Listicle: 10 friendships that were more epic than a love story

These 10 duos bicker like siblings and banter like lovers, and have each other’s back like family. Some of the best relationships aren’t romantic but platonic

Will and Sylvia; Platonic: The onetime besties reconnect in middle age. He is now a hipster brewery owner, stuck in man-child mode. She is a mom of three, who has lost her sense of self. Their dynamic is messy, hilarious and kind of essential. Sylvia shows Will how to adult in relationships. He shows her that growing up doesn’t mean giving up your identity. Together, they’re half a functional adult, half a disaster, and proof of how necessary cross-gender friendships are.

Will and Sylvia from Platonic are half a functional adult, half a disaster, and fully wholesome.

Vijayalakshmi and Rani from Queen had different personalities, but they needed each other.

Vijayalakshmi and Rani; Queen. When VJ tells Rani, “Vijay nahin hai, so what? Vijayalakshmi toh hai,” in Queen, it’s a rallying cry. Their friendship reframes Rani’s story: It isn’t about losing a man, but realising that the right friendship can alter your life. VJ draws Rani out, teaching her to dance through heartbreak. She gets Rani to chase adventure, fend off nosy relatives and see herself anew. In return, Rani stabilises VJ’s whirlwind life.

In Mad Men, Don and Peggy don’t just hold each other up, they look out for each other.

Don and Peggy; Mad Men. He’s the creative genius at the ad agency. She starts off as the secretary. In a Mills & Boon novel she’d fall for his charm, he for her innocence. But in the show, Peggy rises slowly, mentored by Don to become his equal. She has a harder time of it – Madison Avenue in the 1960s is a sexist, rich-boys’ club. But the two not only hold each other up, they look out for each other. And apart from one sad attempt in S1, there’s no need for sex.

When Elementary debuted, fans were surprised to see Sherlock and Watson’s platonic dynamic.

Sherlock and Watson; Elementary. When the show debuted with Lucy Liu playing Watson to Johnny Lee Miller’s Sherlock, fans were expecting fanfic-level romance. Refreshingly, Joan Watson remains the detective’s sober companion and crime-solving colleague – nothing more. Their wits are well matched. Her patience counterbalances his volatility. Stripped of romantic undercurrent, they’re just two people building something together, the way so many of us do at work every day.

In Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, two strangers share solitude and silences together.

Bob and Charlotte; Lost in Translation. What to do when you’re stuck in Japan, jet-lagged and awake while most hard-working salarymen sleep? You find company in someone stuck in the same situation, but stop short of a love story. Sofia Coppola’s tale finds its poetry in the silences. The faded movie star drifting through midlife finds he has little in common with the young wife of a busy photographer. What they do share is solitude, via karaoke, cigarettes and saké.

30 Rock’s unexpected friendship between writer Liz and TV exec Jack resists sitcom clichés.

Liz and Jack; 30 Rock. The show’s unexpected friendship between a writer and TV exec (pretty much church and state) resists every sitcom cliché. They two bicker like siblings but have each other’s back like parents. Idealism goes up against profits. Ratings lock horns with creativity. Jack challenges Liz to be bolder, she keeps his cynicism in check. Tina Fey literally rebuilt Alec Baldwin’s career with this one character.

In Doctor Who, the sparkle and the chemistry is in the non-romance.

Doctor and Donna Noble; Doctor Who. Fans have long wanted something more out of the loyal partnership between the Doctor and his companion. But the sparkle, the chemistry, is in the non-romance. She humbles his alien grandeur with blunt honesty, he nurtures her hidden courage and compassion. They go on slapstick capers. They make harrowing moral choices. She goes from “temp from Chiswick” into a universe-saving hero. Why contaminate this with romance?

In YJHD, Bunny and Aditi showed us that friendships can be both comfy and unserious.

Bunny and Aditi; Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani. From the early scene, in which Bunny wakes Aditi with a terrible rendition of “Jumma Chumma De De,” to her tender video call inviting him to her destination wedding — “Kya jaldi jaldi bade ho gaye yaar” — their moments together feel emotional. Aditi keeps the group anchored — defusing Avi and Bunny’s fight with a laugh, “Karan-Arjun, gale milo!” Their friendship is like a comfy T-shirt. It works because it is nothing more.

In Stranger Things, Steve and Robin did love each other. It just wasn’t romantic.

Steve and Robin; Stranger Things. We all shipped them until the end of S3. Steve, jock-turned-babysitter, deserved love. Robin was chill, pretty, almost too smart for him. She also didn’t mind a little paranormal adventure. But there’s a bathroom-floor confession in which we all realise that their connection isn’t about couplehood. And not everything is about heteronormative pairing anyway. Sometimes, having a hero for a friend is the purest love.

Rocket and Nebula shared a quiet devotion. They only had each other after they’d lost everything.

Nebula and Rocket; The Marvel Universe. In the wake of Avengers: Infinity War, Rocket and Nebula were the only Guardians left standing, bound not by choice but by shared loss. It forged them into not a couple but a family. Their bond is stitched together in small, telling gestures — Nebula surprises him with Bucky’s arm, Rocket builds her a sleek nanotech replacement — it’s a friendship less about words than about the quiet devotion that endures when everything else has been torn away.

From HT Brunch, August 30, 2025

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