The Sure Thing
| The Sure Thing | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Rob Reiner |
| Written by |
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| Produced by | |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Robert Elswit |
| Edited by | Robert Leighton |
| Music by | Tom Scott |
Production company | Monument Pictures |
| Distributed by | Media Home Entertainment |
Release date |
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Running time | 95 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $4.5 million |
| Box office | $18.1 million |
The Sure Thing is a 1985 American romantic comedy road film directed by Rob Reiner and starring John Cusack, Daphne Zuniga, Viveca Lindfors, and Nicollette Sheridan. The film chronicles the cross-country journey of college students Walter Gibson (Cusack) and Alison Bradbury (Zuniga) as they make their way from New England to Los Angeles over Christmas break, each in an effort to meet their ideal romantic match.
Written by Steven L. Bloom and Jonathan Roberts, The Sure Thing marked Reiner's second directorial feature after This Is Spinal Tap (1984), and Cusack's first major starring role.
Released theatrically in the spring of 1985, The Sure Thing was a box-office success and received mostly favorable reviews from film critics, who commended it for its traditional comedic structure, with some likening it to a modern version of Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934), though Reiner himself stated that the parallels between the two films were unintentional.
In 2017, the British Film Institute ranked The Sure Thing among Reiner's top five feature films.