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Research dossier · Arts & Letters

When Harry Met Sally...

1989 film by Rob Reiner

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 20, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

When Harry Met Sally... is a 1989 American romantic comedy film directed by Rob Reiner and written by Nora Ephron. Starring Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, and Bruno Kirby, it follows the title characters from the time they meet in Chicago and share a drive to New York City through twelve years of chance encounters in New York, and addresses the question "Can men and women ever just be friends?"

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “When Harry Met Sally...” as 1989 film by Rob Reiner. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1989—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where When, Harry and Sally can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1989 film by Rob Reiner. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1989.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “When Harry Met Sally...”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow When Harry Met Sally... primary sources, When Harry Met Sally... archive and When research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “When Harry Met Sally...”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “When Harry Met Sally...” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.