My intention with this version of my 2026 intertwining bi-monthly series, the one where I watch six Rob Reiner favorites, was to go chronologically. I had a special viewing of This is Spinal Tap (1984), my favorite Reiner film, before we even started, watching it as a double feature with Spinal Tap II: The End Continues last month. Next up would have been The Sure Thing (1985), technically my seventh favorite Reiner film, but we're excluding my favorite for the purposes of this series since I already just watched it. And I was really looking forward to this one, because my records say I have not watched The Sure Thing at any point since I started keeping track of my rewatches, nearly 20 years ago.
But you know what? I can't find The Sure Thing anywhere.
This surprised me, especially in the wake of the loss of Reiner. I know that the passing of a beloved personality does not necessarily change the availability of his or her films, because that has to do with contracts and rights and all that stuff. But you do sometimes see films surface because there is a hunger for watching them at a particular time.
Not The Sure Thing. Not where I've looked, anyway.
I won't get into where I looked and whether I missed somewhere obvious. I don't think I did, because Google AI tells me:
As of early 2026, The Sure Thing (1985) is generally not available on major subscription streaming services, but it is available to rent or purchase. It can be found on digital platforms such as Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and sometimes YouTube.
Yeah, well, I looked in all three of those areas, and no go.
I'm not giving up on watching The Sure Thing. I'll find it somewhere this year even if I have to buy it online as a DVD and have it shipped to me from America. But I will have to give up on ordering this bi-monthly series chronologically, so instead I'll use the order these films are ranked on my Flickchart. (And I can't build toward a climax by going in reverse order, in case you were wondering, because reverse order would also dictate that The Sure Thing was up next.)
That means that after #9 This is Spinal Tap, up next is #11 The Princess Bride (1987), which is actually skipping over two movies in the chronology after Tap.
It had been almost eight years since my last Bride viewing, which was when I showed it to my kids one time when my wife wasn't there -- a decision that I regretted when she told me how much she would have liked to be present for their first Princess Bride viewing. There has not been one since, and though my younger son might still be into it, the 15-year-old definitely would not be. Like the boat boarded by Vizzini, Inigo, Fezzik and Buttercup, that ship has sailed.
The 2018 viewing, my first since before 2006 (as far back as my rewatch records go), also reminded me how much I cherish the movie. The next time it came up in a Flickchart duel, it jumped from 29th to 11th (yes, I keep a record of these things as well), which is where it has stayed to this day.
Although this series is designed to sing the praises of Reiner, we also know that Reiner was not a director with a signature style. He had signature touches and collaborators -- watching this reminded me that he re-teamed with Christopher Guest after Tap, and would use Billy Crystal again in When Harry Met Sally -- but otherwise none of these three films is directly comparable to one another. Reiner presided over them, but as I was watching The Princess Bride this time, it made me realize that the person I probably really wanted to praise in this post is William Goldman, who wrote the screenplay based on his own book. We lost Goldman in 2018, only a few months after my last Bride viewing.
This is not to say there will be no Reiner in this post. But as I was watching, I decided to start jotting down quotes, and those quotes can be attributed to Goldman, not Reiner.
You see, when I got to the Princess Bride portion of my in memoriam post to Reiner in December, I wrote "You can quote 30 lines from this movie and there would still be 30 more honorable mentions."
Impulsively, I decided to see whether that was hyperbole or really true.
So the following is a list of quotes I wrote down, mostly as they occurred, but a few out of order because I only realized I wanted to do this about ten minutes into the movie. So I went back and added a few I knew I had missed. I'll write them here in the order I wrote them down.
Did I stack the deck in favor of getting as close to 60 as I could, to prove my previous casual hypothesis correct? You can be the judge of that. I had a hard time drawing distinctions between lines that I thought might actually be repeated by people -- repurposed for use in their daily lives, as we do with the movie lines we love the most -- and just good lines of dialogue that I remembered because I've seen the movie a half-dozen times. It may not have been perfect, but I will tell you that there were some where I decided they definitnely did not belong as quotable lines -- so I was not always erring in my own favor.
Also, although most of them are jokes or funny lines, a few aren't.
Okay, presented mostly without context, because quotable lines should allow you to bring up the context in your head automatically:
1) "Unemployed! In Greenland!"
2) "As you wish."
3) "No more rhymes, and I mean it! Anybody want a penaut?"
4) "The Cliffs of Insanity!"
5) "Is this a kissing book?" (Incidentally, the only quote from the Fred Savage-Peter Falk portion of the film.)
6) "Inconceivable!"
7) "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
8) "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
9) "I am not left-handed."
10) "No one of consequence."
11) "Plato? Aristotle? Socrates? Morons."
12) "And find out who is right, and who is dead."
13) "You'd like to think that wouldn't you!"
14) "Never get involved in a land war in Asia!"
15) "Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!"
16) "I am no one to be trifled with."
17) "I spent the last few years building up an immunity to Iocane."
18) "Life is pain highness. Anyone who says different is selling something."
19) "I died that day!"
20) "Death cannot stop true love."
21) "Good night Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning."
22) "Rodents of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist."
23) "The Pit of Despair. Don't even -- (clears throat) -- Don't even think of trying to escape."
24) "Boo! Boo!"
25) " ... my wife to murder, and Gilder to frame for it. I'm swamped."
26) "If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything."
27) "There will be blood tonight!"
28) "I would not say such things if I were you!"
29) "You are the brute squad."
30) "I've seen worse."
31) "Your friend here is only mostly dead."
32) "I'm not a witch, I'm your wife! But after what you just said, I'm not even sure I want to be that anymore!"
33) "Have fun storming the castle!"
34) "Mawage. Mawage is what brings us together today."
35) "Wuv. Twoo wuv."
36) "Oh you mean this gate key."
37) "I think that's the worst thing I've ever heard."
38) "Stop saying that!"
39) "I want my father back you son of a bitch."
40) "I killed you too quickly last time."
41) "Hello lady!"
42) "Don't worry, I won't let it go to my head."
A few stretches there maybe, but I got to 30 pretty easily even if you take out a dozen stretches. And the stretches and the ones I didn't write down can certainly qualify as the "30 honorable mentions."
So yeah, this script is amazing -- incredibly paced in addition to the priceless writing of dialogue. Goldman was a true master, except when he wasn't. (Did you see Year of the Comet? Yeah, don't.)
But without the actors, scripts are just words on a page. And that's where Reiner comes in. Without the line deliveries of these actors -- for which I think we can credit them and him equally -- Goldman's great lines don't stand a chance of committing themselves to permanence.
Just think of the performance of Wallace Shawn, instantly iconic, but who before this was primarily known for stuff like My Dinner With Andre. Not the same sort of material at all, but Reiner found the comedic genius within him and brought it out.
Or -- speaking of Andre -- there was Andre the Giant, who was not an actor at all. Even with his heavily accented English, the wrestler is responsible for -- *stops to count* -- well, only three of those lines. But he is also responsible for inserting himself forever into our hearts, such that on this viewing, when he'd already been gone for more than 32 years, I got a little choked up on his line "Hello lady!"
To say nothing of how this made stars of Cary Elwes and Robin Wright, though Wright famously turned down a half-dozen ensuing rules that would have made her a lot more famous than she ever became.
The script is great, but Reiner's touch with actors and with material -- whether we can fully quantify it or not -- makes The Princess Bride what it is. Which is my 11th favorite movie of all time.
I could probably dig for a number of other things I got out of this viewing, but The Princess Bride is not exactly new territory in terms of movies about which to rhapsodize. So I won't even bother.
But I did want to ask one thing: What's with all the weird Christmas stuff in the grandson's bedroom? (I only just now realized Savage's character doesn't have a name.)
What weird Christmas stuff, you ask? You never noticed it either?
Well I'll show you.
How about this crazy, angry homemade Santa?
Or the snowman over his shoulder here?
Or the long-bearded, European-style Santa whose long beard and red coat you can see in the middle of the picture here?
There's absolutely zero indication that this movie is supposed to be set at Christmas. Nor was it released at Christmas, having come out in September of 1987.
I'm not looking on the internet. I know the internet will have an explanation. I don't want it. I'd rather just speculate.
More than anything I like how it gives this kid's bedroom a real, lived in quality. No, you might not actually decorate your own room with Christmas stuff, but I like that there is nothing remotely choreographed about the items in his bedroom. (I keep wanting to call him Kevin after his Wonder Years character.) Our bedrooms -- I would have been 13 when this came out, so maybe a little older than this kid -- defied a set dresser's perfect idea of what a bedroom should look like, and whoever dressed this set honored that truth and then some.
Going by order on Flickchart, my April viewing will be my #3 Reiner film, at #26 on my Flickchart, When Harry Met Sally. And that one should not be hard to find.
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