Billy Crystal honored the director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, at the Oscars on Sunday, three months after they were murdered in their Los Angeles home.
Crystal opened the In Memoriam segment recounting Reiner’s hits: a string of beloved movies in the 1980s and early 1990s, including “This Is Spinal Tap,” “Stand by Me,” “The Princess Bride,” “When Harry Met Sally …” and “Misery.”
“It was a thrill to see him evolve from a great comic actor to a master storyteller,” said Crystal, who met Reiner when he was cast as his best friend in an episode of “All in The Family.”
Crystal said Reiner could have stopped after “This Is Spinal Tap,” calling it a “hilarious and brilliant mockumentary where the comedy was turned up to 11.” But instead he went on to direct a coming-of-age story, a “tale of true love and rodents of unusual size,” an Oscar-nominated Nora Ephron script, a psychodrama and a courtroom thriller.
“My friends, Rob’s movies will last for lifetimes because they were about what makes us laugh and cry and what we aspire to be: far better in his eyes, far kinder, far funnier and far more human,” Crystal said.
He earned his only Academy Award nomination, for best picture, as a producer of “A Few Good Men,” which he also directed.
Crystal was joined onstage by more than a dozen stars from Reiner’s films, including Demi Moore, Kevin Pollak, Meg Ryan, John Cusack, Michael McKean, Annette Bening, Kathy Bates, Mandy Patinkin, Jerry O’Connell, Cary Elwes, Daphne Zuniga, Wil Wheaton, Christopher Guest, Carol Kane and Kiefer Sutherland.
In the romantic comedy “When Harry Met Sally …” (1989), Crystal and Ryan played two friends questioning whether male and female relationships could be strictly platonic.
It was a movie inspired in part by the director’s romantic life; to write the screenplay, Nora Ephron interviewed Reiner about dating after his divorce. While making the film, Reiner met Michele Singer, a New York photographer, a romance that inspired him to change its ending.
“A gifted photographer, she not only produced films with Rob, but it was her energy that had them working tirelessly to fight social injustice in the country that they both loved,” Crystal said.
The Academy Awards’s In Memoriam segment, which recognizes people in the film industry who have died over the past year, also honored Diane Keaton, Catherine O’Hara, Isiah Whitlock Jr. and Graham Greene. Barbra Streisand performed the title song from “The Way We Were,” in which she starred with Robert Redford.
Hours after their Reiners’ bodies were found in December, the couple’s youngest son, Nick Reiner, was arrested. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder.
Rob Reiner, 78, was the son of a pioneering television comedian, Carl Reiner, and found his place behind the camera after portraying the character Meathead in “All in the Family.” Michele Singer Reiner, 70, was the daughter of an Auschwitz survivor, which inspired a life of civic responsibility, including championing environmental causes and gay marriage.
The couple was last seen attending a holiday party with their son at the home of the comedian Conan O’Brien, who hosted the Oscars.
Michaela Towfighi is a Times arts and culture reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for early career journalists.
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