Because of the boys' language, the film garnered an "R" rating from the MPAA, which likely kept audiences the age of the characters from seeing it but still allowed it to be very well-received by its intended demographic, those who were young adolescents during the late 1950s setting of the story.

Casey Siemaszko was in Los Angeles the weekend the film opened in only a few theaters. He passed one in Westwood with a line around the corner and was astounded to realize it was for Stand by Me.

At the time of the picture's release in the summer of 1986, Rob Reiner was in London working on The Princess Bride (1987). "I was so nervous about it because it was the film that was most reflective of my sensibility of the films I've done," he said. "If it did well I would say 'OK this validates me and people are interested in the kinds of film I want to make,' and I thought if it doesn't do well, I don't know what I'm going to do because this is the kind of thing I want to do." His nervousness didn't last long. The film was a hit almost immediately.

Rob Reiner said that although the film was an instant success, it might not be considered so now, when it's necessary to do more than $20 million on the first weekend. "I don't think we ever made more than $3.5 million any weekend, but it just stayed in theaters forever. We just never dropped and people loved it."

Raynold Gideon and Bruce A. Evans were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. They were also nominated by the Writers Guild of America.

Both the film and Rob Reiner as director were nominated for Golden Globe Awards.

The film, director (Reiner), and the screenwriters were all nominated at the Independent Spirit Awards.

The National Board of Review named Stand by Me one of the ten best films of the year.

Stand by Me was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film by the Japanese Academy.

The film's title song, sung by Ben E. King, won the Most Performed Song from a Film at the 1988 BMI Film & TV Awards.

Casting directors Jane Jenkins and Janet Hirshenson were nominated for Best Casting for Feature Film, Drama by the Casting Society of America.

Rob Reiner was nominated for his direction by the Directors Guild of America.

The four principal cast members (Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell) were given the Young Artist Award for their work.

"Stand by Me falls somewhat short of being a first-rate 'small' picture about adventurous small-town adolescent boys, although director Rob Reiner is to be lauded for coming close. ... Scripters have written inspired dialog for this quartet of plucky boys at that hard-to-capture age when they're still young enough to get scared and yet old enough to want to sneak smokes and cuss." - Variety, December 1985

"Stand by Me is the summer's great gift, a compassionate, perfectly performed look at the real heart of youth. It stands, sweet and strong, ribald, outrageous and funny, like its heroes themselves-a bit gamy around the edges, perhaps, but pure and fine clear through. It's one of those treasures absolutely not to be missed. The screenwriters, Raynold Gideon and Bruce A. Evans, have seen this trek by four tight buddies, about to move into junior high school, with the greatest clarity." - Sheila Benson, Los Angeles Times, August 8, 1986

"I think [Rob Reiner] must have resonated with some of the boyhood experiences [in the story] because the direction is so sure-handed." - Stephen King, Walking the Tracks: The Summer of Stand by Me (2002), documentary about the film's creation. In the same program, King also declared that Stand by Me was the first completely satisfying adaptation he had seen of his work.

"The Ben E. King theme song and all the imagery of tousled adolescents preening themselves like miniature James Deans rekindle memories of old jeans commercials, but the film is so well-observed and so energetically acted by its young cast that mawkishness is kept at bay." - Geoffrey Macnab, Time Out Film Guide (Penguin, 2000)

"The line between sappy and sweet is a razor-thin one. We've all been held hostage by coming-of-age stories that shamelessly cudgel us into sniffling submission. And while they might succeed in making us reach for the Kleenex, we rarely feel good about it afterward. Then there's a movie like Stand by Me, which gets your tear ducts working honestly. ... Rob Reiner's film is all about the journey, not the destination. And all of his young actors are great." - Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly, March 17, 2011

by Rob Nixon