This study is aimed at examining and comparing several friction force models dealing with different friction phenomena in the context of multibody system dynamics. For this purpose, a comprehensive review of present literature in this field of investigation is first presented. In this process, the main aspects related to friction are discussed, with particular emphasis on the pure dry sliding friction, stick–slip effect, viscous friction and Stribeck effect. In a simple and general way, the friction force models can be classified into two main groups, namely the static friction approaches and the dynamic friction models. The former group mainly describes the steady-state behavior of friction force, while the latter allows capturing more properties by using extra state variables. In the present study, a total of 21 different friction force models are described and their fundamental physical and computational characteristics are discussed and compared in details. The application of those friction models in multibody system dynamic modeling and simulation is then investigated. Two multibody mechanical systems are utilized as demonstrative application examples with the purpose of illustrating the influence of the various frictional approaches on the dynamic response of the systems. From the results obtained, it can be stated that both the choice of the friction force model and friction parameters involved can significantly affect the simulated/modeled dynamic response of mechanical systems with friction.