Best Best friend Movies
Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of best friend cinema — measured across 1,886 indexed frames from 24 films, against a 404,689-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.
Best friend films over-index on teenager, blonde hair and boy — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.
- 1
Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987)
Louis MalleDP Renato BertaIMDb 8.0TMDB 7.5See in full on FrameThrower →
In 1944, upper class boy Julien Quentin and his brother François travel to Catholic boarding school in the countryside after vacations. Julien is a leader and good student and when the new student Jean Bonnet arrives in the school, they have friction in their relationship. However, Julien learns to respect Jean and discovers that he is Jewish and the priests are hiding him from the Nazis. They become best friends and Julien keeps the secret. When the priest Jean discovers that the servant Joseph is stealing supplies from the school to sell in the black market, he fires the youth. Soon the Gestapo arrives at school to investigate the students and the priests that run and work in the boarding school.
- 2
Close (2022)
Lukas DhontDP Frank van den EedenIMDb 7.8TMDB 7.8See in full on FrameThrower →
Eden Dambrineas Léo
Gustav De Waeleas Rémi
Émilie Dequenneas Sophie
The intense friendship between two thirteen-year old boys Leo and Remi suddenly gets disrupted. Struggling to understand what has happened, Léo approaches Sophie, Rémi's mother. "Close" is a film about friendship and responsibility.
- 3
Alfonso CuarónDP Michael SeresinIMDb 7.9TMDB 8.0See in full on FrameThrower →
Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is having a tough time with his relatives (yet again). He runs away after using magic to inflate Uncle Vernon's (Richard Griffiths') sister Marge (Pam Ferris), who was being offensive towards Harry's parents. Initially scared for using magic outside the school, he is pleasantly surprised that he won't be penalized after all. However, he soon learns that a dangerous criminal and Voldemort's trusted aide Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) has escaped from Azkaban Prison and wants to kill Harry to avenge the Dark Lord. To worsen the conditions for Harry, vile creatures called Dementors are appointed to guard the school gates and inexplicably happen to have the most horrible effect on him. Little does Harry know that by the end of this year, many holes in his past (whatever he knows of it) will be filled up and he will have a clearer vision of what the future has in store.
- 4
Before I Go to Sleep (2014)
Rowan JofféDP Ben DavisIMDb 6.3TMDB 6.5See in full on FrameThrower →
Forty year old Christine Lucas wakes up in bed with a man she does not know, in an unfamiliar house. The man explains that he is her husband, Ben, and that she suffered brain damage from a car accident ten years earlier. Christine wakes up every morning with no memory of her life from her early twenties onwards. Christine receives treatment from Dr. Nasch, a neurologist at a local hospital who provides her a camera to record her thoughts and progress each day, and calls her every morning to remind her to watch the video in the camera. Soon, she starts to discover the truth around her.
- 5
Ghost World (2001)
Terry ZwigoffDP Affonso BeatoIMDb 7.3TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →
Enid and Rebecca after they finish the high school. Both have problems relating to people and they spend their time hanging around and bothering creeps. When they meet Seymour who is a social outsider who loves to collect old 78 records, Enid's life will change forever.
- 6
Lady Bird (2017)
Greta GerwigDP Sam LevyIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →
Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson is a high-school senior from the "wrong side of the tracks". She longs for adventure, sophistication, and opportunity, but finds little of that in her Sacramento Catholic high school. Her senior year improves: she finds her first romance, participates in the school play, and--most importantly--applies for college.
- 7
Frances Ha (2012)
Noah BaumbachDP Sam LevyIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →
Frances lives in New York, but she doesn't really have an apartment. Frances is an apprentice for a dance company, but she's not really a dancer. Frances has a best friend named Sophie, but they aren't really speaking anymore. Frances throws herself headlong into her dreams, even as their possible reality dwindles. Frances wants so much more than she has but lives her life with unaccountable joy and lightness.
- 8
Definitely, Maybe (2008)
Adam BrooksDP Florian BallhausIMDb 7.1TMDB 6.9See in full on FrameThrower →
Romantic comedy: Will Hayes, a 30-something Manhattan dad is in the midst of a divorce when his 10 year old daughter, Maya, starts to question him about his life before marriage. Maya wants to know absolutely everything about how her parents met and fell in love. Will's story begins in 1992, as a young, starry-eyed aspiring politician who moves to New York from Wisconsin in order to work on the Clinton campaign. For Maya, Will relives his past as a idealistic young man learning the ins and outs of big city politics, and recounts the history of his romantic relationships with three very different women. On the campaign, Will's best buddy is Russell McCormack. They not only have similar political aspirations, they share the same type of girl problems, too. Will hopelessly attempts a "PG" version of his story for his daughter ad changes the names so Maya has to guess who he finally married. Is her mother Will's college sweetheart, the dependable girl next-door Emily? Is she his longtime best friend and confidante, the apolitical April? Or is she the free-spirited but ambitious journalist? As Maya puts together the pieces of her dad's romantic puzzle, she begins to understand that love is not so simple or easy. And as Will tells her his tale, Maya helps him to understand that it's definitely never too late to go back...and maybe even possible to find a happy ending.
- 9
Shrek the Third (2007)
Chris MillerIMDb 6.1TMDB 6.3See in full on FrameThrower →
When King Harold (John Cleese) of Far, Far Away dies, the clumsy Shrek (Mike Myers) becomes the immediate successor of the throne. However, Shrek decides to find the legitimate heir Artie (Justin Timberlake) in a distant kingdom with his friends Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) to be able return to his beloved house in the swamp with the pregnant Fiona (Cameron Diaz). Meanwhile, the envious and ambitious Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) joins the villains of the fairytales plotting a coup d'état to become the new King.
- 10
Stephen HerekDP Tim SuhrstedtIMDb 6.9TMDB 6.8See in full on FrameThrower →
In the small town of San Dimas, a few miles away from Los Angeles, there are two nearly brain dead teenage boys going by the names of Bill S, Preston ESQ. and Ted Theodore Logan, they have a dream together of starting their own rock and roll band called the "Wyld Stallyns". Unfortunately, they are still in high school and on the verge of failing out of their school as well, and if they do not pass their upcoming history report, they will be separated as a result of Ted's father sending him to military school. But, what Bill and Ted do not know is that they must stay together to save the future. So, a man from the future named Rufus came to help them pass their report. So, both Bill and Ted decided to gather up historical figures which they need for their report. They are hoping that this will help them pass their report so they can stay together.
What best friend films are made of
How much more often each element appears in a best friend frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — teenager is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.
- teenager4.7×
- blonde hair2.6×
- boy2.5×
- pillow2.2×
- book2.1×
- sweater2.0×
- plaid shirt1.8×
- bed1.8×
How best friend films are shot
Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate best friend from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.
- 15%widevs 20% baseline
- 91%eye levelvs 69% baseline
What breaks the pattern
The Town (2010) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.
Method
Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 1,886 frames from 24 films carrying the best friend label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (404,689 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.
Machine-readable: /api/list/best-friend
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