The 8 Best Movies About Friendship

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is a coming-of-age friendship movie about four teenage girls named Lena, Tibby, Carmen, and Bridget, but it’s not just about clothes. The four girls are about to spend their first summer vacation apart from one another. And through an odd stroke of luck, the foursome finds a pair of pants while shopping together that all of them fit perfectly despite their varying body types.

They agree to share this magical pair of jeans throughout equal parts of the summer as a way to stay connected with each other despite their distance. Throughout this friendship movie, the girls face their own personal struggles while wearing the pants, but also learn a lot about themselves in the process. The pants symbolize these girls’ unbreakable bond and truly shows us that friendship defies geographical distances.

1993’s A Bronx Tale is a friendship movie that transcends race and social status. The story follows 17-year-old Calogero, who befriended a mob boss named Sonny when he was nine. Their friendship and subsequent loyalty to one another was forged when Calogero witnessed Sonny kill a man but keeps quiet when questioned by the authorities.

In this friendship movie, we see Calogero conflicted by his loyalty to his father, Lorenzo (Robert De Niro), and his loyalty to Sonny. But throughout the film, we see Calogero form a tentative relationship with an African-American girl named Jane. Though racial tensions are high between Italian-Americans and African-Americans in the Bronx in the 1960s, we see Calogero and Jane work together to try and stop an attack planned on Jane’s neighborhood.

Though there are many underlying themes of friendship in A Bronx Tale, the film also dives into the relationship between the working-class and those who have succumbed to a life of crime. So not only are there themes of friendship in this movie, but we see an excellent portrayal of the dynamic between different social classes occupying the same locale.

Friendship movies involving sports were all the rage in the early 90s and for good reason. If The Mighty Ducks didn’t get you into hockey, and the Little Giants didn’t get you into football, then it’s safe to say that you were probably not into sports at all, or just really into baseball after watching The Sandlot.

The movie is centered around Scotty Smalls, who is new in town and is urged by his mother to go out to the neighborhood sandlot to try to make some friends. Though Scotty is more into playing with his Erector set than playing sports, he eventually becomes accepted by the gang as he slowly but surely learns to play the game that they all love so much.

And they get into all sorts of hi-jinks in this friendship movie. One of the more notable sequences is when Scotty accidentally loses a Babe Ruth autographed baseball when he hits his first home run. The ball lands in a backyard that belongs to “the Beast,” a fierce dog that has claimed many baseballs before this one. But through the power of friendship, the boys are able to break into the backyard, and they befriend the dog’s owner while failing to retrieve the ball.

Dead Poets Society is a friendship movie at Welton Academy, an all-boys boarding school in Vermont. Robin Williams plays an English teacher named John Keating, who becomes known for his unorthodox teaching methods. Keating uses his love for poetry and creativity to encourage a group of boys to “make your lives extraordinary,” and to seize the day.

When one of the students, Neil Perry, discovers that Keating was once a member of an unsanctioned secret club called The Dead Poets Society when he was a student himself, he decides to carry on the tradition. And Keating is thrilled that his students are taking an interest in literature and poetry and choosing to live life on their own terms.

This friendship movie is considered by many to be one of Robin Williams’ best films. Dead Poets Society explores themes of nonconformity, friendship, and the power of self-expression through poetry, and it will make you laugh with joy, but only before making you bust out the Kleenex in the third act.

2011’s The Intouchables is a friendship movie about an unlikely friendship between a criminal named Driss and a wealthy quadriplegic named Philippe. Though Driss didn’t initially want to work as Philippe’s caregiver but rather get rejected for the posted job so he could continue to collect his welfare benefits, he gets hired and sticks around when Philippe puts him to work on work a trial basis. Philippe likes Driss because of his sense of humor and the fact that he doesn’t get treated with pity despite his disability.

And the friendship that’s forged in this movie is one for the ages. We see Driss encourage Philippe to live his life to the fullest, and we see Philippe give Driss the chance that he needs to have a fulfilling job that’s bigger than himself.

Good Will Hunting is a friendship movie that not only parallels the real-life friendship between Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, but shows us the power of friendship on a whole other level. The story follows Matt Damon’s Will Hunting, who is a genius working as a janitor at MIT but is wasting his life away by drinking and fighting. Throughout the film, we see Ben Affleck’s Chuckie Sullivan challenge Will to make more of his life and embrace the opportunities his superior intellect will allow him to have.

Additionally, Will befriends Dr. Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) when he’s given a chance to see a therapist in lieu of jail time for getting in a fight and attacking one of the responding officers. We see Will Hunting form a deep connection with Maguire when he learns that they both suffered abuse when they were children. And this friendship is further compounded when Will overhears how passionate Maguire is about his potential.

In other words, Good Will Hunting is a friendship movie that’s not only about long-standing friendships but also finding friends in unlikely places.

You know you’re getting into a great friendship movie when you hear Randy Newman singing “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” right out the gate. Toy Story is an excellent film for all ages that still makes parents jump into their kid’s room to make sure their toys haven’t been moving around in their absence.

And the main through line in this friendship movie is one of overcoming differences. We see Woody, Andy’s favorite toy, struggle with his place in life when Andy is gifted the new Buzz Lightyear toy for his birthday. And deep down, Woody knows that his cowboy hat and lasso are no match for Buzz Lightyear’s sophisticated gadgetry.

But in an unlikely turn of events, Woody and Buzz form an unbreakable bond in this friendship movie when they have to defy all odds and rely on each other’s unique features when they’re removed from Andy’s house and need to find a way home together.

Coming in at number one, is the one and only Shawshank Redemption. This Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins film boasts the ultimate friendship between Andy Dufresne (Robbins) and Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding (Freeman). Red becomes a mentor to Dufresne throughout their stay at Shawshank State Prison.

Throughout this friendship movie, Dufresne maintains his innocence while adjusting to prison life. And he defies the odds when he finally escapes from Shawshank, a task that Red thought impossible.

Not only is Shawshank Redemption an amazing friendship movie, but it also gets extra points because Morgan Freeman narrates it, and that’s always a strong indicator of a successful movie.