A number of legendary movies are celebrating milestone anniversaries in 2026, including Stand By Me, the 1986 coming-of-age classic based on the Stephen King novella The Body.
A hit at the box office--over $52 million grossed worldwide against an $8 million budget--Stand By Me has endured over the last four decades. Earlier this year, the film was re-released in theaters on a limited basis to celebrate its upcoming 40th anniversary, and a recent set of rankings named it one of the top summer movies ever.
Summer accolades for Stand By Me
Starring Jerry O'Connell, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman and Wil Wheaton as a group of boys determined to find a rumored dead body in the woods, Stand By Me was directed by the late Rob Reiner, who was in the middle of "a crazy run of crowdpleasers" at the time, according to Decider, which last week named Stand By Meone of the 15 best summer movies of all time.
"On paper, it sounds a bit more mordant and thorny than the likes of This Is Spinal Tap or The Princess Bride," said Decider's Jesse Hassenger, referencing two other Reiner hits from the same era. "Yet four decades later, this compact classic — it runs under 90 minutes! — remains one of Reiner’s best, and was reportedly the director’s favorite of his own films. (Stephen King is fond of it, too.) Its depiction of a free-range summer, with kids facing some genuine unsupervised danger, albeit not always more than they might find at home, is both nostalgic and, appropriate to King’s edge, a little scary, with a bittersweet postscript."
Indeed, in 2016, King called Stand By Meone of his favorite adaptations of his work, along with The Shawshank Redemption.
Unfortunately, a pall hangs over the movie's 40th anniversary
Stand By Me was released in theaters in August 1986. Last December, Wheaton, Feldman and O'Connell began an ongoing nationwide tour to commemorate the movie's upcoming anniversary.
Sadly, the tour has had a pall over it following the deaths of Reiner and his wife Michele, who were murdered by their son Nick in December. Phoenix, one of the film's protagonists, died of a drug overdose in 1993 at the age of 23.
“The movie is called Stand By Me, and there’s four of us,” an emotional Feldman told PEOPLE back in March. “We can’t stand by River, because he’s not here. Now with Rob missing too — I'm sorry, I'm going to get a little emotional — but I was so hoping that he would be able to join us for this."
"We have this instant connection and it's there. The camaraderie is there, the jokes are there, we have so much fun. But there's this looming thing hanging over us," Feldman added, saying that the entire process was "bittersweet."
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