General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Best Friends

Best Friends is a 1982 American romantic comedy directed by Norman Jewison, written by Valerie Curtin and Barry Levinson, and starring Burt Reynolds and Goldie Hawn as a longtime Hollywood screenwriting team whose relationship is strained after they marry. Jessica Tandy, Barnard Hughes, Audra Lindley, Keenan Wynn, and Ron Silver appear in supporting roles. Warner Bros. released the film on 17 December 1982.¹

Key fact	Detail
Release	17 December 1982 (United States), Warner Bros.; Los Angeles opening 17 Dec, New York the week of 17 Dec¹
Runtime and rating	116 minutes, MPAA rating PG¹
Leads	Burt Reynolds as Richard Babson, Goldie Hawn as Paula McCullen¹
Salaries	Reynolds and Hawn each received $3 million, per the 30 July 1981 Hollywood Reporter¹
Budget	Completed under budget at $15,211,000 against a projected $16,250,000²
Domestic box office	$36,670,556; opening weekend $4,022,891 in 1,062 theaters³
Awards	Oscar nomination for Best Original Song; Golden Globe nomination for Hawn as Best Actress, Musical/Comedy⁴
Critical scores	Metascore 70 from 11 reviews; 62% on Rotten Tomatoes from 13 reviews⁵

Spoilers

Plot

Richard Babson (Burt Reynolds) and Paula McCullen (Goldie Hawn) are professional and romantic partners who have lived and written together in Los Angeles for years. After finishing a script, Richard proposes marriage, arguing that everything in life makes a statement and he does not want to make the statement, "Then they bought their dream house and dated happily ever after." Paula is reluctant, fearing marriage will change what already works.⁶

They marry secretly in a Spanish-speaking instant-marriage chapel, telling no one but their parents, then travel east by train to meet each other's families. In Buffalo, Paula's parents (Jessica Tandy and Barnard Hughes) prove difficult; in Virginia, Richard's parents (Audra Lindley and Keenan Wynn) fare no better, with his mother photographing everything and objecting that the couple married without letting the family attend. The in-law visits expose faults in the new marriage itself, and back in Los Angeles the couple argues for fourteen hours before Paula breaks down, upset that ending the marriage would mean losing Richard as her best friend.¹^•⁶

Origins and writing

The screenplay draws directly on its writers' own relationship. Screenwriters Barry Levinson and Valerie Curtin were themselves a couple who had lived together, married, and visited their in-laws, and reviewers at the time treated the film as a semi-autobiographical account of the perils of newlywed life.⁷^•⁸ Levinson and Curtin had previously written ...And Justice for All (1979) for Jewison, and the director was persuaded to make the film after Goldie Hawn read the script and responded enthusiastically; he told her that if she would do it, he would do it.⁹ Levinson and Curtin divorced in 1982, the year the film was released.¹⁰

Curtin also appears on screen, uncredited, as Paula's friend, the woman Goldie Hawn's character gets drunk with in a baby crib while discussing her doubts about marriage; neither her name nor her character appears in the cast list.¹^•¹¹

Production

Daily Variety announced on 30 March 1979 that Jewison would direct the film for Warner Bros. Principal photography was scheduled for January 1982 in an August 1981 studio press release, then set at 15 February 1982, with locations in Buffalo, New York; Virginia; Maryland; Washington, D.C.; and Burbank, California. Buffalo locations included the Central Railroad Terminal and a house on Summit Avenue, chosen from hundreds of homes after the location manager advertised in the local newspaper. Virginia scenes were shot in Tyson's Corner and Georgetown.¹^•²

A February 1982 labor dispute drew trade attention: the film's five-man Los Angeles-based camera crew was reported to have violated rules of New York Photographers Local 644 under the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. Producers were expected to replace the cameramen with Local 644 operators, but filming continued with no alterations.¹

Jordan Cronenweth was the cinematographer, Don Zimmerman the editor, and Michel Legrand the composer, with songs by Legrand and lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman; Johnny Mandel also contributed. The wedding-party scene features jazz musicians performing George and Ira Gershwin's "Embraceable You," which is not included in the credits.¹

Reception and box office

The film opened wide on 17 December 1982 in 1,062 theaters, grossing $4,022,891 on its opening weekend and ranking fourth. It ran 14 weeks, peaking with $4,834,338 in its third weekend, and finished with a domestic total of $36,670,556, all of it domestic; Box Office Mojo lists a slightly higher total of $36,821,203.³^•¹² Adjusted for inflation, The Numbers puts the domestic gross at $136,720,019.³

Critics were divided but mostly favorable. The film holds a Metascore of 70, with 8 of 11 collected reviews positive and none negative.⁵ Roger Ebert, the Chicago Sun-Times critic who won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1975, gave it 3.5 of 4 stars, writing that the dialogue "doesn't sound like reprocessed sitcom" and praising the in-law sequences as the heart of the movie.⁶ The Washington Post's Gary Arnold called it "exceptionally authentic and endearing" and credited the writers' comic realism.⁷ Detractors included Pauline Kael of The New Yorker, who called it "a Velveeta comedy" that stays on the surface yet is dissatisfied with it, and TV Guide, which found the story thin.¹³ The Globe and Mail's Jay Scott observed that Jessica Tandy is so good that the picture never quite recovers when she leaves at the end of the first hour.⁵ AFI notes that despite critics' affection for the Reynolds-Hawn pairing, the film opened to mildly negative reviews.²

Music and awards

"How Do You Keep the Music Playing?", with music by Michel Legrand and lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman, performed by Patti Austin and James Ingram, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Hawn received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy.⁴^•¹⁴

Later availability

ABC edited 13 minutes from the film for its 1986 network television premiere.¹⁴ The film remains available on home digital platforms; as of late 2026 it streams free with ads on The Roku Channel, YouTube, Plex, and Tubi, and can be rented or bought on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home.¹⁵

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1980s › Comedy-dramas of the 1980s

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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