The worst question in the world isn't “What do you want to do?” or “Where do you want to eat?” — it’s actually, “So, what do you want to watch tonight?” Scrolling through the endless catalogs available on countless streaming services can feel like a chore, especially if you're in the mood to giggle with your best girlfriends. And while a rom-com every now and then is nice, sometimes all you want is a feel-good film that’ll have you embracing your friends at the end of the night, thankful for those who love you without any strings attached.
If you’ve ever struggled to find the perfect movie about the power of female friendship for a weekend girls’ night, you’ve come to the right place. I've gathered the top 8 friendship movies for you to pop on. Some chronicle messy girls' trips; some, uptight high schoolers and their social faux pas; and some are simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming stories about family, biological or not. What do they all have in common at the end of the? True friendship.
The Best Friendship Movies To Watch
Steel Magnolias
The oldest film on this list is 1989’s Steel Magnolias (dir. Herbert Ross). The iconic cast boasts Dolly Parton as Truvy, the owner of a small beauty salon in Louisiana. The lives of six women intersect as clients of the salon, their ages and class backgrounds entirely different upon first blush.
But through the power of the lush, feminine late '80s beauty salon as a meeting spot, friendships form fast and hard. There are no bounds to showing up for each other; weddings, funerals, and everything in between share the same attendance record, holding each other tightly through it all.
Steel Magnolias also teaches about the importance of honesty with those you love the most (but maybe don’t be as brutal with friendly constructive criticism as Clairee and Ouiser are).
Book Club
These core four women of Book Club (dir. Bill Holderman) have met every month for their book club for longer than most of the women in these other films have been alive. After a while, it feels like they've run out of things to read, though. The stagnancy of their club is given a much-needed livening up upon reading Fifty Shades of Grey — and realizing there’s more to life’s pleasures and freedoms than they’d previously capitalized on.
Book Club is especially unique and fun to watch at any age, bolstering an inspiring notion that you’re never too old to start doing something new.
Joy Ride
Joy Ride follows a pair of besties on a trip to China to close a business deal… which quickly goes haywire (in the best way) as they run into promiscuous old roommates and a surprise visit from a biological family. You probably already know Stephanie Hsu from her Academy Award-nominated performance in Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, but you won’t want to miss her in this entirely different — yet not totally dissimilar? — role.
Girls Trip
Girls Trip runs a similar gamut to Joy Ride, fronted by comedic legend Tiffany Haddish and an excellent supporting cast of other familiar faces. Ever felt lost after college, separated from your friends after having an excuse to be together 24/7 in classes and study abroad trips? Girls Trip has your nostalgia covered, following Ryan Pierce (Haddish) as she attempts to reconnect with her old BFFs in New Orleans, inviting them to a music festival… because nothing ever goes wrong in New Orleans, right?
Bridesmaids
If there's one ultimate film of female absurdity, it's Bridesmaids (2011, dir. Paul Feig). If you haven’t seen it, please stop reading and go turn it on immediately. (Kidding—you can finish this list and then go watch.) Kristen Wiig wrote a film about the maid of honor for her best friend’s upcoming wedding, and her fellow bridesmaids, all varying degrees of disorderly in juxtaposition to the (seemingly) perfect bride-to-be.
In case you need more reasons to watch, the cast boasts an abundance of comedic geniuses, apart from Kristen Wiig. With Melissa McCarthy, Maya Rudolph, Rebel Wilson, and others helming the film, you’ll be laughing until you cry (Let’s hope that, unlike the poor women in one particular scene, this is as far as your bodily reactions to Bridesmaids go.)
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
The Sisterhood of the Traveling PantsSisterhood of the Traveling Pantsis another classic, uniting four entirely unlikely friends as they start to grow up and discover themselves as the end of high school grows near. Distraught that they’ll be separated for the summer, the girls find their friendship bond further strengthened by a thrifted pair of jeans that inexplicably fits them all perfectly.
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants celebrates girls of all different body types, personalities (whether you’re artsy like Tibby or sporty like Bridget), and emotionally tumultuous journeys.
Booksmart
If you and your bestie are anything like Alexis Bledel’s Lena in Sisterhood, Booksmart might just be the perfect movie to settle down with on a Saturday night. Following two extremely type-A, extremely high-achieving seniors played by Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever, Booksmart teaches viewers that letting loose a little won’t diminish all your hard work along the way—in fact, it may be just what the doctor ordered. And in a welcome turn of events from the relationships in the previous films, this one features LGBTQ+ representation!
Little Women
And finally, the least obvious (or most, depending on how you look at it) film about female friendship: Greta Gerwig’s Little Women (2019). Now, I’ve never had a sister, and I know from my friends with sisters that these relationships can be more testy than those of us with brothers.
But that’s the beauty of Little Women; these sisters do unforgivably mean things to each other, but love each other despite it all. Little Women teaches us the power of enduring familial love, a message that could even be extended past family so that we might give some of our friends an extra moment or two of grace in their times of need.
And there you have it: a plethora of films, classically predictable and otherwise, that display female friendships in all different shapes and sizes and variations. Because that’s the beauty of female-led friendships — there is no one size fits all, and there is no one, universal experience (although many motifs may remain the same).
If you’ve never seen any of these, or if you’ve seen all 8 and are itching for a rewatch, I hope you and your bestie(s) can find the perfect pick from this list to enjoy movie night with!
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Header image via Universal Pictures
