The Best Kisses On Friends

Over the course of 10 seasons on "Friends," Ross Geller (David Schwimmer), Rachel Greene (Jennifer Aniston), Monica Geller (Courteney Cox), Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc), Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow), and Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry) got romantic a time or two as we watched them navigate their love lives in New York City. When they weren't intertwining with one another, they were canoodling with significant others from short-lived romances — some of which only lasted an episode.

Despite the wit, sarcasm, and tomfoolery we witnessed for 10 years, the six friends had a whole lot of passion, and all had major moments of vulnerability in love. Sometimes that passion led to some pretty steamy moment, resulting in some of the most memorable kisses in sitcom history. However, some famous "Friends" smooches were just the opposite and were either jokes or completely playful. No matter the reason behind them, these memorable "Friends" kisses were definitely the best the show had to offer.

Joey and Chandler had their fair share of hugs over the course of 10 seasons, but there was one very special occasion when they actually locked lips. It's easily the shortest kiss on our list, and it comes without passion, but it definitely deserves recognition as one of the best "Friends" kisses ever. In Season 1, Episode 10 ("The One with the Monkey"), the gang is feeling down about having no one to kiss on New Year's Eve. Chandler proposes an idea that they all kiss each other, but it doesn't work out as Phoebe is too upset about David (Hank Azaria) leaving and Rachel has a busted lip after a woman beat her up at the airport.

Being the man-child that he is, Chandler jumps up and down and begs for someone to kiss him over and over again. Joey gives in, grabs his roommate, and plants one on him for a very quick but very incredible kiss. Chandler is shocked, to say the least. And thankfully, the moment is captured by Ross, who snaps a photo of the brief smooch.

We learn early in Season 1 that Ross has the hots for Rachel, and his crush for her started back in ninth grade. He never had a chance with Rachel in high school, as Ross was just a geeky band member with no game. He was devastated to see her enter a relationship with their sexy Italian neighbor, Paolo (Cosimo Fusco), and was also upset to learn that he'd been friend-zoned. After going to China at the end of Season 1, Ross came back with a new girlfriend, Julie (Lauren Tom), and seemed to have moved on from his decade-long love.

But in Season 2, Episode 7 ("The One Where Ross Finds Out"), Rachel leaves her friend a drunk voicemail where she explains that she is "over" him. Ross is upset over the news of Rachel's feelings and fights with her at the coffee house when she's closing down one night. "I was doing great before I found out about you," he tells her. Rachel fires back, saying she was also doing well before learning Ross had feelings for her but admits it's hard to see him with Julie. "This ship has sailed," Ross says, and he promptly storms out of Central Perk.

Within seconds, he comes back. Rachel opens the double doors, and the two embrace in one of the most memorable "Friends" moments of all time. Perfectly paired with elevating background music, Ross and Rachel share their very first kiss, one that pulses with passion.

After Ross and Rachel have their first kiss in early Season 2, things don't go the way they hoped. In fact, the pair don't get together thanks to a pros and cons list Ross makes about Rachel and his current girlfriend, Julie. But later that season, in Episode 14 ("The One with the Prom Video"), Rachel forgets the whole list after watching a video of her and Monica getting ready for prom. Unbeknownst to Rachel, Ross got dressed up and ready to take her to prom when it looked like her date, Chip (Dan Gauthier), wasn't coming. Already in love with Rachel, Ross was devastated when Chip eventually showed up, which broke his heart.

Watching this play out on video, Rachel knows Ross is the guy for her, and she gets off the couch, grabs his face, and kisses him. Ross gladly accepts, and the two officially become a couple for the first time. It's this moment when Phoebe utters the famous line, "See, he's her lobster."

Janice (Maggie Wheeler) and Chandler were on-again, off-again from the get-go, and we watched their romantic relationship play out for five seasons. During a period where they were off in Season 2, Chandler meets a mystery woman in an online chatroom, and the two really hit it off. He learns that this woman is married, but she's in a bad spot as she has just found out her husband is cheating on her.

Eventually, in "The One with Barry and Mindy's Wedding," Chandler and the mystery lady decide to meet up in real life, with Central Perk serving as the perfect location. Ross, Rachel, Phoebe, and Joey are all there as Chandler awaits the arrival of his chat room buddy, and the world stops when a woman the audience can't see walks in the door. We can only watch Chandler's reaction, which is total shock and disbelief, as he says, "Oh my god." The camera then pans to Janice, who viewers haven't seen in 21 episodes. 

Janice then quips her famous, "Oh. My. God," and Chandler rushes to her, scooping her up in their most passionate kiss ever. It's easily the most loving moment between the two and a time where Chandler doesn't hide his feelings for her with sarcastic comments.

In Season 3, Episode 18 ("The One with The Hypnosis Tape"), we meet Pete Becker (Jon Favreau) for the first time. Pete is head over heels for Monica and fawns over her as a customer at the Moondance Diner, where she serves as a bosomy waitress. Monica eventually agrees to go out with him, and for the span of several dates, she can't quite get into the relationship since she's not attracted to him. And when Pete ends up buying a restaurant and asks Monica to be his head chef, she declines because she knows it's an effort to bring them closer together.

While in the kitchen of Pete's new restaurant, she says goodbye to him, and the two share their first kiss, which is just a peck. But after feeling something, Monica goes back in for a second kiss and is overcome with a rush of feelings and sees Pete in a whole new light. They then share a third kiss full of passion, and it sparks the beginning of one of Monica's best and healthiest relationships over the course of 10 seasons.

In Season 3, Episode 6 ("The One with the Flashback"), we're taken back in time to witness some pretty shocking scenarios between the friends. We see that Phoebe and Ross had kissed just after he learned his marriage was over. We also witness Joey try to seduce Monica by dropping his pants in her apartment, and we watch Rachel debate leaving Barry (Mitchell Whitfield) early on in their engagement.

At the end of the episode, Rachel is driving home with her girlfriends, and she drifts off into a daydream where she imagines hooking up with Chandler, who at that point was just some guy she saw at a bar earlier in the night. Despite it being a fantasy, Rachel and Chandler have a pretty memorable kiss where they go all in on each other at the coffee house. The scene also features an iconic "Friends" moment where Rachel pounds the jukebox with her fist, and it immediately starts playing "Time of the Season" by the Zombies.

We had to loop a whole bunch of smooches together for this next selection, as the episode that contains all of them is literally called "The One with All the Kissing." In Season 5, Monica and Chandler hide their relationship from their friends after hooking up at Ross' wedding in the Season 4 finale. But when Chandler and all the women are hanging out, he gets up to head off to work one morning and kisses Monica goodbye, forgetting that no one knows about them.

To play it off, he then kisses Rachel and Phoebe goodbye, leaving the women stunned. Later in the episode, Chandler finds himself in a similar scenario after Joey, Phoebe, and Rachel walk in on Monica and him making out. Chandler realizes his only way of getting out of this again is to continue the smooch fest, where he kisses Phoebe and Rachel one more time. After Joey asks what's going on, Monica suggests to her pals that Chandler picked up some weird European tradition while they were in London.

One of the most iconic episodes of "Friends" comes in Season 5, when the whole group finally finds out that Chandler and Monica are a thing. In Episode 14 ("The One Where Everyone Finds Out"), Phoebe learns about her friends hooking up, only to realize that Rachel and Joey already knew. At this point, Ross is the only one who doesn't know that his sister and best friend are together, and they avoid letting him find out at all costs.

However, Phoebe decides to mess with the new couple and concocts a plan to flirt with Chandler. Monica figures out pretty quickly that Phoebe is playing with them, so she and Chandler decide to fight back. It gets to the point where Chandler and Phoebe both pretend to want one another, resulting in a super awkward date at the former's apartment. They both try to see who can push the other the furthest before one of them caves and admit it's all a lie, but both manage to kiss one another before Chandler backs out and calls it off.

The smooch between Phoebe and Chandler is hardly a romantic one, but it's a great "Friends" moment and gets quite the roaring response from the live studio audience. The cringey kiss might've been weird, but it's definitely one of the best in the series.

In Season 6, Episode 25 ("The One with the Proposal"), Monica and Chandler — by their own fault — are put through the wringer, to the point where it looks like their relationship won't survive. Chandler takes Monica out for a romantic dinner where he plans to propose, but that idea is foiled when Richard (Tom Selleck) shows up at the same restaurant. Fearing Monica knows about the proposal, Chandler acts like he's against marriage, which sends Monica into an emotional whirlwind. Richard ends up telling Monica he wants to be with her, and she contemplates the idea for a moment.

However, Joey eventually tells Monica about Chandler's plan of throwing her off, and she takes matters into her own hands and sets up a proposal of her own at their apartment. She breaks down while trying to pop the question, so Chandler takes over as they're surrounded by hundreds of candles in what's easily the most romantic setting in "Friends" history. Monica accepts the proposal, and the two share the best kiss of their relationship as they cry and celebrate their upcoming marriage.

Joey and Phoebe kissed on more than one occasion over 10 years — five times to be exact. While most of their kisses were playful and didn't really mean anything, there was a major smooch between the pair in Season 7. 

In Episode 14 ("The One Where They All Turn 30"), Phoebe learns that she's actually 31 and not 30 after seeing her twin sister's birth certificate. Absolutely devastated, Phoebe feels like she's just lost a year of her life, and she tells her friends all the things she wanted to do before she turned 31. She tells the gang at the coffee shop that she hasn't met any Portuguese people, she hasn't been to sniper school, and she hasn't had the perfect kiss.

After leaving Central Perk to be by herself, Joey chases after her and stops her in the street. He asks her to close her eyes and then moves in to kiss her. It's one of the best moments between the duo, and Phoebe loves every second of it. After their lips unlock, Joey jokes that she can cross one thing off her list. He then adds in that he's 1/16 Portuguese and gives her a thumbs up as he walks away.

In Season 7, Episode 20 ("The One with Rachel's Big Kiss"), Rachel tells all of the friends about a kiss she once had with her friend Melissa back in college. She then ends up running into her old sorority sister, played by Winona Ryder, and Rachel invites her out to dinner with Phoebe, who doesn't believe she ever kissed a girl. At the dinner, Melissa denies the kiss, which puts Rachel over the edge.

Melissa excuses herself and leaves the dinner, and Rachel chases after her and plants a kiss on her to jog her memory. Melissa then admits she always remembered that first moment and admits she'd fallen for Rachel, who she thinks now wants to be with her. Rachel sets the record straight and Melissa takes off ... but not long before Phoebe jumps in and kisses Rachel to "see what all the fuss was about." It's quite a lengthy smooch and one of the funnier kisses in "Friends" history.

It may not have been a fan-favorite storyline, but like it or not, Joey and Rachel had a fling that began in the Season 9 finale ("The One in Barbados"). Here, Rachel develops feelings for Joey and lets him know, but he's hesitant as he's currently dating Charlie (Aisha Tyler). Not to mention, Ross is one of his best friends, and it makes the whole situation sticky. But when Joey happens upon Ross and Charlie making out, all decency goes out the window, and he seeks out Rachel in her hotel room.

Right after she opens the door, Joey goes in for a kiss, and Rachel willingly accepts. After they take a step back, they embrace a second time for a drawn-out smooch as they wrap their arms around one another before closing their hotel door on the camera. Whether you were a fan of the Rachel and Joey relationship or not, there's no denying that their first kiss was a pretty incredible one, and it was followed up by many more in the first few episodes of Season 10.

After Ross and Rachel had their blowout in Season 3 thanks to the whole "on a break" thing, fans were left wondering when the duo would get back together, as it always seemed like destiny. Surprisingly, the writers kept the two out of a relationship for the rest of the series, with only a few hookups happening over the subsequent seven seasons. At certain points, it didn't look like the two were ever going to get back together, but thankfully, viewers were put at ease in the series finale.

When Rachel accepts a job at Louis Vuitton in Season 10, she packs up and prepares to move to Paris. She ends up sleeping with Ross when they say goodbye, but she still leaves for her new life. She eventually calls him from the airplane and lets him know she loves him in a voicemail, and we listen to her battle with a flight attendant as she tries to leave the plane. Ross freaks out, not knowing if she's gone off to Paris or if she's coming back to him ... when Rachel pops into frame in his apartment.

The pair then engage in their last kiss ever on "Friends," but it's one of the most important, as it's the one that begins their new life together. Fans of the show could rest easy knowing Ross and Rachel finally found their way back to one another, and all was well in the world.