Admittedly, I was extremely late to watching Rob Reiner’s 1986 film Stand by Me. I only got around to seeing it last month, but I haven’t been able to shake it since. 

The premise, on paper, is simple: four young boys, all on summer break, hear the dead body of a boy they knew was found in the woods a couple of miles outside of their small town in Oregon. They set out in search of it, following the train tracks toward where they heard the body would be. 

Going in, I knew I was not the intended demographic for this film. As an 18-year-old girl who had already lived through all of the awkward growing pains of middle and high school, I was mostly watching it to check off a box. 

For the first couple of scenes, I was convinced that I had it pegged correctly. I saw all the played-out ’80s tropes: a rough-and-tumble group of misfit boys, wacky hijinks, quirky dialogue.  

It was only when I got to the incredibly touching scene between two of the main characters, Gordie and Chris, that I began to see why Stand by Me is such a timeless classic.

In the scene, the two boys sit up late at night in the woods, talking while their other friends sleep. Gordie expresses his shame surrounding his family after the death of his older brother, and Chris, played by young River Phoenix, is brought to tears over not being understood by the adults at school. 

There’s something incredibly palpable about the vulnerability between the two friends in this scene. They feel cheated by the world, they’re afraid to grow up, and, crucially, afraid of change. That desperate feeling haunts the rest of the runtime right alongside all of the film’s childhood whimsy. 

As a viewer, it was then that I realized this was more than just a tongue-in-cheek adventure movie. The film captures a memory forever lost, an ephemeral childhood summer doused in the golden light of nostalgia.

The final line of the film isn’t spoken but rather typed on a computer screen, letting the audience hear it in their own head, rather than in a character’s voice. It’s become somewhat iconic, enough so that I recognized it immediately, despite it being my first watch: “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?”

That line, in context with everything else I had just witnessed, felt like a punch in the gut. I had been sure this movie wasn’t made for me, so why did it feel so personal? 

Stand by Me catapults you back into a moment in time, one you wish you could freeze forever. One of the final shots shows Gordie watching Chris walk off and disappear, all while Gordie’s future self narrates what eventually happens to each boy in the group. 

It reminded me of my own friends from seventh and eighth grade. I loved them dearly, but we drifted apart as we inevitably grew and changed. It’s neither a good nor a bad thing, not even something I particularly mourn—just a bittersweet fact of life.  

Stand by Me, though, forces those moments into the forefront of your mind. It suddenly reminds you of every sleepover, bike ride, laugh shared with friends before you all lost touch, drenching them in that sickeningly sweet sense of nostalgia. 

It prompted me to reflect on movies of that same genre and sentiment. You rarely find a film that entrenches you in that intoxicating childhood bliss, especially when you never watched it in your youth. Films that show both the beauty and terror associated with the coming of age. 

Dead Poets Society, however, will forever meet that standard. A long-time favorite of mine, Peter Weir’s 1989 classic consumed me on my first watch. 

Again, I went in not quite understanding what made this movie so special. I didn’t see myself represented in a single character on the poster––it was just a group of teenage boys who, frankly, all looked the same. 

Of course, my mind was completely changed by the end. Dead Poets Society is a film that, like Stand by Me, recounts a beautiful moment in time that no character will ever get back. It’s bursting with the budding wonder and self-discovery that only comes with adolescence. 

Following a group of young boarding school students as they reinstate their new English teacher’s secret poetry-reading club, Dead Poets Society appreciates life through a creative lens. It’s a love letter to transcendentalism, romantic poetry, and artistic nonconformity. 

The coming-of-age theme feels particularly prevalent here, and I still can’t help but see myself in both main characters. I understand the apprehensive Todd, played by the then-unknown Ethan Hawke, just as much as I empathized with the earnest leader Neil. The boys’ artistic aspirations and unlikely bond feel so real, and that passion, albeit short-lived, subtly draws you into their poetry-obsessed circle.

And, once you feel the most connected with these characters, it’s all stripped away in an instant with the devastating death of Neil. Once again, that moment is gone, and all you know is that the characters’ lives are certainly changed forever. 

It’s not just about the art, but about that bond that it creates. And, in the same vein as Stand by Me, you can’t help but feel that you’ve grown up and grieved right alongside the kids in the film. 

Both of these films retell experiences that, of course, most will never live through. Despite their specific scenarios, these general feelings surrounding self-discovery and friendship are relatable, even if you’ve never gone to boarding school or searched for a corpse. 

It’s more than just the characters or setting that make these films so universal. Stand by Me and Dead Poets Society are studies of that one fleeting moment of childhood bliss, the kind of memory you cling to in times of pain or strife. We even see how modern films like It (2017) and The Perks of Being a Wallflower show how these coming-of-age sentiments transcend era and theme. 

Everyone had a childhood and that revelatory period when you realized it would end. These films immortalize innocence and grapple with its loss, ultimately celebrating the memories and bonds that make growing up so complex and beautiful.