Product Details

• Actors: Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell, Kiefer Sutherland
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
• Subtitles: Spanish, Georgian
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• DVD Release Date: September 10, 1997
• Run Time: 87 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (355 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0800141628
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #120,299 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Stand By Me" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

A sleeper hit when released in 1986, Stand by Me is based on Stephen King's novella "The Body" (from the book Different Seasons); but it's more about the joys and pains of boyhood friendship than a morbid fascination with corpses. It's about four boys ages 12 and 13 (Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell) who take an overnight hike through the woods near their Oregon town to find the body of a boy who's been missing for days. Their journey includes a variety of scary adventures (including a ferocious junkyard dog, a swamp full of leeches, and a treacherous leap from a train trestle), but it's also a time for personal revelations, quiet interludes, and the raucous comradeship of best friends. Set in the 1950s, the movie indulges an overabundance of anachronistic profanity and a kind of idealistic, golden-toned nostalgia (it's told in flashback as a story written by Wheaton's character as an adult, played by Richard Dreyfuss). But it's delightfully entertaining from start to finish, thanks to the rapport among its young cast members and the timeless, universal themes of friendship, family, and the building of character and self-esteem. Kiefer Sutherland makes a memorable teenage villain, and look closely for John Cusack in a flashback scene as Wheaton's now-deceased and dearly missed brother. A genuine crowd-pleaser, this heartfelt movie led director Rob Reiner to even greater success with his next film, The Princess Bride. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stand By Me: The novella, the movie and the DVD, February 4, 2007

By 

Rennie Petersen (Copenhagen, Denmark) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stand By Me (Special Edition) (DVD)

"Stand By Me" is a classic coming of age movie about growing up and friendship and the pain of disillusionment when the adults you depend upon let you down. Highly recommended.

In this review I'll focus mostly on the relationship between the movie and the Stephen King novella it is based on, and the DVD extra material that closes the ring.

The movie "Stand By Me" was made in 1986. It is based on a novella published in 1982 and the story takes place in 1959 (movie) or 1960 (novella). But the story is timeless - the conflicts and the difficult transition from child to adult apply to every generation.

There is a lot of trivia (pop songs, slang expressions, TV shows, etc.) from 1959/1960 in the movie and the novella, but this doesn't really anchor the story to that era. Every generation has it's own trivia that is very important to that generation. But today's generation can smile at the trivia of 47 years ago and still see the parallels between that trivia and their (to them) much more wonderful trivia.

The movie is based on a novella by Stephen King called "The Body". This is one of Stephen King's best stories, and is well worth reading or, if you like audio books, listening to. The audio version lasts almost six hours and is read by Frank Muller. Highly recommended. If you'd prefer to read the story yourself then you should buy the book "Different Seasons", a collection of four Stephen King novellas including "The Body".

The movie and the novella are very similar. There are, of course, many small differences, for example the town of Castle Rock has been moved from Maine to Oregon, there is more coverage of the older juvenile delinquents and less coverage of Gordie's stories and of Gordie as an adult, the place where the bloodsuckers are encountered is different, etc., etc. The biggest difference is that in the novella Chris is the main protagonist, or hero if you like, while in the movie it is Gordie. Still, this movie is truer to the written source than most movies based on books are.

So why did Rob Reiner make these changes, and what on earth did Stephen King think of them?

Here's where the magic of DVD extra material comes in. The "Special Edition" (2000) and "Deluxe Edition" (2005) DVDs both include a 35-minute documentary "featurette" called "Walking the Tracks: The Summer of Stand By Me", which was made in 2000. Stephen King, Rob Reiner and all of the major actors in the movie (except River Phoenix, who died in 1993) participate.

In this documentary film Rob Reiner tells that he identified personally more with Gordie than Chris, and therefore decided to make the movie Gordie's story. And Stephen King says that he respected Rob Reiner's decision and thinks that "Stand By Me" was the first movie adaptation of his work that really fulfilled the spirit of the story.

Stephen King also says that many of the things that happen in "The Body" and in "Stand By Me" are things he experienced himself in his childhood. This makes the story somewhat autobiographical, with Gordie being in some ways the young Stephen King. In the novella "The Body" this is quite pronounced in that an adult Gordie is telling the story in the first person, and also tells how he's now become a successful writer of horror books.

So the bottom line is, if you like the movie then read or listen to the novella. And after you've read the novella and seen the movie, check out the DVD featurette that ties them together.

Rennie Petersen

44 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Much better sound than the Special Edition, July 27, 2005

By 

James W. Anderson (Alpharetta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stand By Me (Deluxe Edition) (DVD)

I purchased the Special Edition of this movie recently and couldn't believe that the audio was monophonic. I was thus pleasantly surprised to see that in this edition of the DVD they restored the original multi-channel soundtrack. Even the casual listener will notice the difference immediately.

To my knowledge the movie itself is the same as on the Special Edition (no added or cut scenes) so I won't waste your time commenting on that. I just wanted to bring attention to the fact that the Deluxe Edition of this movie is the ONLY one any serious movie collector should consider.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitive, September 4, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Stand By Me (Special Edition) (DVD)

I'm not going to write a synopsis of the plot here or tell you how great the movie is. You already know that. If you are going to buy this movie on DVD and have never seen it, plan to watch the bonus documentary included on the new DVD release first, "Walking the Tracks," a behind-the-scenes look at the making of film as told by Rob Reiner, Stephen King, Wil Wheaton, Corey Feldman and Jerry O'Connell. You'll hear Wil explain why Gordie doesn't get his brother's Yankee cap returned, what Jerry O'Connell really thought of Kiefer Sutherland, and how Rob Reiner made two of the cast members weep during the train trestle scene! The docu footage appears to have been shot on the late 1990s or even early 2000, and it's wonderful to see these people together again (River Phoenix, who died in 1993, is not part of the documentary, but is referred to by just about everyone being interviewed).

The best part for me was watching the movie with English subtitles, which made me realize for the first time what some of the dialogue was (including some put downs my ears could never quite figure out--"wet end" and "whoremaster," among others).

But far and away, the reason you must buy this DVD is to listen to Rob Reiner's personable director's commentary as the film plays. It's an option, so you can still watch and listen to the complete movie in its original format, but if you've already memorized the scenes because you've seen this movie countless times, listen to Rob's (apparently one-take and continuous) comments about each scene. He's also very funny, and his anecdote about the scene in which Ray Brower is found by the tracks is hilarious, despite the somber tone of this section of the movie.

Other perks: the long-lost video of "Stand by Me," featuring singer Ben E. King, River Phoenix and Wil Wheaton (the song was originally a #4 hit in 1960 and was re-released in the fall of 1986, peaking at #9--Rob Reiner makes a comment about the song going to #1 both times, but he's not correct).