Friends

Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Ross, Chandler, and Joey are six friends living in Manhattan, sharing the Central Perk coffee shop, and navigating their twenties and thirties together: jobs, breakups, weddings, children, and apartment changes. Created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, Friends was the most-watched sitcom of the nineties, exported to 150 countries, and responsible for teaching several generations American English. Ten seasons, 236 episodes, and a theme song that's impossible not to hum.

Friends remains effective decades later because it understands something simple: friend groups are also families. It's not the most ambitious or avant-garde sitcom, but few create such genuine bonds with their characters.