Some witty person relatively recently came up with the phrase 'Bromance', but strong and abiding male friendships have long been played out on the big screen.

The film genre has become a recipe for major box office successes, with Academy award-winner Joachim Back recently directing not one but two films about the trials, tribulations and idiosyncrasies of modern male friendships.

Created for Chivas Regal, Here’s to Big Bear and Here’s to Twinkle follow four successful guys as they look back at the misadventures that helped to cement their everlasting friendship.
 
Inspired by these films, Jason Solomons, film critic for the Observer newspaper and Chairman of the London Film Critics' Circle, has paid homage to the brilliance of the genre by compiling his list of Top 10 brotherhood of men's moments in film...

What's your favourite buddy movie - is it in the top ten below?

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  • 10. Midnight Cowboy (1969)

    Still the only X-rated film to win the Best Picture Oscar, this tale of New York street hustlers Ratso Rizzo and Joe Buck becomes a study of mutual reliance and care. This is a dramatic friendship but one that touches on the most endearing and caring moments of male friendship. Rizzo and Buck's eventual break for freedom, following Rizzo's dream on a bus bound for Miami, is one of the most heartbreaking yet hopeful in all cinema.

  • 9. Les Valseuses (1974)

    In this raucous road movie, Jean-Claude and Pierrot are two drifting thugs who go on the run through France's bourgeois society. Sharing everything from women to adventure this is an intense friendship played out in a thrilling on-the-road adventure comedy. The brotherhood is cemented when the tear away mates are joined by a female hairdresser who shares their mutual sense of adventure, on the road and in bed. How very French.

  • 8. Blades of Glory (2007)

    In this hilarious comedy, warring ice skaters Jimmy and Chazz are banned from competing individually after a fight on the podium. Bending the rules, they set aside their differences to form the first same-sex pairs team. To fend off competition they agree to attempt the lethal 'Iron Lotus", a rarely-performed move that could win them the World Championships and defeat evil brother and sister act, the van Waldenbergs.

  • 7. Point Break (1991)

    Few male relationships on screen have undergone the anthropological scrutiny of undercover agent Johnny Utah and surf dude turned bank robber Bodhi as they strut and rut for supremacy. Their growing friendship is expressed through a series of thrillingly shot extreme sports stunts - the daredevil sky dive is my favourite - and leaves us admiring their mutual machismo.

  • 6. The Odd Couple (1968)

    After his wife kicks him out, fussy Felix Ungar moves in with his poker game pal, a slobbish sports writer and recent divorcee, Oscar Madison. Felix drives Oscar mad with his cleaning habits, signing little reminder notes with his initials, F. U. These two drive each other crazy but they are ultimately there for one another and these little digs are distinctly manly ways of saying how much they actually care.

  • 5. The Full Monty (1997)

    A group of six laid-off steel workers in recession-hit Sheffield reclaim self-respect and masculinity in the climactic strip-club scene of this huge British hit. But it's the impromptu dance in the dole queue to Donna Summer's Hot Stuff that perhaps best sums up their growing faith in male friendship to renew their spirits.

  • 4. I Love You, Man (2009)

    Taking the brotherhood theme to its logical comic conclusion, this aptly named film actually features a montage of the friendless protagonist Peter going on a series of "man dates" to find a new buddy who can be best man at his impending wedding. He eventually meets laid back dude Sydney, who fits the bill, leaving him tongue-tied with excitement on finding that special someone, like a nervous teenager eager to get it right on a first date.

  • 3. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

    From Papillon to Stir Crazy, prison movies have shown how men rely on each other to get through difficult times. But no bond is surely greater than the respect between Andy and Red who develop their friendship doing life at Shawshank jail. Will they ever get to share friendship outside the prison walls? I'm not going to spoil it for you.

  • 2. Big Night (1996)

    Two Italian brothers mend their feud over running the family restaurant, Paradise. When singer Louis Prima fails to show up for the restaurant's big night, leaving the brothers on the brink of ruin, Secondo cooks an omelette for his older sibling Primo in a brilliant final sequence that needs no words. This really sums up moments of male friendship - no words, just little gestures to signify the putting aside of differences and mutual respect.

  • 1. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

    Frozen in a frame that turns sepia, two outlaws charge from their shelter together, having gravely under-estimated the numbers of the Bolivian army surrounding them. It mirrors a rather more elated moment earlier in the movie, when, cornered by a posse, the pair jump off a cliff into a river together, even as Sundance protests "I can't swim". These moments of blind trust, no matter what, are an important element of brotherhood.