Sleepless in Seattle

"What if someone you never met, someone you never saw, someone you never knew was the only someone for you?"

1993 1h 45m EN

👍

6.7

SOLID

★6.7TMDB · 2,716

ComedyDramaRomance

Synopsis

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After the death of his mother, a young boy calls a radio station in an attempt to set his father up on a date. Across the country, an engaged woman becomes convinced that they belong together, despite their never having met. Will their paths collide despite the odds?

“What if someone you never met, someone you never saw, someone you never knew was the only someone for you?”

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Cast

Meg Ryan
Annie Reed
Tom Hanks
Sam Baldwin
Ross Malinger
Jonah Baldwin
Bill Pullman
Walter
Rosie O'Donnell
Becky
Barbara Garrick
Victoria
Rob Reiner
Jay
Gaby Hoffmann
Jessica

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Nora Ephron
Writers: Nora Ephron, David S. Ward, Jeff Arch
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Grossed $228M — a 10.8× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

33 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Nora Ephron, shot by Sven Nykvist. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Marc Shaiman. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Robert M. Reitano shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks and Ross Malinger carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "What if someone you never met, someone you never saw, someone you never knew was the only someone for you?".

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0108160 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Nora Ephron directs. Sven Nykvist behind the camera. Marc Shaiman scores. Robert M. Reitano cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Grossed $228M — a 10.8× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.
233 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
3Directed by Nora Ephron, shot by Sven Nykvist. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
4Original score by Marc Shaiman. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
5Editor Robert M. Reitano shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
6Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks and Ross Malinger carry the top of the cast.
7Marketing tagline: "What if someone you never met, someone you never saw, someone you never knew was the only someone for you?".
8IMDB entry: tt0108160 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
9Classified under 23 themes, including "new year's eve", "new york city", "journalist", "friendship".

The technical file

Cinematography: Sven Nykvist
Original score: Marc Shaiman
Editing: Robert M. Reitano
Production design: Jeffrey Townsend
Costume design: Judy L. Ruskin
Makeup / hair: Sharon Ilson
Sound: Lee Dichter
Stunt coordinator: Conrad E. Palmisano
Runtime: 105 min · 1h 45m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $21,000,000
Box office: $227,799,884
Return: 1085% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): PG
IMDB: Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

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Nora Ephron

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What people are saying

Filipe Manuel Neto2022-12-10
★ 5/10
Effective, functional and elegant, it has a script that I didn't like very much, and it has aged a little badly, but it remains an endearing film. This is surely one of the most famous romantic comedies that came out during the 90's, and one of the films that helped to popularize Tom Hanks, showing the world that he could be a serious actor and do more interesting things besides comedy. The film begins with a man and his young son moving to Seattle to deal with a mourning process. There, the child begins to pressure his father to find a girlfriend, to the point of calling a radio program where the father tells his story, touching a young journalist from Baltimore who is about to marry a man she doesn't love. The script relies heavily on Platonism: the two main characters do not know each other, and only the radio broadcast and the exchange of letters truly connects them. Neither has any real reason to look for the other (Hanks' character sees physical distance as an obstacle, and Ryan's character is already committed). In the end, it is the tenacity and stubbornness of a child that leads them to find each other. Based purely on instinct, which is an illogical and irrational argument for an adult to make his decisions. For that reason, and despite recognizing the film's qualities, I didn't particularly appreciate it. I see and understand the attempt to create a contemporary romantic fable here, but fables don't really seem to work these days. For me, this one didn't work. The film's great strength is in the excellent performances of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. The two are still quite young, trying to take advantage of the opportunity to achieve higher flights in more profitable and attractive projects for their careers. Hanks had mostly done comedy up until this point, and was determined to showcase his abilities in other projects. There is no doubt that he knew how to do it and show a deeper, more sensitive and emotional side that was not evident in his work so far. Ryan was also very competent in her role. Ross Malinger was also pretty good. The film is not a great visual spectacle. It's a 90's movie that hasn't aged well and doesn't put much effort into the visuals. Proof of this are the graphics on that US map, which look like an arcade game. The cinematography is dull, and the colors washed out, but that was commonplace and routine in films of this era, and I take that reasonably well. The film tries to compensate us with excellent scenery and cityscapes of Seattle and New York, which is always effective, and with an excellent ending on top of the Empire State Building. The soundtrack makes a smart bet on songs by Sinatra, Nat “King” Cole, Celine Dion, Carly Simon, Roy Rogers and others. Most of the songs are well known and popular.
r96sk2024-01-14
★ 6/10
I can't say I had a fun time with <em>'Sleepless in Seattle'</em>. Post-watching, I was unsure how I felt about it. The whole set-up and how the story is portrayed is weird, the fact that the two characters in what supposed to be a romcom don't even properly meet until the final act is an odd choice, like don't get me wrong I can see it working but here it didn't for me... especially with one side giving stalker vibes, which adds to the weirdness. I also wasn't convinced by the two leads, in both their performances and in their suitability - obviously the latter is hampered by the fact we barely seem them together so they cannot show any chemistry. Tom Hanks is the standout but only just, Meg Ryan tries though her character is just a bit mundane; and is in my opinion better suited to Bill Pullman's Walter, even though the film attempts to show us the opposite. No-one else onscreen sticks out, though credit to youngster Ross Malinger. It's a nae from me, both Hanks and Ryan have thankfully done much better.
CinemaSerf2025-06-21
★ 6/10
“It’s easier to get killed by a terrorist than to get married at over forty!” Maybe a bit of an overstatement, but it’s the sentiment here as recently widowed “Sam” (Tom Hanks) moves to Seattle with his son “Jonah” (Ross Malinger) to start again. Unable to shake off the effects of his grief, it falls to the young lad to galvanise his dad into meeting someone new, and so he arranges a late night radio catharsis which is heard by “Annie” (Meg Ryan). She is entangled with the nice but dull “Walter” (Bill Pullman) but as she begins to let romantic fantasies about “Sam” take over she revisits her favourite Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr film “An Affair to Remember” and comes up with the idea of writing to him asking for a rendezvous atop the Empire State Building. Meantime, following on from his heart-rending broadcast, “Sam” has had plenty of correspondence from ladies but he is bent on a more traditional courting approach and so again it falls to his young son to expedite matters with one “Uncertain from Baltimore”. Can he play Cupid and even if he does, is their any chance that dad will like her, that she is actually “Annie” and that someone might wonder why an unaccompanied eight year old is flying across the USA? It’s like a short story that’s been stretched to feature-length, and though the premise is quite engaging the rather pedestrian execution from all but the young Malinger actually made me realise just how good the Kerr/Grant combo actually was. Some of the writing has an observational realism and wit to it; it does benefit from a classy soundtrack with some Jimmy Durante topping and tailing the romance, and there are lots of shots of an attractive New York skyline, but these two characters didn’t really do anything for me and as the scenario started to contrive it’s fairly obvious conclusion I lost interest. It’s an easy watch but like almost everything with Meg Ryan in, is fairly bland.