by Ted Sherman

Created on: September 18, 2008

The top best friend movies of all time pose the question for any old fan who has experienced films from the past 50 years or so. Of course, some of the more recent 21st Century buddy movies are excellent, but I tend to reach back to the distant past and remember only my own favorites. Therefore, while forcing myself to include some 1990s films, I still feel more nostalgia for the oldies. Therefore, in all fairness to more recent best friend movies, I lumped my favorites of the great comedy buddy teams into my #2 spot.

1. Singin' in the Rain (1952) is considered by some as the best musical in Hollywood history, featuring Gene Kelly's immortal song and dance number to the title tune. It was also a great best buddy story, because Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor) open the movie as out-of-work actor pals in Hollywood, and the story follows their progress through the 1929 introduction of talkies. There are many two-guy song and dance numbers in the film. In their honky-tonk vaudeville days, they do "Fit as a Fiddle", then during an elocution lesson, they energetically parody "Moses Supposes", and with Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), the trio dances and sings a spirited, "Good Morning!"

2. To occupy second place, I've gathered a collection of best buddy teams who made highly successful series of movies together: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in the 1920s and 1930s; Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in the 1940s and 1950s; Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in the 1940s and 1950s; Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis also in the 1940s and 1950s.

3. Grumpy Old Men (1993) and a sequel, Grumpier Old Men (1995), are happy, sad movies because they were the finales for the great Jack Lemmon as John Gustavson and Walter Matthau as Max Goldman. The two guys grew up together as next-door neighbors and best pals. Their relationship has degenerated into the two old widowers playing dirty tricks on each other, and fighting over potential new romances. But despite all their bickering and troubles, we know their lifelong friendship is stronger than ever.

4. Thelma and Louise (1991) features two desperate runaway women of highly questionable virtue, Thelma (Geena Davis) and Louise (Susan Sarandon) are gal pals. Attempting to get away from bad relationships, they do a glorious cross-country buddy ride together in their convertible, getting into more bad relationships along the way. After all kinds of troubles with cartoonishly evil and stupid men, they commit a bank robbery and Louise

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