Rob Reiner's Original Ending For When Harry Met Sally Was Devastating
by Nina Starner · /FilmWe all remember the ending of Rob Reiner and Nora Ephron's genre-defining romantic comedy "When Harry Met Sally..." After a disastrous romantic encounter, longtime friends Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) and Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) are at odds, with Sally alone at a New Year's Eve party feeling dejected and Harry similarly alone on the streets of New York City. They finally reunite — at which point Harry delivers one of the most romantic speeches in cinematic history. Apparently, Reiner — who died at his Brentwood, California home on December 14, 2025 along with his wife Michele Singer, both of them victims of an apparent homicide — was originally so disillusioned with love that he was going to end the movie without Harry and Sally together.
"It was going to be the two of them seeing each other after years, talking and then walking away from each other," Reiner told Chris Wallace on CNN (via The Hollywood Reporter) during an interview in early 2024 before explaining that, in the aftermath of his divorce from fellow director Penny Marshall, he was adrift ... and felt inspired.
"I had been married for 10 years," Reiner said of Marshall, with whom he shared adopted daughter Tracy Reiner. "I'd been single for 10 years, and I couldn't figure out how I was ever going to be with anybody, and that gave birth to 'When Harry Met Sally.'" Then, everything changed when Reiner met Singer. "I met my wife Michele, who I've been married to now 35 years. I met her while we were making the film, and I changed the ending," Reiner said. When Wallace continued his line of questioning and asked if Singer's mere existence gave "When Harry Met Sally..." its happy ending, Reiner said, "That's right."
The ending of When Harry Met Sally... is one of the sweetest conclusions in romantic comedy history
Let's talk more about that ending. After initially hating each other when they first meet decades prior and then slowly becoming friends throughout the years, Harry and Sally's reunion at the aforementioned New Year's Eve party basically sets the standard for every rom-com made after 1989 (the year it released). Harry sprints through the streets of Manhattan before finding an aggrieved Sally at the party, who's frustrated beyond belief and genuinely thinks she's Harry's second choice or that he's settling for her because it's lonely and it's New Year's Eve. Aided by some of Nora Ephron's best writing, Harry sets the record straight:
"I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes, and I love that you are the last person I wanna talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. 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."
Throughout "When Harry Met Sally..." we see interview footage of real-life couples talking about how they met and got married. In the epilogue, we see Harry and Sally, recently married, briefly discuss their own love story. It's astounding to realize that, without Michele Singer, none of this would be possible.
Rob Reiner was a Hollywood titan, and When Harry Met Sally... might just be his finest work
I said this in a ranking of Rob Reiner's five best movies, but it bears repeating: "When Harry Met Sally..." might just be the director's best movie of all time. (Quibble with me all you want!) Reiner himself recognized just how excellent this love story is, pointing out that it's also a weirdly impossible movie.
"It's an amazing movie, I have to say, because there's no plot," Crystal told The Hollywood Reporter in 2019 for a feature that commemorated the movie's 30th anniversary. "In typical romantic comedies, they go through so much: their adversity, he had to move, he got drafted, he's in the Army, he came back, they found each other again — no. The obstacle in this movie is themselves." He is right, and if I'm being honest, I've watched "When Harry Met Sally..." dozens of times and never thought of it this way. The only thing standing between Harry and Sally's true love is their own shared stubbornness and refusal to admit that they're more than just friends, even after a one-night stand that leaves them both lightly humiliated as they slip back into bad intimacy habits (Harry wants to run for the hills, while Sally is basically ready to propose).
"When Harry Met Sally..." is a character study masquerading as a rom-com, and that's what probably makes it so great. Instead of focusing on plot contrivances and Army drafts and all of that, Reiner just lets two characters fall in love on screen. It's a testament to Reiner's talent as a director, and this film will always be a major part of his legacy; it'll also be a part of Michele Singer's legacy.