11 Galentine’s Day movies

It’s 2025 and Cupid’s wings are plucked! Epidemic of male loneliness bleh. 4B movement blah. But true love is still out there. Get ready to celebrate the real deal that lasts a lifetime, as we hop in a car, a plane, and a boat with best friends who’re setting out to have the time of their lives. We’ve saved you a spot; so just load up any of these 11 films and tonight you can fantasise about being old hags cackling together with your ride-or-dies. 

1. The Fabulous Four (coming 17 February)

Comedy. To lure her into attending the wedding of the woman who once stole her boyfriend, three friends pretend that their bestie has won a cat with extra toe beans from Hemingway House in Florida. Don’t judge! A serial killer could lure us into his van with that promise. They embark on a road trip together to collect said cat. Adventure awaits in the form of parasailing, cannabis gummies, strip club bachelorette parties and bridesmaid dress fittings. 

Where are we off to? Our boyfriend-stealing BFF Marilyn’s (Bette Midler) wedding in Key West, Florida.

Who’s in our girl gang? Megan Mullally, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Susan Sarandon and Sophie Von Haselberg.

2. Greatest Days

Comedy. Four childhood BFFs reunite after 25 years to go see the band Take That during their reunion tour. While there’s been floods of water under the bridge since they last saw each other, there’s nothing like music to unlock the past, and it all comes rushing back in a series of delightful flashbacks to their giddy teens in the 1990s. If you were alive and bopping to Britpop at the time, prepare for dangerous waves of nostalgia and as much fun as Mamma Mia!

Where are we off to? The Take That Reunion Tour in Athens

Who’s in our girl gang? Aisling Bea, Alice Lowe, Amaka Okafor, and Jayde Adams.

3. Book Club: The Next Chapter

Comedy. Covid forced them to have their book club meetings over zoom. But they’re back and ready to catch up about everything they’ve been reading, and all their life events including retirement, health issues, and failing businesses. With the travel ban lifted, these conversations can happen on the road, as they set off for Italy together. Pack light because we’re going wedding gown shopping, and someone needs to sneakily scatter her late husband’s ashes. The book for this trip is Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist. 

Where are we off to? Rome by air, Venice by train, and a road trip (plus hitchhiking) to Tuscany.

Who’s in our girl gang? Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen.  

4. Girls Trip

Buddy road trip slapstick comedy. An Oprah-like lifestyle guru invites her “Flossy Posse” of three best friends along with her when she heads for New Orleans to be the keynote speaker at the Essence Festival. This is a group of women who genuinely love one another, and they’re together at last after five years of missed time thanks to marriage, motherhood and careers. So they’re up for anything. But while their most successful friend’s life seems perfect, her mask peels back to reveal that her book title, “You CAN Have It All”, is a lie.

Where are we off to? Party city New Orleans for the wildest time of our lives!

Who’s in our girl gang? Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, Tiffany Haddish and Jada Pinkett Smith.

5. 80 for Brady

Comedy. After Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl performance, NFL football is looking a bit more exciting! In this film inspired by a true story, four lifelong best friends win tickets to the big game and go on a road trip together to watch footballer Tom Brady (a producer on this film) and their favourite team, the New England Patriots, compete in 2017’s American football Super Bowl tournament. They’ll just have to bust one of their pals out of the retirement home first! Chaos and mischief ensue when there’s a tiny issue with the tickets.

Where are we off to? Houston, Texas to watch big, muscly men wrestle each other while wearing exceptionally tight trousers. PS: Lady Gaga is performing at the half-time show. 

Who’s in our girl gang? Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno and Sally Field.

6. Rough Night

Dark comedy. Ten years after they first bonded at college, a bride and her four friends accidentally kill their bachelorette party stripper. With the bride-to-be launching a career in politics, the ride-or-dies agree to get rid of the corpse and keep the secret. As hen-night activities go, it’s several steps more daring than funny shaped straws and kiss-the-bride badges. But when it turns out the dead man possibly wasn’t even a stripper to begin with, the questions mount up and the schemes become increasingly desperate.

Where are we off to? A swanky beachfront Miami mansion with the girlies.

Who’s in our girl gang? Scarlett Johansson, Jillian Bell, Kate McKinnon, Ilana Glazer, and Zoë Kravitz.

7. Bridesmaids

Comedy. It’s childhood best friends vs snooty new “friends”, as a bride appoints her broke bestie to be her maid of honour, putting her in charge of directing her crew of bridesmaids in a series of (disastrous and expensive) bachelorette activities, trips and events. One mishap follows another and the bridesmaids’ inner crazy people come out to play, while everyone competes for the bride’s attention. 

Where are we off to? Vegas, baby! Then Chicago and Milwaukee. And yes, the lake house would have been cheaper.

Who’s in our girl gang? Kirsten Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Melissa McCarthy, Wendi McLendon-Covey, and Ellie Kemper.

8. Barbie

It’s all our Barbie Land dreams come true – a vision of a world centred around women (or dolls named Barbie). But this clashes with everyday reality for women and girls – as Barbie discovers when she has an existential crisis and ventures into the real world to find out why some girls don’t want to play with her anymore. Meanwhile, chaos ensues when Ken brings America’s men-first attitude back to Dream House. Oh, sorry, that’s the Mojo Dojo Casa House.

Where are we off to? Barbieland, then to the real-world Malibu. And we’re getting there in style with a variety of Barbie cars, bikes and planes.

Who’s in our girl gang? Margot Robbie, Issa Rae, Kate McKinnon, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Mackey, Hari Nef, Sharon Rooney, Ana Cruz Kayne, Ritu Arya, Dua Lipa, Nicola Coughlan, America Ferrera and Rhea Perlman.

9. Pitch Perfect  Pitch Perfect 2 and Pitch Perfect 3

All three of these musical comedy films, written by Kay Cannon, centre on women’s college a capella group The Barden Bellas. Come along to witness their internal struggles, their rivalry with other a capella groups, their friendships and romances. Above all the Pitch Perfect films celebrate “weird girls” – driven, obsessive, skilled, brilliant, funny and idiosyncratic young women – who’re at the stage where they’re still learning about themselves and all the reasons they’ll need to break the mould to live their best lives. Once they get their act together and realise what they can accomplish as a team, the Bellas are, well, not exactly unstoppable, but they are awesome. 

Where are we off to? Squish up in the stinky bus as we head for random college auditoriums throughout Louisiana, the Kennedy Center, and Copenhagen.

Who’s in our girl gang? Anna Kendrick, Anna Camp, Brittany Snow, Rebel Wilson, Hana Mae Lee, Alexis Knapp, Ester Dean, Kelley Jakle, Shelley Regner, Hailee Steinfeld, Chrissie Fit.

10. Mamma Mia! and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

Romantic musical comedy, directed by Phyllida Lloyd and written by Catherine Johnson (based on her book of the same name), with an all-ABBA soundtrack. A bride-to-be who grew up without a dad desperately wants her father to walk her down the aisle. So she secretly invites her mother’s three past lovers to the Greek island of Kalokairi, where she’s getting married with the help of mom’s two best lady friends. Before you can shout opa, everyone is back in the spirit of their wild rock ’n roll days. Here’s to retiring with your BFFs to an island where you can drink, dance, and putter around the garden together. 

Where are we off to? Set sail for the idyllic Greek island of Kalokairi.

Who’s in our girl gang? Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Christine Baranski and Julie Walters.

11. The Miracle Club

Drama. We’re going to France! But think less cheese and wine and more church and signs. In 1967, three Irish women, who form a band called The Miracles, win a talent show organised by the Catholic Church. Their prize? A some-expenses-paid trip to exotic Lourdes! Each has a secret miracle they’re hoping for and despite their husbands’ protests, off they go, along with the estranged daughter of one of their friends who’s in Ireland for her mother’s funeral. Strap in for pregnancy drama, freezing cold holy water, sins and secrets, forgiveness and reconciliation.

Where are we off to? Lourdes in France to make a pilgrimage to the Grotto of the Apparitions. 

Who’s in our girl gang? Dame Maggie Smith (in her final role before her death), Kathy Bates, Agnes O’Casey, and Laura Linney.

Also watch

Desperately dodging the Valentine’s Day kitsch? Try five of our favourite down-with-love movies.

1. She Came To Me (coming 17 February): Rebecca Miller’s unpredictable romantic comedy follows an Operetta composer (Peter Dinklage) who cheats on his psychiatrist wife (Anne Hathaway) with a romance-addicted tugboat captain (Marisa Tomei), only to have to set aside his and everyone else’s drama to lend a hand to a runaway young couple.

2. Intolerable Cruelty: A Coen Brothers romantic comedy with a sting in the tail. Divorce lawyer Miles Massey (George Clooney) is at the top of his game when he crosses paths with the ultimate gold digger, Marylin Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones), and makes a flirtatious enemy for life. Let the mind games begin!

3. Death Becomes Her: It’s Goldie Hawn vs Meryl Streep, vying over the affections of louse spouse Bruce Willis in this classic fantasy comedy about the things we do for “love”. In this case, both ladies realise that the only way to hang on to their plastic surgeon lover is to be eternally young and beautiful. And it turns out there’s a potion for that…with some side effects.

4. The Break Up: Warning! Watch this pitch-dark comedy with your pals, not your partner. Mismatched couple Gary Grobowski (Vince Vaughn) and Brooke Meyers (Jennifer Aniston) play out the fury and disappointment in a relationship in which one partner gets sick of the other’s weaponised incompetence. After the inevitable breakup, financial circumstances force them to keep living together, and a battle to be the pettiest person in the room begins.