As one of the most watched TV shows of all time (and one destined to be repeated over and over again until the end of time), it's hard to distinguish the actual characters of Friends - Joey, Chandler, Monica, Rachael, Phoebe and Ross - from the actual working actors portraying them.
With the exception of Jennifer Aniston, the jump from TV to film is a big leap that most of the main cast did not convincingly achieve, but it's still fascinating to see the career choices made before or after their big breaks involved on one of the biggest series to grace our blocky backed televisions in the 90s.
Below, we rank our favorite outings from some of our best Friends.
9 Matt LeBlanc - Charlie's Angels Movies
Following Friends, LeBlanc was gifted the spin-off series Joey that no one enjoyed, but the actor would later find success again on TV with Episodes that ran for five seasons, and had a stint on Top Gear as one of its hosts. On the big screen, Matt LeBlanc mugged it up as the on-again-off-again boyfriend of Alex (Lucy Liu), a working actor currently in a movie series wonderfully titled "Maximum Extreme."
Playing a handsome and entirely clueless actor is LeBlanc's go-to and his handful of scenes in the Charlie's Angels movies are all great. The meta film inside a film in Charlie's Angels stand out, especially for LeBlanc's character as he shakes his fist and damns a villain named Salizar. LeBlanc also starred in the '98 Lost In Space, which to many remains infamous as one of the worst films ever made. Alternatively, LeBlanc also made a movie about a baseball-playing chimp, so there's that as well.
8 Maggie Wheeler - New Year's Day
As a man moves into his New York City apartment, he is frustrated to find that the previous residents got their dates wrong and so will be staying one more day. In the first proper role for Maggie Wheeler (credited as Maggie Jakobson then), this is a very low budget bottle film set entirely in the walls of the apartment as the camera and the man act as the audience's eyes, asking questions and critiquing the party guests that arrive later that day.
Related: Best Supporting Characters in Friends, Ranked
All the men in this film are loathsome, but Wheeler is very good and it's so strange to not see her as the shrill, irritating Janice. Wheeler would continue to work with her New Year's Day co-star David Duchovny again and again throughout her career (X-Files, Californication).
7 Paul Rudd - Knocked Up
While Paul Rudd is only supporting cast here, it is possibly the best movie that he has been involved with. As a real life meditation on unplanned pregnancy by way of a smutty Rom-Com, Rudd plays the male half of a couple that soon-to-be parents Ben (Seth Rogen) and Alison (Katherine Heigl) will try their best not to turn into. Rudd and his on-screen wife, played by Leslie Mann, would later get their own spin off to Knocked Up in This is 40.
Rudd (who played Mike Hannigan in Friends) has surpassed all the main cast of that show as a movie actor with his work on a variety of different projects, with the boost from his time working with mega-producer Judd Apatow, and more recently in the Marvel Universe as the hero Ant-Man. He would team up again with former Friends co-star Jennifer Aniston for the film Wanderlust in 2012.
6 Matthew Perry - The Ron Clark Story
Based on a real teacher, Matthew Perry plays Ron Clark, an educator who finds a job at a school in Harlem. Always prepared to try and believe in children, he tasks himself with one of the worst class in the school. Rowdy, insubordinate and unprepared to learn, Clark is pushed to his limits, but a set of personalized rules and his push to care for these children keep him there.
Yes, this is yet another movie about a white teacher who struggles with a class of poor, racially diverse students before they ultimately inspire each other, but it has been beloved as a fantastic movie with incredible performances. That is, aside from one just awful scene where "Chandler from Friends" puts a cap on backwards and raps.
5 Jon Favreau - Swingers
Filmed around the same time as enough of his appearances on Friends as Monica's boyfriend Pete, Jon Favreau also appeared as a struggling actor in his own 1996 film Swingers. Shmoozing about Vegas, gambling on the tables and at bars in an attempt to meet women, Mike (Favreau) just can't shake thoughts of his ex-girlfriend, despite how hard his friends try to 'help' (including a young, thin-as-a-rail Vince Vaughn). One could look at Swingers and argue that very little happens, but that's the wonderful anxiety of this movie and its fly-on-the-wall look at the realities of the acting industry. and Swingers remains a great example of a simple idea done with some mates with a tiny budget.
As an extremely talented filmmaker, Favreau would direct the Will Ferrell Christmas classic Elf, and like Rudd would find a new lease for life with his work in front of and behind the camera in Iron Man and the Marvel films. Favrau is also known for his work helming Star Wars' The Mandalorian series.
4 Lisa Kudrow - Romy And Michele's High School Reunion
Two high school losers (now roommates) crash their ten-year reunion and lie about their lives to impress the people they went to school with. A totally female adventure, the chemistry between Romy (Mira Sorvino) and Michele (Lisa Kudrow) is like the sweetest of candy. From the opening scene and its No Doubt intro the film is so singular in its want to show you how little these two women have achieved in ten years, but that their friendship is unbreakable. Perhaps the only example where a main cast member on this list is so completely enveloped by the movie they're in, there isn't a moment where Michele makes you think it's just "Phoebe from Friends," although Kudrow has done this exceedingly well on television, playing very different people miles away from Phoebe in her brilliant series The Comeback and Web Therapy.
Related: Friends: Where the Cast is Today
An ideal example of dumb-but-actually-smart comedy, this is a movie that puts its sense of humor first and succeeds in its bigger moments, like when going all out for a bit in the 13-minute-long dream sequence spread over 70 years, and when committing to one of the weirdest of impromptu dance sequences. It's really just magnificent and makes a nice female antidote to all the male-centric comedy out there. A long overdue sequel is mooted.
3 Jennifer Aniston - The Iron Giant
As certainly the most prolific of the main cast on this list, a lot of Jennifer Aniston's work has felt like she is simply on autopilot. Coasting far too easily through the rom-com fare, she really excels when she's playing against expectations, as in The Good Girl, Cake, and Horrible Bosses. With such a healthy career post-Friends, there are more than enough gems to choose from with Aniston, such as Office Space or Bruce Almighty.
However, The Iron Giant might be one of the best titles in her career from a cinematic standpoint, and she's excellent in it. As a single parent working at a diner, unaware that her son is actually housing a gigantic and possibly deadly robot, Aniston's voice totally fits as the forever supportive yet cautious mom here. The Iron Giant is a modern day classic which has not yet been sullied by poor remakes or sequels (as hard as Warner Brothers may try).
2 David Schwimmer - Big Nothing
Pre-fame Simon Pegg stars alongside David Schwimmer in this darkest of dark comedies. A story of blackmail on a reverend goes from bad to worse scene after scene through what feels like an endless amount of mishaps and miscommunications between its bumbling would-be criminals. Big Nothing is a cult classic like no other.
Not enough people know about this absolute gem of a pitch black comedy, and bravo to Schwimmer for doing something so far away from what he was known for. He's tried a lot of different things, from directing Pegg in the film Run Fatboy Run to starring as a broken alcoholic in the great Duane Hopwood, which Roger Ebert called "a career-transforming performance." While that transformation didn't really happen in the public eye, Schwimmer has had a steady career as an actor and director since Friends, most memorably for directing the great Clive Owen and Catherine Keener film Trust and voicing Melman in the Madagascar animated movie series.
1 Courtney Cox - Scream & the Scream Series
Scream, the 1996 meta classic which entirely revolutionized the horror genre while poking holes in it, has been great for Courtney Cox. Like co-stars Schwimmer and Kudrow, her Gale Weathers — a pushy shock jock reporter in the first film — is so far away from her Monica. It was exhilarating to watch the TV star swap the sitcom trappings of New York for the brutal murders in a small town, and seemed like a defining Gen X moment. Cox absolutely just fits in this series, and it's no wonder she's continued to be a part of the films up to now.
With the recent news that OG co-star Neve Campbell will not be returning for the latest installment, it'll be interesting to see if Scream 6 will have Gale step up as main character — or be killed off like her colleagues. As a stalwart of the series, it's been fun to see Cox's character evolve as the films have progressed. Now a necessary pillar of the franchise, her relationship with on and off-screen husband, sheriff Dewey Cox/actor David Arquette, was the best part about the most recent Scream film and genuinely moving having seen the characters been through so much.
