Which Friend is "Winning"?

There is no reason for this. It's not the anniversary of when the show began or ended. No one in the cast has done something notable recently. I didn't even start watching the show on Netflix. I don't know why. I just asked myself "Which Friend has been winning since the show ended?".

There is no objective answer, obviously. The best I can do is break things down into a few categories and see where it takes me.

Box Office

Jennifer Aniston
There's no denying that Jennifer is the box office champ among the Friends. She's been in over 20 films since the show ended, including hits like We're the Millers, Marley & Me, and The Break-Up. Her films have grossed $1.17 billion and she's been the lead in many of them.

Courteney Cox
Of the Friends who have tried, Courteney has had the least success. She's been in 6 movies that have made a combined $391 million. $268 million of that comes from two films, Bedtime Stories and The Longest Yard, which she was barely in.

Lisa Kudrow
Lisa has been busy, appearing in 13 movies that have made a combined $633 million. These have mostly been mom roles in films like Bandslam and Easy A, or tiny roles in films like Neighbors and The Girl on the Train.

Matt LeBlanc
No films released in theaters since the end of Friends. At best, he gets an incomplete.

Matthew Perry
He's made exactly one movie with a theatrical release, 17 Again, which made $64 million. He's been much more focused on his TV work.

David Schwimmer
Shockingly, David is behind only Jennifer Aniston in the box office, with films grossing $671 million. Almost $600 million of that comes from three Madagascar films.

Winner: Jennifer Aniston. Whether you look at number of films, prominence in those films, or success of those films, Aniston has the undeniable lead.

Film Quality

Jennifer Aniston
22 films on Rotten Tomatoes. Average rating of 40%. There's not a lot of high-low in there either. Only one film rated about 70%, the little-seen Friends with Money. Only three movies under 20%. In other words, she just takes whatever offers are giving her lead roles. She does have that Golden Globe nominated performance in Cake though.

Courteney Cox
7 films on Rotten Tomatoes. Average rating of 28%. The best movie she was in was Scream 4 at an uninspiring 59%. Look, you'll see that none of the Friends have consistently made great movies in this time, but 28% is especially underwhelming.

Lisa Kudrow
14 films on Rotten Tomatoes. Average rating of 52%. This is propped up by films like Bandslam (81%, really?) and Kabluey (84%). There's Easy A too (85%). She is prominent in very few of these movies though.

Matt LeBlanc
1 film on Rotten Tomatoes. Rating 36%. Lovesick came out right after Friends ended, didn't earn a theatrical release that I'm aware of, and scored poorly with critics.

Matthew Perry
1 film on Rotten Tomatoes. Rating 55%. 17 Again was OK. The critics have spoken.

David Schwimmer
8 films on Rotten Tomatoes. Average Rating of 62%. David has avoided any real stinkers. The worst film he appeared in was Run Fatboy Run (48%) and that was only a tiny cameo. I'm including it though since he was also the director. His next worst film? John Carter (51%), which has the hilarious credit "Young Thark Warrior". Don't you remember that? While he normally accepts supporting roles, they tend to be in decent movies.

Winner: David Schwimmer. It's not competitive, but Schwimmer edges the others out. One great movie from anyone could swing the results entirely.

TV Shows

Jennifer Aniston
She's been too busy with her film career work regularly on any TV shows.

Courteney Cox
She's had two TV shows post-Friends. Dirt lasted two seasons and was quickly forgotten. Cougar Town had 6 seasons with a devoted, albeit small, following. She also got a Golden Globe nomination for her work on the latter show.

Lisa Kudrow
Her last decade and change has been spent on two projects with two stints each. There's the long running Web Therapy, which started on the web and moved to Showtime. More importantly, there's her two seasons on The Comeback, which earned her an Emmy nomination each time.

Matt LeBlanc
Everyone remembers Joey. While that's best to be forgotten, he did get a Golden Globe nomination for his work. While Episodes wasn't my taste, he did earn 4 Emmy nominations over 5 seasons for that too. Now he's on Man With a Plan, which only proves that he's still employable.

Matthew Perry
I'll say this much. He doesn't give up. He's been a lead in 4 different series since Friends ended and one mini-series. Studio 60, Mr. Sunshine, and Go On were all fairly high profile flops. The Odd-Couple barely lasted 3 seasons. His Mini-Series, The Kennedys After Camelot probably won't make an impact on this years' awards circuit.

David Schwimmer
He only recently moved back to TV with American Crime Story and Feed the Beast in 2016. ACS earned him an Emmy nomination. Feed the Beast got cancelled. We'll call that a split-result.

Winner: Matt LeBlanc. I was tempted to go with Kudrow for the Comeback success or Cox for how much I personally enjoyed Cougar Town. I have to go with LeBlanc though. Three shows. Globe or Emmy nominations for two of them. All three lasted at least 2 seasons. He's like Ringo being the Beatle with the most solo #1 hits.

Guest/Temp Work

Jennifer Aniston
This is going to be an even more subjective category than the others. Aniston has a great guest spot on 30 Rock (Emmy nominated). She did two episodes of something called Burning Love. Cox called in a Friends favor and got her to do episodes of Dirt and Cougar Town. Recently, she had a meta-appearance on SNL that was very entertaining.

Courteney Cox
Most of her guest work has been Friends favors, showing up in Go On and both versions of Web Therapy. I'm sure she was fun on Dunk History, Private Practice, and whatever Barely Famous is. I haven't heard anything about her TV movies Charity Case and TalhotBlond. It's her 3 episodes on Scrubs that earns her the most points.

Lisa Kudrow
For a while, she wasn't doing much with Guest spots. Mostly a bit of voice work or Friends favors like her episode of Cougar Town. Since 2013 though, she's been on a great run: 4 episodes of Scandal, 7 episodes of BoJack Horseman, 1 episode of Angie Tribeca, and 2 episodes of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

Matt LeBlanc
Lisa Kudrow called in a favor for Web Therapy a few times. That's it.

Matthew Perry
Of course, he appeared in Web Therapy and Cougar Town as Friends favors. He did a pair of hospital comedies (Scrubs and Children's Hospital) for an episode each. His biggest claims though, are 7 episodes combined between The Good Wife and The Good Fight and an Emmy and Golden Globe nominated performance in the TV Movie The Ron Clark Story.

David Schwimmer
His Friends favors were episodes of Web Therapy and Episodes. Apparently, he was in an episode of Entourage. The only thing that matters to me is his episode of 30 Rock.

Winner: Lisa Kudrow. Perry put up a good fight, but Kudrow has been on fire lately.

Extracurriculars

Jennifer Aniston
She has produced a few things. The only projects I've heard of were for movies she starred in as well. I'm not sure how much credit I can give her for those.

Courteney Cox
She was an Executive Producer for her shows, Dirt and Cougar Town. She's also an EP for the 245 episodes of the Celebrity Name Game and directed 12 episodes of Cougar Town.

Lisa Kudrow
She has "written by", "creator", and "producer" credits for the two shows she's worked on (Web Therapy and The Comeback). More than the other extra credits the Friends have for starring roles, I fully believe that Kudrow's shows are her "babies". She appears to be very hands-on.

Matt LeBlanc
He took several years off after Joey. Not a lot of actors do that. I kind of respect that he's willing to just take a break. He has what I assume is a nominal EP credit for Man with a Plan. He was an EP for the box office bomb Jonah Hex. That's not great. Oh, and he was a host for Top Gear long enough to essentially destroy the international hit.

Matthew Perry
He's an EP for any show he's on these days. He was a co-creator on The Odd Couple and Mr. Sunshine too, so maybe those EP credits aren't only nominal. Oh, and he directed an episode of Scrubs.

David Schwimmer
He did a little stage work. He's produced a couple theatrical and TV movies. Most of his extracurricular work has been as a director. He's dabbled in TV shows (Joey - 2 episodes, The Tracy Mogan Show - 1 ep., Little Britain USA - 6 eps.), TV-Movies (Nevermind Nirvana, New Car Smell), and feature films (Run Fatboy Run, Trust).

Winner: David Schwimmer. Kudrow really sinks her teeth into her projects. so I considered her here. However, I'm going with Schwimmer because his extracurriculars were for project that he didn't star in. In other words, they are true extracurriculars.

So, I've crunched some numbers after my arbitrary assessments of these different categories, and I've determined that, by a healthy margin, Lisa Kudrow is who I believe is "winning" post-Friends. In fact, this is the order I came up with:

1. Lisa Kudrow
2. David Schwimmer
3. Jennifer Aniston
4. Courteney Cox (tie)
4. Matthew Perry (tie)
6. Matt LeBlanc

Kudrow has picked her film roles somewhat judiciously and kept very busy with her TV work. Schwimmer benefited greatly from the low film bar set by the other Friends. Aniston could've run away with this if she picked her movies a little better. Perry and Cox have relied a bit too much on their Friends name recognition. And, LeBlanc just hasn't kept very busy. I expected this to be between Aniston and Kudrow. Schwimmer faring so well was quite a surprise.

Thank you for humoring me as I had a little fun. If you disagree with where I ended up, by all means, call me a fool. This is not a definitive assessment.