Based on Stephen King's 1982 novella The Body, the film is set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Oregon in 1959.

Rolling Stone has called Stand by Me "a staple of youthful nostalgia" and "the rare movie that necessarily gets better with time".

In 1985, writer Gordie Lachance reads a newspaper article about a fatal stabbing involving his childhood best friend, Chris Chambers.

He recalls an incident from when he was 12 years old when he, Chris, and two other friends, Teddy Duchamp and Vern Tessio, went searching for the body of a missing boy named Ray Brower near the town of Castle Rock, Oregon, during Labor Day weekend in 1959.

While crossing a railroad bridge, Gordie and Vern narrowly avoid being killed by an approaching train by jumping off the tracks.

Seeking payback, he downs a bottle of castor oil before entering a pie-eating contest and throws up deliberately, inducing mass vomiting among everyone there.

[8] After reading the novella, Lyne teamed up with Evans and Gideon, but all the studios the trio approached turned the project down except for Martin Shafer at Embassy Pictures.

[8] Reiner was better known at the time for playing Michael Stivic in All in the Family and had just started a directing career, making comedies such as This Is Spinal Tap and The Sure Thing.

[8] Days before the shooting started in the summer of 1985, Embassy was sold to Columbia Pictures, which made plans to cancel the production.

[8] Norman Lear, one of the co-owners of Embassy and the developer of All in the Family, gave $7.5 million of his own money to complete the film, citing his faith in Reiner and the script.

In a 2011 interview with NPR, Wil Wheaton attributed the film's success to the director's casting choices:Rob Reiner found four young boys who were the characters we played.

I was awkward and nerdy and shy and uncomfortable in my skin and sensitive, and River was cool and smart and passionate and even at that age kind of like a father figure to some of us, Jerry was one of the funniest people I had ever seen in my life, either before or since, and Corey was unbelievably angry and in an incredible amount of pain and had a terrible relationship with his parents.

"[15] Reiner and the producers interviewed more than 70 boys for the four main roles,[8] out of more than 300 who auditioned;[15] Phoenix originally read for the part of Gordie Lachance.

"[15] Before settling on Richard Dreyfuss as the narrator (and the role of the adult Gordie), Reiner considered David Dukes, Ted Bessell, and Michael McKean.

A local bakery supplied the pies and extra filling, which was mixed with large-curd cottage cheese to simulate the vomit.

[19] The scene where the boys outrace a steam train engine across an 80-foot tall trestle was filmed on the McCloud River Railroad, above Lake Britton Reservoir near McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park in California.

[20] The scene took a full week to shoot, making use of four small adult female stunt doubles with closely cropped hair who were made up to look like the film's protagonists.

A DVD was issued on August 29, 2000, with a director's commentary, multiple language options (subtitles and audio), scene selections with motion images, and a featurette titled "Walking The Tracks: The Summer Of Stand by Me".

The website's critical consensus reads: "Stand by Me is a wise, nostalgic movie with a weird streak that captures both Stephen King's voice and the trials of growing up.

"[6] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 75 out of 100 based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

[30] Reviewing the film for The New York Times, Walter Goodman opined that Reiner's direction was rather self-conscious, "looking constantly at his audience".

"[31] In his review for the Chicago Tribune, Dave Kehr wrote that there was "nothing natural in the way Reiner has overloaded his film with manufactured drama".

[32] In contrast, Sheila Benson called the film "[a treasure] absolutely not to be missed" in her review for the Los Angeles Times.

[33] Paul Attanasio, reviewing for The Washington Post, called the acting ensemble "wonderful" and particularly praised the performances by Wheaton and Phoenix.

Rolling Stone's Charles Bramesco called Stand By Me "timeless", "a staple of youthful nostalgia for its deft straddling of the line between childhood and adulthood", and "the rare movie that necessarily gets better with time".

The Oscar-nominated urban drama Boyz n the Hood has several direct references to Stand by Me, including a trip by four young children to see a dead body, and the closing fade-out of one of the main characters.

[56] Jonathan Bernstein states the pop culture discussions between characters in films by Quentin Tarantino originate in the similar semi-serious banter between the boys of Stand by Me.

[58] The movie Mud (2012) has a character (Neckbone) who has been called a "perfect fusion of River Phoenix and Jerry O'Connell in Stand by Me".

[59][60] The writer and director, Jeff Nichols, said of the film "Yeah, you know, I basically remade Stand by Me" when defending the work-in-progress to studio executives.

[59][62][63] Love and Monsters (2020) includes an excerpt of the song "Stand by Me" and shortly after a scene involving large poisonous leeches.