Ever since getting his start on the very first season of Saturday Night Live, Bill Murray has been one of the most beloved stars of the screen. Throughout the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, he starred in some of the greatest comedies ever made. In the 21st century, he’s reinvented himself as a melancholic dramatic actor, giving heartfelt turns in works by such sharp-witted auteurs as Wes Anderson and Sofia Coppola.
Murray famously doesn’t have representation, so he chooses his own projects, meaning he’ll appear in anything from a first-time director’s passion project that catches his eye to a big-budget Disney remake. So, here are Bill Murray’s 10 Best Movies, According To Rotten Tomatoes.
Tootsie (90%)
One of the most hilarious comedies ever made, Tootsie stars Dustin Hoffman as an out-of-work actor named Michael Dorsey who manages to land a role when he dresses up as a woman, goes by Dorothy Michaels, and auditions for a female role. (There’s great potential for a female-led reboot of this movie where a female actor sick of one-dimensional roles as wives and secretaries dresses up as a man and gets the chance to play real characters, as a comment on Hollywood’s lack of female representation.) Bill Murray plays his roommate, who in true Murray fashion, sardonically comments on Michael’s situation.
The Grand Budapest Hotel (91%)
Bill Murray only has a small role in The Grand Budapest Hotel, but it wouldn’t feel like a true Wes Anderson film if it didn’t have at least a cameo appearance by Bill Murray. The Grand Budapest Hotel, on the whole, is a hysterical movie charting the history of a fictional famous hotel in a fictional country.
Ralph Fiennes is the true star of the movie, playing M. Gustave, the concierge at the titular hotel, while Tony Revolori – better known as the MCU’s Flash Thompson – appears alongside him as the bellboy who is telling his life story to a writer in the framing narrative.
TIE: Ed Wood (92%)
Tim Burton directed this biopic of the titular director, which focuses on his relationship with B-movie actor Bela Lugosi and is interestingly shot and edited in the style of one of Wood’s old films. Bill Murray plays the director’s drag queen friend Bunny Breckinridge, who acted in and helped with the production of his schlocky sci-fi movie Plan 9 from Outer Space. The movie was a box office bomb, because black-and-white biopics of people that hardly anyone has heard of don’t usually break records, but it was highly appreciated by critics and hopefully, in time, it will be appreciated by a wide audience, too.
TIE: Fantastic Mr. Fox (92%)
Wes Anderson recently returned to the quirky style of stop-motion animation that he pioneered with this Roald Dahl adaptation with the movie Isle of Dogs, set in a dystopian future vision of Japan, but it didn’t feel as fresh as Fantastic Mr. Fox. The lead roles are played by a one-of-a-kind casting director’s dream – George Clooney and Meryl Streep – while the supporting voice cast is rounded out by Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, and of course, Bill Murray. The movie wasn’t as big of a success at the box office as it should’ve been, so hopefully it’ll find belated success in the future.
Moonrise Kingdom (93%)
Perhaps Wes Anderson’s finest film, and the epitome of his unique visual style, Moonrise Kingdom tells the coming-of-age tale of a Boy Scout at a summer camp who sneaks off to see his girlfriend. The movie utilizes parallel storylines to chart the full spectrum of romance – while the two kids are falling in love with each other, the parents (played by Frances McDormand and Bill Murray) are falling out of love. As with all of Anderson’s movies, Moonrise Kingdom has a very stylized look, with symmetrical shots and foreshadowing, but it also plays on a lot of real human emotions.
TIE: Lost in Translation (95%)
The role of Bob in Lost in Translation is what told audiences all over the world that Bill Murray is not just one of the world’s greatest comedic performers; he’s also an immensely talented dramatic actor. In Lost in Translation, he plays a washed-up movie star who flies out to Tokyo to shoot a commercial. Meanwhile, Scarlett Johansson plays a young wife with nothing to do while her husband is working all day. Sofia Coppola’s film is a beautiful story about how these two lost souls come together in one of the most vibrant cities in the world and change each other’s lives.
TIE: The Jungle Book (95%)
As long as Disney insists upon flooding theaters with live-action remakes of their old animated gems, they might as well adapt the ones with room for improvement. The original animated version of The Jungle Book was great, but it had an episodic plot, loosely strung together, and most of its scenes are pretty forgettable.
Jon Favreau’s 2016 live-action remake of the movie replaced the voice cast with A-list talent and punched up the vignette-y style into a more tightly interconnected plot. Bill Murray provided the voice of Baloo, Mowgli’s bear companion who talks to him on his level, as opposed to the condescending words of wisdom from the boy’s other father figure, Bagheera.
Groundhog Day (96%)
In possibly the greatest display of Bill Murray’s talents as a comic performer, and as an actor in general, Groundhog Day tells the story of Phil Connors, a cynical newscaster who travels to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to report on the titular holiday. It’s the worst possible day he can imagine and he just can’t wait to leave. So, when he finds himself repeating the same day again and again – no matter how many times he tries to escape the curse and even kill himself – it’s his worst nightmare. This leads him to seriously re-evaluate his life and take stock, eventually falling in love with Andie MacDowell.
Ghostbusters (97%)
Director Ivan Reitman allowed the cast of Ghostbusters to improvise a lot on the set, and the result is a much livelier and more energetic movie than would’ve been made if they’d just stuck to the script. Since the movie’s writers, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, come from a background in improv comedy and were starring in the film, they weren’t too precious about how each scene was written, because they knew they’d shake it up during the shoot. Aykroyd and Ramis have incredible on-screen chemistry with their co-stars Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson, so this tale of regular guys taking on a paranormal threat is hilarious and strangely relatable.
All You Need is Cash (100%)
A co-production by Eric Idle and Lorne Michaels, this made-for-TV comedy charts the meteoric rise and fall of a British rock band called “the Rutles.” The Rutles are a pretty clear allusion to the Beatles (the obviousness of said allusion is part of the joke), with a parody of “Get Back” called “Get Up and Go,” and a parody of Yellow Submarine called Yellow Submarine Sandwich. The Rutles first appeared on Idle’s BBC sketch show Rutland Weekend Television, and Michaels teamed up with the Monty Python alum to bring the back to American television. Bill Murray played “Bill Murray the K.,” a satirical take on Murray the K.
