The 20 Best Female Friendships On TV: Great Gal Pals From Chicago Fire, Outlander, Legacies And More Shows

If friends are the family that you choose, then the supportive gal pals from our list of TV's best female friendships are sisters for life.

In honor of International Friendship Day on July 30, TVLine has selected 20 of the most loyal and nurturing female besties from current shows such as Outlander, Station 19, Younger and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. These women lift one another up and stand by each other through every major life milestone, including breakups, births and even murder. Plus, one duo battled a minotaur together! How's that for a bonding experience?

And because sometimes a friendship can't be contained to just two people, we've also singled out unbreakable trios from The Bold Type, Chicago Fire and Sweet Magnolias, as well as a pair of quintets that are always there to lend a helping hand or a caring ear. To paraphrase the Golden Girls theme song, each of the ladies presented below is truly a pal and a confidant.

Reminder: Our list only features shows that are still airing, so as much as we love them, perennial favorites like Parks and Recreation's Leslie and Ann are not included.

Check out our picks below, then hit the comments to share your current fave BFFs that didn't make the cut!

Not everyone in the 118 can be trusted with a secret (remember when Buck accidentally told those kids that Santa isn't real?), but Hen and Athena have always had each other's back. More importantly, they've always had each other's best interest at heart. And with both women on the verge of major professional changes in the coming season, we're hoping to drop in on more of their backyard chats than ever.

They may be young, but the beloved group at the center of Netflix's adaptation of the Ann M. Martin books could teach people twice their age a thing or two about how to be a good friend. With their unwavering support and respect for each other's differences, Claudia, Stacey, Dawn, Mary Anne and Kristy are the kind of pals that you know will be in each other's lives for decades to come — just like they've been part of readers' lives for the past 34 years.

Through terrible breakups, work struggles and health crises, the trio have always been there for each other, offering a supportive ear or a shoulder to cry on in Scarlet's fashion closet. Time after time, Kat, Jane and Sutton have shown up at a moment's notice and taken care of one another like they were family. If that's not friendship goals, we don't know what is.

With all due respect to Felix and Oscar, the ladies of B99 are our favorite pop culture odd couple. No matter how annoyed she gets at Amy's relentless optimism and Type A organization, Rosa has proven she's in this friendship for the long haul, whether that means competing in a ridiculous stroller contest on Amy's behalf or standing by Amy's side during childbirth. Rosa Diaz, you big softie!

It's not easy to find and nurture female friendships in a male-dominated firehouse. But Stella, Brett and Foster have managed to carve out a sweet bond that's all their own, while throwing their support behind each other's career aspirations and ideas, even when they haven't always worked out. (That ladies' lounge was good in theory.) And when Brett and Casey inevitably lock lips, you know it'll partially be because Stella and Foster gently nudged their friend to confront her feelings.

The ladies of the Nail Artisans salon (aka Desna, Jenn, Polly, Virginia and Quiet Ann) have been through quite a lot together — the dead bodies alone! — but they have a bond that can't be broken by a few measly murders. Whether cooking up a criminal enterprise or just shaking what they've got at an impromptu dance party, the nail crew have got each other's backs, no matter what the Dixie Mafia throws at them.

Throughout the Netflix comedy's first two seasons, Jen and Judy have redefined the words "ride or die." Any pair of BFFs can watch The Facts of Life and binge Entenmann's cookies together. But to cover for each other's increasingly wild lies, forgive some truly terrible secrets and stash a dead body in the freezer? That's next-level friendship.

Fallon and Kirby have come to blows many times over the years — usually because of a bad boy or a bad business deal — but now that all is well between the former frenemies, let's take a minute to celebrate how far they've come. After all, only a true friend would help you sneak into a strip club to reunite with the exotic dancer you think you married during a drunken night out.

These two haven't been in the same geographical location since Season 1, when Moira escaped Gilead and fled to Canada. But their bond is so strong that Moira has essentially become a surrogate mother to June's baby (and support system for her bereft husband, Luke) in the Great North.

This dynamic duo has been by each other's side since they were kids, and we've seen T's full-throated encouragement and support get Arabella through some very dark times. (Plus, actors Michaela Coel and Weruche Opia have terrific chemistry together.) When they tell each other, "Your birth is my birth, your death is my death," we believe it.

When you remember that Lizzie once hated Hope so much that she literally wished the tribrid out of existence, it really is incredible how much they've grown as individuals — and as friends. The same girl that helped Hope battle a minotaur in Season 2 would have happily fed her to the beast in Season 1. Growth!

They started out as mere professional acquaintances — we don't think Susie even liked Midge all that much in the beginning — but their relationship has blossomed into an unlikely friendship, as the two showbiz newbies helped each other navigate the dark and twisty road to success. They've given each other a shoulder to cry on when things got tough... and made each other laugh a lot along the way, too.

Dave and Calvin's better halves hit it off from the get-go, and they've been besties ever since!  Their friendship has resulted in the some of the CBS sitcom's most memorable outings, including a pair of girls' trips — one to Las Vegas that found them participating in a production of Magic Mike Live, and another to Wine Country where Tina was mistaken for global superstar Mary J. Blige.

Jamie's wife and his stepdaughter had a rocky start — remember how often (and how easily) Marsali used to call Sassenach a "whore"? — but that's all grist through the grain mill now that Marsali has become Claire's eager surgical assistant. And not a moment too soon, seeing as how Mistress Fraser really needed someone to get as excited about penicillin spores as she does.

Friends don't get much tighter than these middle school besties. (They even share shirts!) Seventh grade can be truly terrifying, but it helps to go through it with someone just as dorky as you are. Anna and Maya may both stumble a little — OK, a lot — along the way to adulthood, but they can always fall back on each other and dance away their troubles to a killer Spice Girls tune.

Though they initially kept their friendship a secret to protect Aimee's social standing, Aimee would go on to dump The Untouchables in favor of her one true friend by the end of Season 1. Maeve then went on to prove what a great friend she was when she stood by Aimee's side following a traumatic sexual assault in Season 2.

It could scarcely be more fitting that these hotheaded besties are firefighters: Their tempers are set ablaze more easily than a basement full of old newspapers. Yet even when they're hurling third-degree burns back and forth, they remain — down deep, sometimes really deep — the kind of friends who'd run into an inferno for one another.

"I believe there is not a problem that cannot be solved by having a drink and a talk with the two of you." Helen put those words to the test multiple times throughout the first season of Netflix's Sweet Magnolias, constantly meeting with Maddie and Dana Sue to drown their sorrows in a batch of margaritas. "Pour it out," indeed.

Liza and Kelsey's friendship was a major focus for much of Younger's six-season run, but it's so yesterday compared to the mature, meaningful relationship Liza established with Diana this past year. Diana's reaction to her assistant's deception was excruciating to watch, mostly because it revealed just how much Liza really means to her. Fortunately, Diana was able to forgive her well-meaning protege, resulting in one of the most incredible (non-romantic) "I love you"s in recent memory.