Twenty years after Titanic, Kate and Leo are still best of pals

The multi-Oscar winning blockbuster came out in the US on 19 December 1997 (and on general release in the UK on 23 January 1998), but even as other blockbusters followed in its wake, Titanic has never fallen off the pop culture radar.

Case in point, its director James Cameron went viral last month when he commented on a long-running obsession that has riled Titanic fans ever since its release: that Rose could have made room for Jack on the floating door, potentially saving him from death.

But perhaps the sweetest aspect of Titanic's enduring cultural footprint is the real life friendship between the movie's iconic duo, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Of course, they reunited on screen in Revolutionary Road (2008), but they're also regularly snapped together at red carpet events and charity dos.

The two can been seen in this blurry but nostalgic pic with their Titanic nemesis, Billy Zane, at a fundraiser for Leo's environmental foundation in July.

When Kate won a Golden Globe in 2009 for The Reader, Leo was on hand to give a big congratulatory hug. And Kate was also one of the first people to congratulate Leo backstage after he finally won the Best Actor Oscar for The Revenant in February 2016.

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Kate and Leo's friendship strikes such a chord, because when we watch our favourite movies and TV shows, we like to think the casts are all best of buds off-screen. There's something comforting about imagining that once a beloved project comes to an end, the stars keep in touch and hang out together, even if - especially if - they're no longer professionally obligated to.

It's why so many of us love seeing cast-mate reunions - it scratches our nostalgic itch, and keeps alive the idea that these people enjoy one another's company as much as we did when we watched them together on screen.

It's not just Kate and Leo who stayed close, however. Lots of other actors from popular movies and TV shows have demonstrated a similar real-life bond. Here are some of our favourites:

Sabrina The Teenage Witch

The cast of the popular comedy series reunited last month at Comic Con in October. Its star, Melissa Joan Hart, shared Instagram images of the mini-reunion with some of her former colleagues, including Alimi Ballard (Quizmaster), Beth Broderick (Aunt Zelda), Caroline Rhea (Aunt Hilda), Nate Richert (Harvey), and Elisa Donovan (Morgan).

The cast of the show, which aired from 1996-2003, were at Comic Con in the run-up to the release of a new comic book version of Sabrina by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (creator of the hit TV series Riverdale).

Mean Girls

Last month, some of the cast of Mean Girls - including Amanda Seyfried (Karen), Lacey Chabert (Gretchen), and Jonathan Bennett (Aaron) - got together on the unofficial Mean Girls Day (3 October) to publicise a fundraiser campaign for survivors of the Las Vegas shooting.

And here's a snap of Lindsay Lohan (Cady) hanging out with Daniel Franzese (Damian) during a New York snowstorm in 2014.

That's so fetch, guys.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Earlier this year, the Buffy cast reunited to mark the 20th anniversary of the series' debut on US television.

But the Buffy crew seem really tight on their own time too. Did you know that Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy) and Seth Green (Oz) go way back?

And, happily, they remain good pals to this day.

Gellar and her on-screen best friend Willow (Alyson Hannigan) still hang out too...

And this sweet happy birthday exchange a few years ago between Gellar and David Boreanaz (Angel) was a beautiful thing to behold.

The Fresh Prince of Bel Air

It's hard to believe that The Fresh Prince finished its run 21 years ago, but it's good to know the cast members still keep in touch.

Alfonso Ribeiro (Carlton) shared this snap of a cast get-together on Instagram back in March - minus the late James Avery (Uncle Phil), who sadly passed away in 2013.

And of course, Ribeiro and Will Smith reunited - along with Will's son, Jaden, and DJ Jazzy Jeff - during a medley of Will's back-catalogue on The Graham Norton Show in 2013.

Scrubs

The hospital sitcom finished in 2010, but its main stars haven't lost touch. Last Easter, Christa Miller (who played Dr Cox's on-off partner Jordan) shared this snap of herself with former co-stars Donald Faison (Turk), Zach Braff (JD), and John C McGinley (Dr Cox).

And here's Braff and Faison out for dinner with co-star Sarah Chalke (Dr Elliot Read) earlier this year.

The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants

This teen movie came out in 2005 (along with a sequel in 2008), and its leading ladies - Blake Lively, Alexis Bledel, America Ferrera and Amber Tamblyn - have been buds off screen since.

They've all remained big supporters of one another's work - here they are supporting Ferrera when she was starring in a Broadway play...

...and out in force for the premiere of Tamblyn's debut as a director.

Of course, it's not always the case that cast-mates remain close after they finish their project - or even during it. For instance, some Sex and the City fans would be disappointed to hear during Kim Cattrall's interview with Piers Morgan that the four stars don't keep in touch.

“Nobody ever picks up the phone and tries to contact you and say, ‘How you doing?’" she told Morgan last month.“They all have children, and I am 10 years older. And since specifically the series ended, I have been spending most of my time outside of New York, so I don’t see them. The common ground that we had was the series and the series is over."

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While discussing the origin of tabloid reports that it was Cattrall's 'diva' behaviour that put the kibosh on a third SATC movie, Cattrall also said the movie's leading star and producer Sarah Jessica Parker "could have been nicer."

Similarly, Drake Bell and Josh Peck, the two stars of the Nickelodeon series Drake and Josh (2004-2007), seemed to have a very public falling out during the summer when Drake complained on Twitter that he hadn't been invited to Josh's wedding.

Drake's tweets, since deleted, read: "When you're not invited to the wedding the message is clear....I'll miss you brotha."

However, the good news is that the pair seemed to have made up by the time of the MTV Video Music Awards in August.

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This article was originally published on 3 November 2017.