducing them to it.

The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

Sony first released Stand By Me on Blu-ray in 2011. A 4K Ultra HD edition followed in 2019, and was reissued with SteelBook packaging in 2023. I have the regular keepcase version. The disc menu interface is absolutely horrible, one of the worst I’ve ever endured. It’s a confusing pain in the ass scrolling up, down, and sideways through multiple screens trying to figure out even basic features, such as the chapter menu. Further, the disc has no pop-up menu feature at all. If you want to change an audio setting or go to the chapter guide, you’ll automatically return to the main menu like a DVD.

The 1.85:1 image is decidedly sharper in 4K than the accompanying Blu-ray, which looks very soft and hazy in comparison. (Well, the movie’s photography has always been relatively soft and hazy, but the 4K transfer counteracts much of that by resolving available detail in crisper clarity.) The downside to this, unfortunately, is that film grain has a very harsh, gritty texture, especially visible in shots against the blue sky – and practically the majority of the movie is staged with the sky as a backdrop behind the characters.

The film’s soundtrack is available in three options: the original mono (DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0), a 5.1 remix originally created for DVD (DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 here), and a new Dolby Atmos track. I tried the Atmos but gave up on it quickly. Sound effects and dialogue are spread out and redirected around the soundstage in a very aggressive and artificial manner. During the scene where Vern (Jerry O’Connell) hides under the porch, dialogue from his older brother shifts back and forth between the base-level speakers (in shots from the brother’s P.O.V.) to the height channels (in shots from Vern’s P.O.V.). I found this extremely gimmicky and distracting.

The older 5.1 mix has similar problems but isn’t quite as bad. Even so, in my comparisons I preferred the mono. Dialogue may be pushed very forward and a little bright in that mix, but the mono track sounds the least filtered and most natural overall.

The only extras on the 4K disc are a handful of brief deleted or alternate scenes. Other supplements are found on the Blu-ray, which is obviously a copy of the original 2011 disc that will prompt you to turn on BD-Live for a defunct online portal no longer supported by the studio.

What features remain active on the disc include an audio commentary by director Rob Reiner, a separate picture-in-picture commentary by Reiner and stars Wil Wheaton and Corey Feldman (which requires you to turn on Secondary Audio if your Blu-ray player even still offers that function), an old half-hour retrospective featurette in standard-definition video, and a music video for the title song.

Related

• Rob Reiner (director)
  • This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
• River Phoenix
  • Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
• Kiefer Sutherland
  • The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023)
  • Rabbit Hole (2023)
• Corey Feldman
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)
• Richard Dreyfuss
  • Jaws (1975)
• Coming-of-Age Movie
  • The Sandlot (1993)

Note: All screenshots on this page were taken from the Blu-ray edition of the film and are used for illustration purposes only.