The greatest male bonding films of all time

“You didn’t see Lefors out there, did you?” “Lefors? No.” “Oh, good. For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble.” Paul Newman and Robert Redford achieved film immortality as two of the most charmingly incorrigible outlaws who ever marauded in the Old West (and, finally, Bolivia). No matter how bleak their prospects (even at the very end), the duo remain fiercely loyal to one another and indefatigably chipper. William Goldman’s witty script laid out the template for a multitude of buddy comedies to come.

Journeyman minor league catcher Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) is brought to the Single-A Durham Bulls to mentor Ebby Calvin LaLoosh, a pitching prospect with a million dollar arm and a 5-cent head. It’s an unlikely friendship that develops into a love triangle when baseball aficionado Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) professes a romantic interest in both men. Davis wearily browbeats LaLoosh into major league mental shape, and the on-the-rise youngster eventually comes to admire his in-decline tutor. Ron Shelton’s directorial debut is a hilarious and oddly touching document of an unlikely male friendship.

“We ain’t brothers, we ain’t partners and we ain’t friends!” Jack Cates (Nick Nolte) is a hard-drinking, casually racist San Francisco cop who’s forced to team up with wiseass convict Reggie Hammond (Eddie Murphy) to track down a cop killer and his accomplices. Cates and Hammond hate each other at first, but after quarreling and brawling, they develop a grudging respect for each other as they find common cause in taking down a dangerous scumbag. They’re both messed up individuals, but they’re highly capable when focused on what they do best.

Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster adaptation of Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel wisely excised the affair between police chief Martin Brody’s (Roy Scheider) wife Ellen (Lorraine Gary), and oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), thus allowing the audience to enjoy the boozy beginning of a beautiful friendship between a working class lawman who loathes the water and a rich-kid scientist who lives for it. The bonding gets better and boozier when Brody and Hooper charter the boat of surly shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw), who resents Brody’s thalassophobia and Hooper’s wealthy upbringing. As the trio risks their lives to capture and kill a rogue Great White, they become thick as thieves.

Filmmaker Philip Kaufman placed a rollicking spin on Tom Wolfe’s account of the Mercury Seven space program, capturing the “ineffable” mixture of cowboy spirit and grace under pressure that drove these pioneers to risk their lives for their country’s greater glory. It wasn’t an ideal fraternity. Some of the men were skirt-chasing drunks. Others, like Ed Harris’s John Glenn, were impossibly upright boy scouts. But as they trained to become the first Americans to reach the heavens, their differences mattered less than having each other’s backs (like lobbying for Scott Glenn’s Alan Shepherd to be able to urinate in his spacesuit after an interminable launch delay). They were far from perfect men, but they inspired a nation in the nervy throes of the Cold War.

There have been several excellent films centered on the unlikely friendship between lawman Wyatt Earp and gambler/gunfighter Doc Holliday, but there’s no topping John Ford’s ahistorical “My Darling Clementine," in which Henry Fonda and Victor Mature form a bond as civilized (or once civilized) men in a not-yet-civilized land. Fonda is a model of stolidity as the socially awkward Earp, while Mature brings an easy charisma and poorly concealed sorrow as the doomed Holliday. They’re nearly driven to commit violence against each other over a misunderstanding but eventually join together to take down the vicious Clanton gang at the O.K. Corral. 

Jean Renoir’s humanistic WWI masterpiece is built around a tremendously affecting friendship between two aristocrats: one a captured Frenchman (Pierre Fresnay), the other a former German pilot (Erich von Stroheim) who’s been relegated to the command of a prison camp after being badly wounded in battle. Both men are regretful of their circumstances, but they are tragically bound to duty. For the French Boieldieu, it’s to break free of the camp; for the German Rauffenstein, it’s to thwart any attempt at escape. Their final scene together is one of the most heartbreaking in all of cinema.

John Sturges’ enormously entertaining WWII film finds a group of determined escape artists being placed in an allegedly escape-proof prison camp — from which they begin plotting their breakout on Day 1. The camaraderie between the internees, who hail from various Allied nations, is borne out of necessity: Quite simply, they need to combine their expertise to gain their freedom. Of all the friendships in the film, the most striking is the tender relationship between “Tunnel Kings” Danny Velinski (Charles Bronson) and Willie Dickes (John Leyton). Though it is never plainly stated, Sturges makes it fairly clear that there is a romantic connection between the two. 

This Civil War drama about Missouri Bushwhackers waging guerrilla warfare against pro-Union Kansas Jayhawkers begins as a tale of friendship between the wealthy Jack Bull Chiles (Skeet Ulrich) and Jake Roedel (Tobey Maguire), whose Dutch ancestry places him perilously low on the social scale. When Jack Bull succumbs to gangrene halfway through the film, Jake becomes friends with freed slave, Daniel Holt (Jeffrey Wright); the two young men have lived their whole lives in partial or full servitude to rich white families and thus have more in common than they initially realized. If you don’t have a lump in your throat as they address each other by their rarely used full names at the end of the movie, you are made of stone.

“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?” A miraculous confluence of great writing, perfect casting and spot-on direction, “Stand By Me” transports moviegoers straight back to childhood when the world was full of mystery and adventure. Viewed as an adult, the film has a wistful quality in that we know these four friends from different economic backgrounds aren’t going to stay friends forever (as confirmed by the closing narration). Until that moment, it’s a nostalgia-laced reminder of all the fun and trouble you used to get in (and often away with) with your best buddies.

Fresh off the box office success of “Superman," director Richard Donner took on this small-scale gem from screenwriters Valerie Curtin and Barry Levinson about the drunken camaraderie that develops between a crippled suicide survivor (John Savage) and a woulda-been basketball star (David Morse) with a bad leg who tends bar at an Oakland dive. It’s a beautiful movie about people making the best of their broken lives and what happens when one member of the fraternity gets a surprise second chance. Savage, Morse and an Academy Award-nominated Diana Scarwid are absolutely magnificent.

By far the best Gen X film about male friendship, Edgar Wright’s modern classic stars co-writer Simon Pegg as Shaun, a working stiff who can’t move beyond his 20s because he’s unfailingly loyal to his lay-about, pot-dealing best friend Ed (Nick Frost). When the pair wakes up to a zombie apocalypse, Shaun leaps into action and slowly becomes the man (and boyfriend) he needs to be if he’s ever to make something of himself. Does this mean severing ties completely with Ed? As the film’s perfect final shot reveals, not entirely.

John Woo excelled at male bonding actioners in his Hong Kong days (and there’s a case to be made that his one American masterpiece, “Face/Off”, is a perverse depiction of bonding as well), but the most indelible of the bunch is “Bullet in the Head” in which a trio of rowdy friends (Tony Leung, Waise Lee and Jacky Cheung) attempt to make a killing as smugglers during the Vietnam War. It’s a film of intense loyalty and unthinkable betrayal, all of it served up at a feverish, hyper-violent pitch that only Woo can achieve and sustain.

“What are you prepared to do?” Brian De Palma’s trademark fatalism found a deliciously mainstream muse in David Mamet’s screenplay based on the popular network drama about Eliot Ness’ pursuit of gangster Al Capone. As scored by the great Ennio Morricone, the film becomes an operatic tale of friendship between four good men brought together by their arrow-straight sense of justice. The heart of the film beats loud and proud in the mentor-protégé exchanges between Sean Connery’s seen-it-all beat cop Malone and Kevin Costner’s wet-behind-the-ears T-Man, Ness. Malone’s protracted death scene is agonizing, but it pays off beautifully in the courtroom finale.

Formulaic? Yep. Shamelessly sentimental? Uh-huh. Should’ve lost Best Original Screenplay to “Boogie Nights”? God, yes. All that aside, it’s hard to deny that Gus Van Sant’s “Good Will Hunting” doesn’t work remarkably well on its own terms. Though its “Ordinary People”-esque stabs at blunt-force psychiatry ring a little hollow, the bond shared by Matt Damon’s Will and Ben Affleck’s Chuckie is wholly authentic. Will is the prodigious child of a working class family who was meant to do more; Chuckie is the homebody who loves his home, is satisfied with his life and wants nothing more than to see his gifted friend soar. The final scene is telegraphed like crazy, but it still works.

John Singleton’s debut is a heavy-handed affair, but the friendship between Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and Ricky (Morris Chestnut) is as real as it gets. They’ve survived close to 20 years in a neighborhood where life is cheap and ended at any moment with the squeeze of a trigger, and they’re about to get out. Regardless of where you grew up, you could connect with the emotional travails of these young men; that they lived in a war zone was entirely new to a lot of people, and watching Ricky get gunned down was a wake-up call to viewers with a conscience.

Seven “hungry” rōnin from disparate backgrounds band together to protect a village from bandits. Their noble cause is a chance at redemption for various failings and misdeeds, and their bond in the face of impossible odds is both invigorating and tragic. Akira Kurosawa was at the peak of his artistic powers when he delivered this three-hour masterpiece; you know from the start that most of these wayward warriors aren’t going to make it, and you react to each death as if you’ve lost a brother.

Culturally and politically, George Stevens’ yarn about a trio of free-spirited British troops (Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) brawling and boozing their way through a campaign in colonized India is decidedly problematic. But the thrill-seeking spirit of the film, and its affectionate portrayal of brave water carrier Gunga Din (Sam Jaffe), is hard to resist. William Goldman famously cited the title character’s final sacrifice as a perfect example of “stupid courage." It’s also one of the most beautifully selfless acts in film history, an act of love and brotherhood that spares the lives of his friends.

The brotherly bond between Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg got the big-screen treatment in this Greg Mottola-directed sex comedy about two teenage boys aiming to impress (and hopefully lose their virginity to) a couple of girls by procuring alcohol for a big, end-of-the-year high school party. It turns into an adolescent “After Hours” wherein the boys are nearly busted or beaten up before getting to the party, but it winds up being a bittersweet tribute to a friendship that might not survive the leap to college. Rogen and Goldberg are still writing together, but it’s likely you don’t talk much with your best high school chums, and that realization gives the final escalator sendoff a bit of a sting.

The ultimate male weepie, this classic TV movie about the friendship between two Chicago Bears running backs, standout Gayle Sayers (Billy Dee Williams) and backup Brian Piccolo (James Caan), still possesses the power to make grown men burst out in tears. The sheer selflessness displayed by both characters throughout the film feels too good to be true, but these guys were special and especially dedicated to each other’s success. The Michel Legrand score knows how to goad you into a sobbing mess without being too aggressive about it.

The male bonding focus of Frank Darabont’s adaptation of Stephen King’s short story is the relationship between longtime convict Red (Morgan Freeman) and crime-of-passion lifer Andy (Tim Robbins), but the film resonates to this day as a tale of incarcerated men trying to maintain their humanity, if not their dignity, while being treated like animals by guards and a sadistic warden. If you’re looking for a more brutally realistic portrayal of prison, there are multiple seasons of HBO’s “Oz” waiting for you,. But if you want to believe in the best of men who’ve made horrible mistakes in their lives, this is a uniquely hopeful movie.

Unconditional male friendship isn’t always a good thing, especially when you’re dealing with degenerate gamblers. But there’s something beautifully pathetic about the way George Segal and Elliott Gould keep encouraging each other to chase the high of a quick win. They’re losers through and through, and that’s probably never going to change. At least they found each other? Their bond is broken when one of them can’t stop winning at a casino, but there’s an understanding between the two men as they part ways. Sometimes winning is losing.

The Hudlin brothers’ romantic comedy served as Eddie Murphy’s first comeback vehicle, and while it was intended to show the comedy superstar’s tender side, it works best as a film about male friendship. Murphy does his buddy, David Alan Grier, dirty by covertly getting with the girl (Halle Berry) he’s way into. Murphy doesn’t go out of his way to steal the girl; it’s a result of circumstance and genuine attraction. But they smooth it out because there was no ill intent — and it was never going to happen between Grier and Berry. This would generally be considered a violation of “guy code," but the feelings of the woman are taken into consideration. It’s a shockingly evolved outcome for the man who behaved like a caveman in “Raw” a few years prior.

James Jones’ novel about an alcoholic Army veteran returning to his Indiana hometown gets the Hollywood treatment via Vincente Minnelli, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine. It’s a sumptuously shot and scored film, but Minnelli drives home the dingy milieu by refusing to prettify the ruinous consequences of the lifestyle pursued by Sinatra and Martin. They’re two drunks who support each other emotionally, but this is a short-term fix that will leave them run down and dead well before their time. Still, it’s a treat to see Sinatra and Martin inhabiting characters that are essentially their loser counterparts. Both men give their best performances in this movie.

Edward Norton plays a drug dealer looking down the barrel of a seven-year prison sentence. Before he goes in, he decides to spend an evening out with his two best childhood friends (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper), who represent the warring intellectual and capitalistic parts of his personality. In the end, Norton asks the rapacious Wall Street broker to destroy his face (so he’ll be unattractive to potential prison rapists) and gives his dog to the withdrawn teacher. That’s what friends are for.