A good romance on your favorite TV show is great, but can it compare to an incredibly loving, complex, dynamic friendship? When on-screen representations of best friends are done right, you’re rooting for the platonic pals to make it through thick and thin together. Some on-screen friendships are foundational to our understanding of interpersonal dynamics (from shows like Sex and the City to Girls), while others are about finding someone to connect with amid chaos (like workplace comedies such as The Office and 30 Rock). No matter what kind of friendship you’re craving, this list of best TV BFFs will provide some feel-good comfort.
’30 Rock’
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Jack (Alec Baldwin) and Liz (Tina Fey) are a true hate-to-love friendship: They have completely conflicting agendas, and they’re butting heads as often as they are confiding in each other. But the beauty of 30 Rock is the ever-evolving nature of their relationship, to the point where they’re basically work siblings.
‘Absolutely Fabulous’
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Edina (Jennifer Saunders) and Patsy (Joanna Lumley) essentially compete to out-awful each other, and just about everyone else in their orbit is fed up. Nevertheless, their codependency is hysterical, and the occasional flash of true friendship is very sweet. Also, we can breathe a sigh of relief that our lives aren’t quite that messy.
‘Better Off Ted’
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In case you missed this underrated show, it’s worth a watch—especially since it features a pretty incredible friendship between Phil and Lem (Jonathan Slavin and Malcolm Barrett), who are genius lab partners.
‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’
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Everyone in the Nine-Nine is a friend, but Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) and Charles Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio) are best friends. They’re polar opposites but constant cheerleaders for each other, and their bond is so strong that Boyle ends up being a third wheel in Jake’s relationship that unfolds in the series (with hilarious results).
‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer features a few iconic friendships, but it’s hard to do better than Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Willow (Alyson Hannigan). They go through some major drama—Willow especially, in the evolution of her magic and burgeoning sexuality—but they’re also just lifelong BFFs supporting each other.
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While several Community friendships would count for this list, the relationship between Troy (Donald Glover) and Abed (Danny Pudi) is at the tippy top. For those who are neurodivergent (and struggle to make friends because of it), Troy being seen and loved by his sensitive friend is the dream.
‘Daria’
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Never was there a more relatable duo than Jane and Daria, two social outcasts who hated…just about everybody. They had the kind of synchronous angst/sarcasm that other ’90s kids dreamed of in a best friend—and also, their clothes were very cool.
‘Dead to Me’
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This hit comedy series brings two women together—Jen and Judy (Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini)—who both have a ton of secrets and are extremely terrible at keeping them from each other. Drama and shenanigans ultimately ensue, but the two women are ride-or-die.
‘The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air’
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Will (Will Smith) and his cousins are opposites…at first. In particular, the eventual bond between Will and Carlton (Alfonso Ribeiro), after loads of teasing, is iconic because of how they accept influence from each other: Will helps Carlton be a bit more cool, and Carlton helps Will be a bit more classy.
‘Friends’
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It’s in the title of the show! While people endlessly debate about the relationships in Friends, it’s harder to do better than Monica (Courteney Cox) and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston): the longest-lasting of the gang. The two are basically sisters.
‘Gilmore Girls’
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What’s most enjoyable about Gilmore Girls is the notion that you can truly be best friends with your mom. In the show, daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel) is responsible and dependable while her mother Lorelai (Lauren Graham) is more free-spirited, but their dependence on each other is joyful.
‘Girls’
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Like others on this list, the girls in Girls aren’t very good friends to each other (and that’s the point since the show is a satire of millennial adulthood). But they keep finding their way back to each other, particularly Marnie (Allison Williams) and Hannah (Lena Dunham), in an evolution towards (sort of) maturity.
‘Grey’s Anatomy’
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Grey’s Anatomy popularized the idea of someone being “your person:” a non-romantic relationship that fulfills every other aspect of a close relationship. Cristina (Sandra Oh) and Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) were each other’s “person,” and it might have been the longest-lasting union on the show.
‘How I Met Your Mother’
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This show inspires a lot of debate about friendship (who was a good friend? Was Ted secretly not a very good person?), but fans often agree that the lifelong friendship of Ted (Josh Radner) and Marshall (Jason Segel) in How I Met Your Mother is the strongest platonic bond on the show.
‘I Love Lucy’
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While I Love Lucy was ostensibly about marriage, the friendship between Lucy (Lucille Ball) and Ethel (Vivian Vance) was what many watched for. It was rooted in goofiness and a shared sense of fun, and greatly assisted by the fact that the two were friends in real life.
‘Insecure’
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Of the many impressive elements of Insecure, the friendship between Issa (Issa Rae) and Molly (Yvonne Orji) was probably one of the best. The two aren’t particularly mature with each other at times, but the relationship can withstand a little (okay, a lot) of friction over the years.
‘Justified’
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Has there ever been a more complex friendship (frenemy-ship?) than Raylan (Timothy Olyphant) and Boyd (Walton Goggins)? The two worked together in Kentucky’s coal mines and the show resumes as they’re a U.S. Marshal and a high-ranking criminal, respectively. This makes for a fascinating dynamic between the two begrudging pals.
‘M*A*S*H’
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While some of it hasn’t aged well, M*A*S*H remains one of the most important shows in TV history. Part of its enduring appeal is that the coworker friend group exists because they’ve been brought together by circumstance and that, despite various shenanigans, the 4077th remains bound together tightly.
‘Never Have I Ever’
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While Never Have I Ever is often about romantic entanglements, Devi (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), Fabiola (LaRhonza Lee Rodriguez), and Eleanor (Ramona Young) are iconic pals. Whether they’re getting into ridiculous schemes over a romantic interest or offering (unsolicited) fashion advice, it’s a sweet and silly dynamic.
‘New Girl’
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Fewer friend groups have been more iconic or more random than the one in New Girl. It’s hard to choose the two funniest BFFs—Jess (Zooey Deschanel) and Cece (Hannah Simone) have been friends for ages and are sweetly snarky—but we’d probably have to give it to Schmidt (Max Greenfield) and Nick (Jake Johnson) for pure humor alone.
‘The Office’
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There are lots of work “friendships” on The Office, but Michael (Steve Carell) and Dwight (Rainn Wilson) are the most fun—and the biggest case for finding someone as weird as you are in your quest to find a BFF. Dwight worships his boss, and Michael loves him for it…but many seasons and hare-brained plots later, they’re forever friends.
‘Parks and Recreation’
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Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) has a couple of besties (including her friendship with Rashida Jones’s Ann Perkins on here), but her relationship with curmudgeonly boss Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman), who’s different in every possible way, is nevertheless deeply respectful and appreciative.
‘Pen15’
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Teen outcasts (Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle playing younger versions of themselves although they are both fully grown adults) present a cringingly accurate vision of middle school where literally the only good part is getting to be best best best friends with someone.
‘Psych’
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If there’s one thing that made Psych a joyful watch (for eight whole seasons!) it was the bromance between Spencer (James Roday Rodriguez) and Gus (Dulé Hill): They’ve been friends since they were little, and they snack, sing, shriek, and snack some more together—while solving crimes, obviously.
‘Rome’
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File this one under: opposites turn out to be secret platonic soulmates. Lucius (Kevin McKidd) and Titus (Ray Stevenson) start as fellow Roman soldiers with oppositional personalities, but life (specifically battles in war and miscellaneous personal dramas) help them find various forms of redemption. 13!
‘Sabrina the Teenage Witch’
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It’s hard to believe that a human and a cat could be on-screen BFFs, but it nevertheless true that Sabrina (Melissa Joan Hart) and Salem (voiced by Nick Bakay) are the best part of the original Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Mainly, Salem has a lot of snark and bad ideas to offer, which sounds about right for a black cat.
‘Saved by the Bell’
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It’s a deeply ’80s and ’90s look at life in high school, but Saved by the Bell is still a fun take on friendship. All the pairings are interesting, but the bond between pals Zach (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) and Jessie (Elizabeth Berkley) might have been the sweetest—as well as a fun introduction to the idea that your BFF doesn’t have to be the same gender.
‘Scrubs’
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If you ask superfans of Scrubs why they like the show so much, the friendship between J.D. (Zach Braff) and Turk (Donald Faison) is usually high on their list. It’s based on equal levels of immaturity and silliness, but the two doctors are are basically a platonic married couple.
‘Sex and the City’
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Even though much has been written about how Sex and the City has aged, one of the most positive elements of the show was the undying loyalty before the women—and the complicated, nuanced dynamics between them, which felt very authentic to actual friend groups.
‘Sherlock’
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The highly functioning sociopath and his war vet pal have long made for one of the most iconic friendships in literature, movies, and TV (Seriously, it’s been more than a century at this point.) But the modern iteration with Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch captured viewers’s hearts all over again.
‘Veep’
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Veep is full of colleagues being mean to each other (and, besides the political satire, it’s a fun look at the love/hate relationships you have with the people you work with). It’s tough to beat the original trio of Amy (Anna Chlumsky), Mike (Matt Walsh), and Dan (Reid Scott), with their hapless bond fueled by ego, motivation, and frustration.
‘The X Files’
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This might be cheating a little (since Mulder and Scully do ultimately end up in a romantic relationship together) but we’d argue that the slowly burgeoning friendship between the skeptic and the believer was one for the ages.