Fiction that celebrates friendship?

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If indeed it is true that many of us long for a romantic relationship but don't care much (if at all) about friendship (as some people are now saying in L&D), why would that be?

I suspect that one reason might be that pop culture endlessly celebrates and glorifies romantic love, but doesn't have much to say about friendship, which is more-or-less taken for granted.

To those readers who are more familiar with pop culture than I am: Is the above observation about pop culture correct?

To those of us who have managed to find real and deep friendships as well as romantic relationships, a single-minded pursuit of romantic love seems obviously unhealthy and unlikely to succeed. But what can we do to encourage other people to value friendship?

One way might be to encourage people to read the relatively few novels and watch the few (if any) movies that contain emotionally moving depictions of friendship as an end in itself (not just as a means to other ends).

Alas I'm not much of a fiction fan, nor am I much of a movie-watcher, so I'm not a good person to put together a list of such novels and movies. I would appreciate it very much if other people, who read more novels and/or watch more movies than I do, could respond to this message by recommending relevant novels, short stories, or movies.

The Hobbit
Winnie The Pooh

To funeralxempire: Thanks.

To other readers: I would appreciate it very much if everyone could confine this thread to actual recommendations of literature and movies. If you wish to debate the premise of this thread, please do so in a separate thread.

Well I have a long term relationship with my boyfriend, but Like I don't have any other friends, no one to confide in about issues me and my boyfriend might have. So I mean I have a boyfriend that is good I suppose, but it is still lonely not having any friends of my own.

I mean any friends I have made I have also lost. so IDK do I really want to make more friends to have them leave? I mean last two friends I've had....one died on the trains(he was a homeless train hopper guy and well he took a trip he did not end up finishing)then my other friend who went to jail. I am sure I will see him again just don't know what sort of connection we will still have if any....I know prison can change people but I still miss him, he was a good friend.

It's a while since I read these, so I'm relying on my memory...

"Of Mice and Men" - Steinbeck... not sure if that ended too well.

"Brideshead Revisited" - Waugh... not sure if that ended too well either.

Good question, though, actually celebrating friendship... I'll keep thinking.

We've obviously been following very different fictional stories!
As for examples:

7 Seeds (excellent comic and a very bad cartoon)
Sure, has a fair deal of romance, but also lot about deep platonic bonds.

Shingeki no Kyojin (comic and cartoon)
Has barely any romance (and when it does, the other party usually dies), but has some of the deepest platonic bonds I've seen in fiction. Really heart breaking though, so sensitive people might not want to try it.

The Promised Neverland (comic and cartoon)
Though to be fair, this one's a little unclear if all the bonds should be considered friendship or family bonds. Almost no one's related to one another, yet they tend to refer to each other as family.

Suicide Island (comic)
Again, don't read if you're sensitive. As heart warming as it sometimes is, it's often as dark as the title says. This one has some romance too, but puts enough weight on friendships as well if you ask me.

Twelve Monkeys (tv series)
Scifi where friendships, family bonds and one destructive romance travel through time.

When I whistle (book)
Also puts some weigh on romance, family bonds and especially morals, but at the center of it all is the friendship between two men.

Note that while I did list comics, the ones on the list are most certainly not for kids. The first two should be okay for teenagers too, but I wouldn't say so about the last one. Not sure about the third. Despite them mostly being seen as being for kids, there are all kinds of comics.

the movie 4th Man Out on Netflix is one of my all-time favorites. It has romance themes but it ultimately about a group of friends and how important that kind os support is. (but don't yell at me if you hate it)

Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
Adolescent boy - girl friendship, mortality

Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
Young women, some same-sex sexuality

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Friendship, siblings, anti-racism theme, discrimination theme

A Separate Peace, John Knowles
Young men's friendship, prejudice, insecurity, prep school during WW2

Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom
A man and his professor build a lifelong friendship, philosophical

The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, Ann Brashares
(Weird title, but great book series about friendships)

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
Friendship across ages, mortality, WW2 theme

Four Dreamers and Emily, Stevie Davies
Online friends meet for an academic conference, cyber romance-friendships

The Peace Tree, Mitra Sen (film)
Christian - Muslim friendship and acceptance (multigenerational)

I will send more. What a great topic!

The Anne of Green Gables series. She makes all sorts of friendships.

The Longest Journey by E.M. Forster... possibly.

War and Peace by Tolstoy... yes there's romance in it, but a lot of friendships too.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, people make friends at a book club.

The chronicles of Thomas covenant by Stephen Donaldson. Lots and lots of walking around an enchanted land and making friends with all sorts of wonderful creatures.

For movies : Fried Green Tomatoes
Divine Secrets Of The YaYa Sisterhood
Steel Magnolias
Stand By Me
Sling Blade ( I happen to believe that life is not pretty sometimes. I like unlikely alliances )
The Thin Red Line ( based on the book )

For Books : Howards End
Morgan's Run
And The Mountains Echoed
The Kite Runner
Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close
Henna House
The Joy Luck Club
Mother Of Pearl
Song Of Solomon ( Toni Morrison )
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
The Lord Of The Flies
The Thin Red Line

I can't believe I'm saying this and it shows my age, but the "Golden Girls". A show I've never watched, though my late dad used to sometimes.

Fiction that celebrates friendships

Anne of Green Gables
Lord of the Rings

Media in sitcoms
Full House - DJ and Kimmy, which I envy because of the close female friends I have had, both of them turned out to be frenemies who only stuck with me until they got what they wanted. Otherwise, I don't connect with other females very well.
Friends- The entire cast
The Big Bang Theory - Sheldon and Leonard for example

The "Miss Read" series' -- the Fairacre novels and the Thrush Green novels.

They were stories about ordinary people leading ordinary lives in the British countryside during the 1930s. No grand romances, no scandalous behavior, no mysterious murders to solve. Just good, ordinary slice-of-life stories.

I've always thought the complete opposite Friendships tend to stand out in books more to me. For example, even Pride and Prejudice, while mainly about love and marriage still dedicates a lot of time to the sisters and their varying friendships.

I recently read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See which is a historical novel about the laotong 'old-sames' friendship between two girls in China- I found it to be very interesting.

1. Forrest Gump
2. The Secret Garden
3. A Little Princess
4.The Outsiders
5.Harry Potter

Novels featuring male friendship:

The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, John Boyne

Orbiting Jupiter, Gary Schmidt

When I Was the Greatest, Jason Reynolds

Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

Pedro & Me, Judd Winick

The Wars, Timothy Findley

Dead Poets' Society (Film)