The film uses popular songs from the 1950s on the soundtrack, including "Rockin' Robin," "Great Balls of Fire," "Book of Love," "Lollipop," and many more, by the original artists and mostly justified in the story as being played on the radio during the boys' journey.

The most prominent song in the movie, "Stand by Me," is the one that gave its name to the film. It was written by Ben E. King, Mike Stoller, and Jerry Leiber and reportedly inspired by a spiritual, "Lord Stand by Me." Oddly, the song would not have been known to anyone in the 1959 setting of the story, since the initial recording of it by King was not released until 1961. There have been hundreds of versions recorded over the years. Because of the film, King's version garnered new popularity, rising to #9 on the charts in 1986 and subsequently used in a jeans commercial. In that same year, BMI recognized it as the most-performed song from a movie in 1986; the organization also named it as the fourth most-performed song of the 20th century.

Aspects of the film have been referenced in other movies and television shows. The most frequent reference is to the line "Hey, you wanna see a dead body?"-a variation of Vern's "You guys wanna go see a dead body?" In an episode of the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, one character says that another one "just performed the biggest train dodge since Stand by Me."

In July 2010, the town of Brownsville, Oregon, where much of the movie was shot in the summer of 1985, held a 25th anniversary festival that included a walking tour of notable sites. The film was shown in the evening. There was also a blueberry pie-eating contest, referencing the memorable scene of Gordie telling the "Lardass" gross-out story. One of the announced guests was Kent Luttrell, who played the dead boy in the woods. An organizer of the festival told the press he always thought the body was just a dummy.

Different Seasons, the story collection that included the movie's source material, the novella "The Body," also contained stories that were turned into the films The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and Apt Pupil (1998).

In 1987, Rob Reiner and several partners founded the production company Castle Rock Entertainment, named for the fictional town in the story. The company still produces movies but is now a subsidiary of Time Warner.

Wil Wheaton once took his wife and children to Brownsville and was impressed to find a map in the visitor's center in five languages identifying sites from the movie. "It is a fairly major tourist destination and that just blew my mind."

On a visit to Tokyo in 1990 to promote his movie Toy Soldiers, Wil Wheaton went to a theater to see a stage production adapted from the movie. "They weren't producing Stephen King's 'The Body,' which Stand by Me originated from, they were producing Stand by Me the play. ... I thought it was so cool that this film, at the time I had done it five years before, was translated into another language, into another culture and then produced as a play. That was pretty awesome."

Impressed by the young actor's performance in Stand by Me, Brazilian composer Milton Nascimento wrote a song called "River Phoenix." The actor later visited the composer at his home and the two became good friends.

by Rob Nixon