10 Best Sitcoms About Friendship
From Friends to New Girl, some sitcoms about friendship have become pop culture staples for their relatable and hilarious dynamics.
While there is a great variety of sitcoms, none of them are as widely beloved by the audience as shows about friendship. These shows tend to follow the characters throughout their early adulthood years and portray how they rely on their friends to navigate a period of difficult transitions.
Shows about a group of friends are very relatable, and audiences often feel like they’re another member of these iconic gangs. However, some comedy series, like Friends, stand out for featuring charming and lovable characters that become timeless.
10How I Met Your Mother
One of the most popular shows from the 2010s, How I Met Your Mother follows Ted as he goes through his 20s looking for the love of his life and hanging out with his close friends. The group goes through many adventures as they navigate their romantic and professional lives.
While How I Met Your Mother aged poorly in many ways, the show is still a cultural staple from its time. Many people love the main characters and can relate to their experiences. Even in its lowest moments, How I Met Your Mother is a great representation of growing up and being a part of a found family.
9Will & Grace
Will & Grace is a late ’90s show that revolves around the friendship of the eponymous characters. Will is a gay man and a lawyer who ends up living with his best friend, Grace, after she breaks up with her long-term boyfriend. Even though Will and Grace are incredibly different, they make it work — most of the time. Additionally, they’re often joined by their next-door neighbor, Jack, and Grace’s wealthy assistant, Karen.
While the characters in Will and Grace aren’t precisely likable, the dynamic between these characters is incredibly hilarious and, at times, even wholesome. They deal with their quotidian lives in the best way they can while keeping up a friendly banter with each other that has the audience in stitches.
8The Big Bang Theory
The geeky group of characters in The Big Bang Theory took the world by storm in the 2000s. This show changed the well-known sitcom formula by featuring a different group of characters than the one the audience was used to seeing on television and portraying the daily lives of a group of nerds.
The characters of The Big Bang Theory are so beloved that they even managed to make nerdy things cool. All the characters have their specific and sometimes annoying quirks, but they do the best they can and grow to become better people every day.
7That ’70s Show
As its name indicates, That ’70s Show is a parody of the stereotypical sitcom from that time. The show follows a group of teenage characters who like to hang out in Eric’s basement as they go through family problems and romantic relationships and enjoy the many different aspects of life in the ’70s.
Even though not all the characters have a lot in common — for example, Jackie is the popular girl while Donna is more of an intellectual outcast — they find solace in each other. Life in the ’70s isn’t easy for a group of teenagers, but they make the best out of it.
6Seinfeld
Seinfeld is one of the most beloved sitcoms in history. The show revolves around Jerry Seinfeld, a comedian who spends most of his time hanging out with his best friend, George, ex-girlfriend, Elaine, and eccentric next-door neighbor, Kramer.
Seinfeld became famous for being one of the best shows to revolve around nothing. The main characters mostly have relatable and absurd conversations about life as they go about their regular days. These dialogues are so hilarious that a lot of them have become iconic quotes around the internet.
5Grace and Frankie
One of the best original Netflix shows, Grace and Frankie revolves around these characters as they find out that their husbands had an affair for more than 25 years. Even though Grace and Frankie are very different women, they are the only ones who understand what the other is going through.
Grace and Frankie is a unique sitcom that talks about the difficulties of older people. However, the main characters realize that they still have a lot to live for, and together they navigate the next phase of their lives. Grace and Frankie is a wholesome sitcom about love, friendship, and family.
4New Girl
After a terrible break-up, Jess moves to an apartment with Nick, Schmidt, and Coach (and, later on, Winston). The four characters form a nice community, even though sometimes they have issues. While having roommates can be a hassle, New Girl shows the best part of sharing a home with friends.
New Girl is the perfect comfort show. It perfectly balances humor, relatable situations, friendship, and romance. New Girl is a great feel-good sitcom, as it mostly keeps wholesome and quirky jokes without adding any real drama. This group of friends shows what healthy friendship can look like among adults.
3Community
Community follows the lives of a group of students at Greendale Community College. All the characters are of different ages and are at different stages in their lives, but they’re all trying to accomplish something. Even though the show follows these characters in a college scenario, Community is mostly a show about friendship.
The six main characters of Community create a Spanish group, and along the way, they find a community within each other. Even though they are very different people — the show features teen characters like Abed and Troy and adult characters like Pierce, who is in his 60s — they all manage to make each other better.
2Derry Girls
Derry Girls is one of the most underrated comedy shows from recent years. Set in the ’90s, it follows a group of teenagers in Northern Ireland as they go through their regular school life and navigate the political tensions this country went through during this period.
Derry Girls is relatable, hilarious, and heartwarming. It portrays one of the most realistic friend dynamics in TV since the characters don’t always get along, but they still care deeply about each other. Furthermore, it completely captured the essence of the ’90s.
1Friends
There isn’t a more iconic sitcom about friendship than, well, Friends. This show laid the ground for most of these types of sitcoms by creating some of the most famous character archetypes nowadays. The six main characters of this show have become cultural staples, and people from all over the world recognize some of their most famous quotes.
While there’s no doubt that Friends has aged poorly in many ways, the sitcom featured a found-family dynamic that has captivated audiences over the years. Friends managed to create the perfect balance between uplifting, dramatic, and incredibly funny.
