The Best TV Kisses Of All Time

It’s hard to believe now, but there was a time when a kiss between two women on a primetime TV show was considered so controversial that it could only air if a parental advisory warning were aired with it.

ABC’s decision to air a 1994 episode of the popular sitcom Roseanne where a woman kisses the title character at a gay bar was such a big deal that some sponsors refused to air commercials for their product during the episode’s 22-minute runtime.

The kiss itself isn’t particularly remarkable. Sharon, played by veteran actress Mariel Hemingway kisses Roseanne after misreading her interest in being friends as flirting. Roseanne doesn’t really kiss her back, and the whole thing doesn’t last longer than a few seconds. No, what makes the kiss one of the best tv kisses is the significance behind it.

Having a star as big as Roseanne advocating for the inclusion of a lesbian kiss in primetime helped to break down the barriers holding queer characters back from being accepted by the general TV-watching public. Roseanne walked so Will and Grace could run.

Much like the entry above, what makes this kiss a contender for best TV kiss is its cultural significance. In 1968 when Star Trek decided to release the episode, ‘Plato’s Stepchildren’ interracial marriage had only been legal for one year.

When NBC got wind of the show’s plan to feature one of the first interracial kisses on television, their response was a resounding, “Oh hell no!”

The kiss proposed kiss between Shatner and co-star Nichelle Nichols was so groundbreaking that NBC executives tried everything they could to stop it. A couple of their suggestions were to have Uhura kiss Spock instead since he was a half-alien or, barring that, just have the kiss implied to take place offscreen.

Thankfully the show’s star, William Shatner, insisted on having the kiss happen onscreen between him and Nichols just as it appeared in the script. The rest is history.

Is there anything more sweet and innocent than a first kiss? When neighbors Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage) and Winnie Cooper (Danica McKellar) share their first kiss in the pilot episode of The Wonder Years it’s a bittersweet affair.

On one hand, these childhood friends take their first step toward a romance that would continue off and on throughout the entire run of the series. On the other hand, it comes after Winnie hears the news that her brother was just killed in Vietnam.

That juxtaposition between sorrow and joy is what makes The Wonder Years the timeless classic that it is today. And Kevin and Winnie’s first kiss one of the best TV kisses in history.

Marshall and Lily shared many kisses throughout the nine-season run of How I Met Your Mother, but none are as memorable as the one that came right before Marshall blinds his longtime love.

After asking Lily to marry him, Marshall ends up having sex on the floor with his new fiance. Cut to the newly engaged couple sitting up from their kitchen floor tryst and about to enjoy some celebratory Champagne.

Like the calm before the storm, Marshall calls Lily his fiance for the first time prompting the couple to share a tender kiss before Marshall pops the champagne sending the cork flying right into Lily’s eye.

Lily is forced to spend the rest of the episode sporting an eyepatch and suffering through bad pirate jokes from her friends. Worth it for such a loving display of affection.

It took four seasons for Luke and Lorelai to kiss finally, but the result was worth it. The scene starts out with Luke berating Lorelai for not telling him that she was in a relationship, to which she answers that she’s not.

The two star-crossed lovers bicker back and forth for a bit as Luke details all the signals he gave Lorelai, and Lorelai admits that she didn’t read them all in the way he intended.

Luke finally just starts to lean in toward Lorelai, prompting her to ask what he’s doing.”Will you just stand still?” is all Luke says before he kisses the woman, he’s been in love with for the last four years. It’s a brilliant, romantic moment and definitely a contender for the best TV kiss.

Buffy Summers hunts Vampires. Angel is a Vampire. The two are sworn enemies, and yet when you put two young—or, in Angel’s case, young-looking—attractive people together, hormones are going to take over.

Buffy accuses Angel of reading her diary but ends up confessing her feelings for him in the process. Angel repeatedly states that they can’t be together, and yet the two of them keep inching closer and closer until, finally, in a moment of uncontrollable passion, they kiss.

And then Angel immediately starts vamping out with bloodlust and jumps out the window. No one ever said relationships were easy.

Friends was always supposed to be the Ross and Rachel show, but sometime around the couple’s umpteenth “break” the show’s creators decided to pair up two of the other “friends,” wisecracking Chandler (Mathew Perry) and uptight Monica (Courtney Cox).

The couple’s first kiss was a precursor to the one-night stand that would officially begin their relationship. It may not have the cultural prestige of a certain other kiss on the best TV kiss list, but Chandler and Monica’s first liplock is nothing to sneeze at.

Helped along by some alcohol—but not enough, as Monica says, for Chandler to feel guilty for taking advantage of her—the most unlikely coupling on Friends begins in a hotel room in London and continues up until the series finale.

It may have come completely out of nowhere, but as soon as Chandler and Monica kissed, viewers could tell they were meant for each other.

Leslie (Amy Poehler) and Ben (Adam Scott) began their relationship as adversaries. Ben’s role as auditor put him directly in Leslie’s way, and there was no love lost between the two.

Eventually, as the pair began working together more closely, that animosity became affection until the two couldn’t deny their feelings for each other.

The two go on a road trip and narrowly avoid kissing when Ben’s boss interrupts them only to share a kiss at the end of the next work day. The two actors onscreen chemistry, coupled with Leslie and Ben’s classic enemies-to-lovers dynamic, makes this one of TV’s best kisses, hands down.

Jim (John Krysinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer) shared a back-and-forth workplace flirtation for years before they finally acted on it. This was mostly due to Pam’s engagement to fiance Roy.

Jim, not wanting to confess his feelings to an engaged woman hid his love for Pam until the end of season 2 when he just couldn’t keep it a secret any longer.

A tearful Jim tells Pam how he feels about her only moments after Pam’s fiance drives away, prompting Pam to tell Jim how much their friendship means to her, but unfortunately, that’s all their relationship can ever be. Cut to Pam spilling her heart out on the phone to her mother alone in an empty office.

The episode could have easily ended there, forcing fans to accept that a Pam and Jim romance just wasn’t in the cards. Instead, Jim enters the office, and the two share a passionate kiss that was a long time coming.

For anyone not alive in the ’90s, it’s hard to communicate just how big of a deal Ross and Rachel’s first kiss was. After an agonizing season of trying to find a way to tell Rachel that he’s in love with her, Ross (David Schwimmer) gives up and ends up dating a new girl, Julie.

Meanwhile, Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) realizes she loves Ross back right around the time he begins his new relationship. It’s a classic case of bad timing but one that ends in the best TV kiss of all time.

After going to Central Perk to scold Rachel for telling him too late that she has feelings for him, Ross leaves in a huff prompting an equally upset Rachel to lock the front door behind him.

Seconds later, Ross reappears at the door, and Rachel hurries to unlock it. The two embrace and the music swells as the most romantic kiss in television history takes place.

Ross and Rachel would grow toxic in the later seasons of Friends, but at that moment in time, they were America’s favorite couple, fictional or otherwise.