After Having A Blast With One Of Them Days, I Need To Talk About 5 Other Female Buddy Comedies That Deserve More Love
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What 2025 movies will we be talking about this year? As we're just a few weeks into January, it's too early to tell, but I was so pleased with my first trip to the movie theater in the new year. I went to see One Of Them Days, and had so much fun with the Keke Palmer and SZA pairing. As my One Of Them Days review notes, it's a blast of a buddy comedy about two women who have to wander around their neighborhood in Los Angeles to make their rent money in a matter of a handful of hours. Along with other critics loving it too, I'm so happy it won the box office during its opening weekend, because I've seen too many movies in the subgenre go unnoticed in recent years.
Keke Palmer and SZA (along with executive producer Issa Rae and writer Syreeta Singleton) absolutely deserve this moment of being one of the few female-driven comedies to break into the mainstream and make bank during its theatrical release. It's genuinely such a fun time, and I know I missed laughing out loud in a theater with strangers. In honor of its release, I want to highlight five other female buddy comedies that have come out in recent years that I don't think had the same buzz.
One movie that made it high on our list of best comedies of 2023 is Adele Lim's Joy Ride. When it came out the summer of 2023, I found it to be such a hilarious movie with an ensemble cast. Starring Broadway's Ashley Park, Everything Everywhere All At Once's Stephanie Hsu and newcomers Sherry Cola and Sabrina Wu, the movie follows Park's Audrey and her best friend Lolo as they travel to China to meet her birth family (she's adopted) for the first time and close a business deal all at once. However, during the trip things go very awry, and so raunchy that a K-pop version of 'WAP' is involved.
While it's very R-rated, it also includes a refreshing take on female friendship. CinemaBlend even gave the movie 4 out of 5 stars in our Joy Ride review. However, it totally bombed at the box office, making $15 million worldwide. It's time to give it some love!
Stream Joy Ride on STARZ. Rent/Buy Joy Ride on Amazon.
If you're a fan of SNL, chances are you're also a fan of Kristen Wiig, and her comedic shenanigans. The comic co-wrote and starred in a movie called Barb & Star Go To Vista Del Mar that is right up her alley of hilarity. It has Wiig and her co-writer/star Annie Mumolo playing middle-aged best friends who leave their home in Nebraska for a vacation in Vista Del Mar, Florida. Wiig pulls double duty as a ridiculous but very funny villain named Sharon Fisherman, who has a vendetta against Vista Del Mar, who sends her agent Edgar (played by Fifty Shades of Grey's Jamie Dornan) to assist her in her master plan.
Barb and Star then get caught up in Sharon and Edgar's plot amidst their holiday, and it's just tons of goofy fun. The reason why a lot of people likely missed out on it is because it's one of those movies that came out at the wrong time. The comedy was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then released on premium VOD in early 2021.
Stream Barb & Star Go To Vista Del Mar on Hulu. Stream Barb & Star for free on Tubi. Rent/Buy Barb & Star on Amazon.
Another solid female buddy comedy that has come out in the last few years that I loved was Max's Unpregnant. The movie is specifically a road trip comedy starring The White Lotus' Haley Lu Richardson as Veronica and Euphoria's Barbie Ferreira as Bailey. The movie is about a teen whose life-plans get sidetracked when she gets pregnant and can't get an abortion in her state of Missouri. So, Veronica and her former best friend Bailey drive to the closest clinic, all the way in New Mexico to get the procedure done.
Even though this movie came out five years ago at this point, I still think about it every so often for the on point chemistry and fun between its leads and the important social commentary it has on abortion access in the U.S. Its writer/director Rachel Lee Goldenberg had her own experience with abortion and the topic is handled with honesty and care. The movie came out exclusively for Max in 2020, so I think it just wasn't on a lot of people's radars.
Stream Unpregnant on Max.
In a similar vein to Unpregnant, I'd also recommend checking out Hulu's Plan B. This is also a coming-of-age comedy about two women navigating the troubling waters of contraception access in the U.S. In this movie, helmed by actress Natalie Morales, two teenaged friends, a sheltered Indian teen unexpectedly loses her virginity at a party her more outgoing friend Lupe has pressured her to throw while her parents are out of town. When she realizes the condom they used might not have been effective, they rush to find a Plan B pill. However, the closest they will be able to track down is in another city in South Dakota.
The leads in this, Kuhoo Verma and Victoria Moroles, are not well-known actresses, but they absolutely crush in this very funny buddy comedy. As a streaming release, we truly have no idea if this has been watched a lot or not, but considering I don't often hear it mentioned, it deserves a place on this list as well.
Stream Plan B on Hulu.
Last but not least, is a comedy that came out last year, but also seemed to slip through the cracks. As a huge fan of Broad City, I was so excited to see Ilana Glazer in Babes and it does not disappoint. While the last two buddy comedies on this list were about two women trying not to be pregnant, this one is about a single woman who decides to have her baby after having a whirlwind one night stand.
I appreciated Babes, not only for its blast of a pairing with Glazer and Michelle Buteau, but because of the honest conversations underneath about what happens during pregnancy (from a hilarious woman's perspective – Glazer wrote it after getting pregnant herself) along with it really honing in on the complicated friendship between its two leads. But, Babes also sadly bombed at the box office, with a haul of just $3.9 million.
Stream Babes on Hulu.Rent/Buy Babes on Amazon.
I'm so happy to see a lot more female-driven buddy comedies in recent years – including the likes of more mainstream buddy comedies like Booksmart, Do Revenge and Bottoms, which are also amazing! In honor of One Of Them Days showing these comedies have a theatrical audience, I can't wait for Hollywood to make more of these movies. If you want to see more of these types of stories like I do, go out of your way to watch them in theaters or right when they hit streaming.
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