14 Buddy Movies You Should Watch Before Seeing 'Get Hard'

Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart go the two-hander route in their new comedy, ‘Get Hard.’ While they don’t start as buddies, they end the film that way. Before you see ‘Get Hard,’ here are some quality buddy flicks you should see. 

Ever since its release in 2009, this Paul Rudd-Jason Segel comedy has been the first film most people think of when they hear the word "bromance." It's the quintessential heterosexual male love story.

It was a gamble: put a comedic spin on the self-serious '80s TV cop show that made a star out of Johnny Depp, then cast the completely mismatched Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum as the leads? Obviously that gamble paid off.

Then-''Saturday Night Live" favorite Eddie Murphy proved to be box office gold in his first big-screen outing, opposite Nick Nolte. Though Murphy played a crook to Nolte's police officer, '48 Hrs.' established the modern buddy-cop movie.

Featuring a murder, a romance, and Richard Pryor trying to teach Gene Wilder how to “walk black,” the chemistry between these two in their first on-screen pairing scored big at the box office. And the comedy still holds up. 

The buddy-cop action-comedy genre was starting to flatline in the mid-'90s, and 'Bad Boys' gave it a much-needed shot of adrenaline. Michael Bay's first directorial effort helped turn Will Smith and Martin Lawrence into stars, spawning a sequel in process. 

The moment Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis put on dresses to hide from gangsters, they next level’d the buddy comedy. Toss in Marilyn Monroe, and you have a (cross-dressing) comedy classic.   

As Eddie Murphy had proven, the buddy flick is an ideal place for "SNL" alums to launch big-screen careers. That was the case for Chris Farley and David Spade, who played mismatched brake pad salesmen who hit the road to save a small-town company from Dan Aykroyd's big hair (and business). 

Before Murphy, Sandler, Farley and Spade, there were John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, the first 'SNL' stars to headline a buddy movie. 'The Blues Brothers' is remembered both for its stellar musical numbers and for its insane car chases.

You may have noticed that the protagonists in American male buddy comedies tend not to be intellectuals. Case in point: Lloyd and Harry (Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels), who have half a brain between them – and that's being generous.

Giving Lloyd and Harry a run for their money are Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves), two lovable oafs who travel through time and introduce historical figures to the wonders of San Dimas, California.

John Cho and Kal Penn upend stereotypes and remind us that white guys don't have a monopoly on wacky – or shall we say "dopey" – comedies. Though to be fair, Cheech and Chong proved this point years earlier.

We'd be remiss if we didn't mention this somewhat comedy cult classic. It stars Robert De Niro as a grumpy bounty hunter and Charles Grodin as his neurotic quarry -- an embezzling accountant on the run from the mob, the FBI and everyone else.

It may not have been Hollywood's first bromance, but it's the granddaddy of the genre. Stars Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon became so synonymous with the male buddy comedy that they even made a movie called 'Buddy Buddy.'

Writer/director Shane Black, who scripted the trendsetting 'Lethal Weapon,' returns to show us how it's done. The film helped put Robert Downey Jr. back on track to the A-list; alas, the same can't be said for his costar, Val Kilmer.