19 Greatest Friendship Shows of All Time

Whether you’ve been besties since kindergarten or just met in the bar bathroom, the friends you share your experiences with are what makes those experiences matter. While our romantic partners are important (of course), our friends can be the truest loves of our lives. 

While nothing can top our real-life friendships, our favorite shows have always succeeded in bringing the best aspects of friendship to the screen. From 80s favorite, The Golden Girls, to modern-day hits, like pen15 and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, on-screen friendships have captured our hearts for decades. 

Hulu has a full library of friendship shows that will make you laugh, cry, and hug your besties a little harder. Check out our list of the best TV shows about friendship streaming on Hulu.

Hulu Original Shows About Friends

How I Met Your Father

Hitting Hulu on January 18, How I Met Your Father is a reimagined telling of the hit show, How I Met Your Mother. Featuring a group of 20-somethings, HIMYF focuses on Sophie (Hilary Duff) as she tells her son about the adventures she and her friends had as they navigated the tough dating world of NYC in the modern age that led her to meet his father. 

Watch: How I Met Your Father

pen15

Ready to relive some of the most awkward days of your life? You’re going to want to call your middle school best friend and plan a PEN15 binge-a-thon immediately. This Hulu Original brings all the fun, cringiness, and relatability you crave in a comedy. It stars Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle, who play the middle school versions of themselves in the year 2000. 

As if 30-somethings playing 13-year-old outcasts isn’t hilarious enough, their castmates are actual 13-year-olds. These bite-sized episodes pack a lot of laughs and will supply you with enough GIFs to share in your friends’ group chat for the rest of time.

Watch: pen15 

Difficult People 

Executive produced by Amy Poehler, the Hulu Original Difficult People centers around two 30-something best friends and aspiring comedians, Julie (Julie Klausner) and Billy (Billy Eichner), as they talk themselves in and out of the most awkward of awkward situations. 

As the title indicates, the pair is, well, difficult. And while all their friends seem to be finding love and success, they continue to struggle in their careers and personal lives. 

Follow Julie and Billy as they learn to navigate relationships, the struggles of the comedy world, and generally being human. 

Watch: Difficult People 

80s Friendship Sitcoms 

The Golden Girls

We can’t talk about friendship TV shows without mentioning our dearly departed Betty White and the show that redefined friendships on TV. 

The Golden Girls follows three ladies, all at a turning point in life, who answer a supermarket ad to live together in Miami, Florida. There’s Dorothy (Bea Arthur), a quick-witted school teacher; Blanche (Rue McClanahan), a man-hunting Southern Belle; and, of course, America’s sweetheart Betty White as the lovely Rose. 

As if this trio weren’t hilarious enough, enter: Dorothy’s mom Sophia (Estelle Getty), who literally has no filter after suffering a mild stroke. There’s a reason this classic ’80s comedy had a successful seven-season run and grabbed nearly 40 awards wins along the way. Let’s just put it this way: these ladies don’t hold back, and they serve their jokes hot. You’re in for a golden time.

If you love The Golden Girls, be sure to check out The Golden Palace streaming now.

Watch: The Golden Girls

M*A*S*H

While this show technically started in the 70s, its popularity brought it into the 80s (and for good reason). M*A*S*H follows a group of friends working in an army hospital during the Korean war. However, in place of the heavy vibes war shows and movies typically bring, this crew uses humor and friendship to manage the difficult situation they’re in and always takes the opportunity to lighten the mood. 

Watch: M*A*S*H

Cheers

Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name. 

Cheers follows a group of friends in Boston and the bar they each frequent, Cheers, which is owned by a former pitcher for the Red Sox. With iconic faces, including Ted Danson, Rhea Perlman, Woody Harrelson, and more, this story follows a group of self-proclaimed “losers” who came together by chance. The group, now more like a family, shares their lives and experiences together in their home away from home.  

Watch: Cheers 

90s Sitcoms About Friendship

Freaks and Geeks

Ever just feel like going back to the ’80s? Those were simpler times — not to mention, there was great music, hella fresh hairstyles, and no global pandemic. If that’s you daydreaming, Freaks and Geeks is just the time travel you need (and if you’re in the ’80s mood, there’s a lot more where that came from). 

This one-season cult classic is the ’80s as told by the ’90s, with performances from some of your favorite actors who went on to shape comedy as we know it: Seth Rogen, James Franco, Linda Cardellini, Jason Segel, Busy Philipps, and others.

Watch: Freaks and Geeks 

Frasier

Dr. Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) is a successful, albeit slightly arrogant, therapist who just moved to Seattle from Boston to start over as the host of a radio show. As a licensed therapist, Frasier intends to use his show to help people solve their problems on the air. 

Frasier chronicles his experiences both on and off the show as Dr. Crane provides wisdom and wit to his callers and tries to manage his interpersonal relationships with family members, coworkers, and close friends.

Watch: Frasier

Saved By The Bell

As one of the most recognizable teen sitcoms, Saved By The Bell follows a group of friends trying to maneuver life as teenagers. Troublemaker Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), athletic A.C. Slater (Mario Lopez), nerdy Screech Powers (Dustin Diamond), popular Kelly Kapowski (Tiffani Thiessen), fashionable Lisa Turtle (Lark Vorhees), and feminist Jessie Spano (Elizabeth Berkley) make up the iconic, close-knit, and relatable group of best friends at Bayside High School in California. 

Watch: Saved By The Bell

2000s Sitcoms About Friends

Will & Grace

Will & Grace broke ground in the late ’90s and well into the 2000s as one of the first successful sitcoms with not one, but two gay lead characters. Known for paving the way in LGBTQ+ television, this wildly popular, nothing-off-limits comedy centers around best friends (more like soulmates) Will (Eric McCormack) and Grace (Debra Messing), plus their hilarious, loud-and-proud best friends Jack (Sean Hayes) and Karen (Megan Mullally). 

The Emmy®–winning show ran for eight seasons on NBC and was brought back for a reboot, adding an additional three seasons in 2018.

Watch: Will & Grace 

 

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia 

Recently renewed through its 18th season, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is breaking records as one of FX’s longest-running shows. It follows a group of underachieving friends, or, affectionately, “The Gang” — Mac (Rob McElhenney), Charlie (Charlie Day), Dee (Kaitlin Olson), Dennis (Glenn Howerton), and Frank (Danny DeVito) who together own a pub in Philadelphia, and get themselves into several hilariously dark and unfortunate situations. 

We’ll leave you with this: There’s not much this crew wouldn’t do to make a quick buck. 

Watch: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Community

When the firm Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) works for finds out he lied about earning his bachelor’s degree from Columbia University (and about earning a degree at all), he enrolls in a local community college in an attempt to prove he can graduate. In his Spanish class, Jeff starts to fall for another student, Britta Perry (Gillian Jacobs), and forms a study group that will help him get closer to her. 

Much to his surprise, Britta brings a friend who brings another friend who brings more friends, and suddenly their little study group has become a big study group. However, this group of misfits comes together to form a close-knit and hilarious group of friends who work together to get through their college experience.

Watch: Community

Broad City

Starring and created by badass female comedians, Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, Broad City follows 20-somethings Ilana Wexler (Glazer) and Abbi Abrams (Jacobson) as they try to survive in New York City on a budget (of pennies). However, no matter what mishaps, letdowns, and straight-up bad days NYC throws at them, Abbi and Ilana refuse to give up. 

This hilarious and sometimes raunchy comedy details the daily lives of the pair of best friends as they make even the most mundane of tasks feel like chaos. But, at its core, Broad City is a show about a couple of broads making lemonade out of couch change and enjoying life in the city with their best friend. 

Watch: Broad City

Want more shows that will make you want to call up your besties? Check out our guide to the best shows streaming on Hulu according to subscribers! 

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