Paul is my husband, and he has a soft spot for buddy movies of all kinds. He often spots them where the average person doesn't (i.e in one of our two-year-old's favorite animated movies, "Cars"). So here, for your enjoyment, is why he likes them--and his top five.
When we like a movie, it’s not only because of the director’s art, the inventiveness of the script, or the actors’ performances.It also has something to do with what, or whom, we bring with us. And when I see buddy movies, I bring Jim.
We became buddies working as busboys at the Friday night fish fry at the local Moose Lodge in Dearborn, Michigan, when we were in high school. At the time, we dated two girls who were best friends. (Neither of these relationships lasted a fraction as long as mine and Jim’s.) We also liked the same music, the same books, and the same movies, I guess, although a movie was an expensive date back then, so we didn’t go very often. I think I can count the movies I’ve seen with Jim on one hand. Too expensive back then, and now, when we get together, once a year or so, we have too much to talk about to sit in the dark and keep quiet for two hours.
But what really cemented the friendship was the trips. We spent three months in Europe, when we were 21, hitchhiking around, because we couldn’t afford rail passes, and sleeping in construction sites and unlocked offices, because we couldn’t afford youth hostels. We took the train across Canada from Toronto to Vancouver, thumbed down the coast to San Francisco, and drove most of the way home in a gold Lincoln Continental that somebody wanted delivered to Chicago. (We found the job on a bulletin board in Berkeley.)
We hitched countless times between Michigan and Boston (where we went to college) almost always persuading our rides to stop at Niagara Falls, where we would get out of the car, look at the falls, buy coffees, and get back on the road. Jim and I must hold the record for the most 15-minute visits to Niagara Falls. Maybe others have visited more often than we have, but nobody visited more often and more briefly, I’m convinced.
So when I see a buddy movie, I’m looking for a friendship like mine with Jim. Two guys who’ve been through a lot, have laughed, loved, and lost, and somehow keep ending up together. With a nod to Jim, here are my favorite buddy movies:
The Man Who Would Be King. Michael Caine as Peachy Carnehan and Sean Connery as Daniel Dravot, a couple of hustlers who’ve done their time with the British forces in India, and who decide to search for fabled riches in the legendary kingdom of Kafiristan. Directed by John Huston, from the Rudyard Kipling story, the film shows us two men who would die for one another—and who have nearly done so several times—but who are led astray by greed and ambition. Until, of course, they finally find one another again.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Paul Newman (Butch) and Robert Redford (the Kid) are a couple of desperadoes with outsize hearts who manage to rob banks without hurting anyone, and whose friendship is so strong that the company of a lovely young woman—Katharine Ross as Etta Place, the Kid’s girlfriend—doesn’t come close to evolving into any kind of threatening triangle, partly because Butch is so child-like in his cheery outlook, endless prattling, and boundless optimism that the idea of pursuing Etta doesn’t seem to cross his mind. That’s the Kid’s girl, after all. The Kid is as garrulous as a sphinx, but it’s clear enough how he feels about Butch without his having to say it. As different as night and day, Butch and the Kid seem to have a near-perfect friendship.
The Sting. I admit I’m stuck on the same two actors again here—Newman and Redford, but the relationship and the characters are so different that I think it’s fair to count this one as a separate entry. In Butch Cassidy, Newman was the appealing naif, and Redford the somber professional. In The Sting, it’s the other way around—but with a twist. Here Newman is the pro, but an aging, over-the-hill, drunken shadow of what he once was, in his halcyon days as a con man. Redford is the kid with a grudge, whose inexperience and passion draw him into some very dangerous situations. As the movie progresses, Newman recovers his professionalism, and takes a shine to the kid. And Redford develops enormous respect for the master. What begins as a partnership of convenience between thieves ends as a much different, and much warmer, relationship.
Sideways. Here is an unusual pair. Paul Giamatti as the intelligent, depressed, insecure wine enthusiast Miles, and Thomas Haden Church as the bumbling, dim-witted, but generous and big-hearted Jack, who keeps getting into trouble and demands that Miles get him out of it. And, because this is a buddy movie, Miles does, even when he wants to kill him.
Annie Hall. This is my dark horse, probably not anybody else’s idea of a buddy movie. But I like the friendship between Woody Allen (Alvy Singer) and Tony Roberts (Rob). Alvy’s zany neuroticism never seems to have any effect on Rob, whose lines in the script boil down to, in effect, “C’mon Max. Relax.” That’s addressed to Alvy. The two of them have entire conversations in which each addresses the other as Max, an oddity I’ve never been able to figure out. It’s a quirky relationship, but one thing is clear, despite their differences: They like being with each other.
You’ll find a lot of movies that I haven’t mentioned on other buddy-movie lists: Wedding Crashers, Midnight Cowboy, Some Like it Hot, Easy Rider, Dumb and Dumber, The Big Lebowski, and the Hope and Crosby road movies, to name a few. The movies I’ve picked seem to me to epitomize some real human feeling, some connection. Some buddies are a lot alike, and some are completely different. But they are all on a journey together, whether literal or figurative, their stories merge and overlap, and they enjoy being in one another’s company.
Hey, Jim—you wanna go to the movies?
-Paul Raeburn
When we like a movie, it’s not only because of the director’s art, the inventiveness of the script, or the actors’ performances.It also has something to do with what, or whom, we bring with us. And when I see buddy movies, I bring Jim.
We became buddies working as busboys at the Friday night fish fry at the local Moose Lodge in Dearborn, Michigan, when we were in high school. At the time, we dated two girls who were best friends. (Neither of these relationships lasted a fraction as long as mine and Jim’s.) We also liked the same music, the same books, and the same movies, I guess, although a movie was an expensive date back then, so we didn’t go very often. I think I can count the movies I’ve seen with Jim on one hand. Too expensive back then, and now, when we get together, once a year or so, we have too much to talk about to sit in the dark and keep quiet for two hours.
But what really cemented the friendship was the trips. We spent three months in Europe, when we were 21, hitchhiking around, because we couldn’t afford rail passes, and sleeping in construction sites and unlocked offices, because we couldn’t afford youth hostels. We took the train across Canada from Toronto to Vancouver, thumbed down the coast to San Francisco, and drove most of the way home in a gold Lincoln Continental that somebody wanted delivered to Chicago. (We found the job on a bulletin board in Berkeley.)
We hitched countless times between Michigan and Boston (where we went to college) almost always persuading our rides to stop at Niagara Falls, where we would get out of the car, look at the falls, buy coffees, and get back on the road. Jim and I must hold the record for the most 15-minute visits to Niagara Falls. Maybe others have visited more often than we have, but nobody visited more often and more briefly, I’m convinced.
So when I see a buddy movie, I’m looking for a friendship like mine with Jim. Two guys who’ve been through a lot, have laughed, loved, and lost, and somehow keep ending up together. With a nod to Jim, here are my favorite buddy movies:
The Man Who Would Be King. Michael Caine as Peachy Carnehan and Sean Connery as Daniel Dravot, a couple of hustlers who’ve done their time with the British forces in India, and who decide to search for fabled riches in the legendary kingdom of Kafiristan. Directed by John Huston, from the Rudyard Kipling story, the film shows us two men who would die for one another—and who have nearly done so several times—but who are led astray by greed and ambition. Until, of course, they finally find one another again.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Paul Newman (Butch) and Robert Redford (the Kid) are a couple of desperadoes with outsize hearts who manage to rob banks without hurting anyone, and whose friendship is so strong that the company of a lovely young woman—Katharine Ross as Etta Place, the Kid’s girlfriend—doesn’t come close to evolving into any kind of threatening triangle, partly because Butch is so child-like in his cheery outlook, endless prattling, and boundless optimism that the idea of pursuing Etta doesn’t seem to cross his mind. That’s the Kid’s girl, after all. The Kid is as garrulous as a sphinx, but it’s clear enough how he feels about Butch without his having to say it. As different as night and day, Butch and the Kid seem to have a near-perfect friendship.
The Sting. I admit I’m stuck on the same two actors again here—Newman and Redford, but the relationship and the characters are so different that I think it’s fair to count this one as a separate entry. In Butch Cassidy, Newman was the appealing naif, and Redford the somber professional. In The Sting, it’s the other way around—but with a twist. Here Newman is the pro, but an aging, over-the-hill, drunken shadow of what he once was, in his halcyon days as a con man. Redford is the kid with a grudge, whose inexperience and passion draw him into some very dangerous situations. As the movie progresses, Newman recovers his professionalism, and takes a shine to the kid. And Redford develops enormous respect for the master. What begins as a partnership of convenience between thieves ends as a much different, and much warmer, relationship.
Sideways. Here is an unusual pair. Paul Giamatti as the intelligent, depressed, insecure wine enthusiast Miles, and Thomas Haden Church as the bumbling, dim-witted, but generous and big-hearted Jack, who keeps getting into trouble and demands that Miles get him out of it. And, because this is a buddy movie, Miles does, even when he wants to kill him.
Annie Hall. This is my dark horse, probably not anybody else’s idea of a buddy movie. But I like the friendship between Woody Allen (Alvy Singer) and Tony Roberts (Rob). Alvy’s zany neuroticism never seems to have any effect on Rob, whose lines in the script boil down to, in effect, “C’mon Max. Relax.” That’s addressed to Alvy. The two of them have entire conversations in which each addresses the other as Max, an oddity I’ve never been able to figure out. It’s a quirky relationship, but one thing is clear, despite their differences: They like being with each other.
You’ll find a lot of movies that I haven’t mentioned on other buddy-movie lists: Wedding Crashers, Midnight Cowboy, Some Like it Hot, Easy Rider, Dumb and Dumber, The Big Lebowski, and the Hope and Crosby road movies, to name a few. The movies I’ve picked seem to me to epitomize some real human feeling, some connection. Some buddies are a lot alike, and some are completely different. But they are all on a journey together, whether literal or figurative, their stories merge and overlap, and they enjoy being in one another’s company.
Hey, Jim—you wanna go to the movies?
-Paul Raeburn
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