The 25 best films of Bill Murray's career

Aka “The Wages of ‘Ghostbusters.’” Murray wouldn’t agree to appear in the blockbuster horror-comedy unless Columbia greenlit this passion project based on W. Somerset Maugham’s post-WWI novel about an American soldier seeking spiritual enlightenment in Asia. It’s basically the unfunny version of Carl Spackler’s looper monologue. Murray’s heart is in the right place, but his interpretation of Larry Darrell bears the transparent trauma of a ‘70s showbiz survivor; the film’s most moving moment is Murray’s delivery of a eulogy he initially wrote for John Belushi: Murray had seen and contemplated death, just not on the magnitude Maugham was writing about.

Art Linson’s ostensible adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s essay “The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat” winds up being a scattershot celebration of the gonzo journalist. That this film hasn’t become a cult favorite over the last 39 years should give you an indication of how utterly lousy it is. Thompson loathed the movie like everyone else, but he felt Murray captured his hard-drinking, narcotic-ingesting madness/genius. It’s certainly a committed performance (if quite subdued compared to Johnny Depp’s 1998 rendition), but it’s hard to fully appreciate given the shoddy direction.

Murray clashed with co-star Richard Dreyfuss on the set of this hit Frank Oz comedy, and the personal friction seemingly fueled the latter’s onscreen exasperation with the former’s psychiatric patient from hell. Alas, it’s a rigidly formulaic studio production that straitjackets Murray in neurotic shtick, and while he plays that one note quite deftly, it’s still one note. The film completely runs out of steam by the third act.

Wes Anderson’s cluttered family comedy mostly relegates Murray to the periphery, but he gets two sensational scenes: one where he learns of his wife’s (Gwyneth Paltrow) various infidelities, and the other where he confronts her with her said indiscretions. This is an exemplary case of Murray blending into the background, something that was unthinkable 20 years prior.

Murray hooked up with McNaughton for a small role as a low-rent attorney in this deliciously sleazy neo-noir about a high school guidance counselor (Matt Dillon) accused of rape by two students (Denise Richards and Neve Campbell). All is nowhere close to what it seems in this twisty thriller — save for Murray, who celebrates his ambulance-chaser’s windfall legal victory by rubbing the settlement papers in his armpits and nether regions.

Murray follows in Jack Nicholson’s zany footsteps as a masochistic patient in this musical remake of Roger Corman’s 1960 cult classic, and he has an absolute ball opposite Steve Martin’s hilariously cruel dentist. It’s just one scene, but it’s a riot. Alas, it remains the only big-screen pairing of Murray and Martin to date.

Aaron Schneider’s burial dramedy is a moody misfire, but the scenes between Robert Duvall and Murray are snippets from a great, folksy film that treats death as a cold, kind-of-funny fact of life. Murray’s post-2000s performances tend to land in this zone: He’s always been comfortable with gallows humor, but nowadays he’s laughing straight in the face of death.

With one breakout season of "SNL" under his belt, Murray headed to Canada to film his breakout big-screen performance in this warm-hearted summer camp comedy from director Ivan Reitman. The PG-rated high jinks are pretty mild compared to other films of this subgenre, but Murray (with some scripting assistance from his pal Harold Ramis) is on fire in every scene. Highlights include Murray posing as a counselor from the rival rich-kids camp and giving a hilariously misrepresentative TV interview, and, of course, his inexplicably rousing “It just doesn’t matter!” speech.

“You’re on a gravy train with biscuit wheels!” Murray gives his inner jerk free rein in this classic Farrelly Brothers comedy based in the less than glamorous world of professional bowling. Murray’s Ernie McCracken is the scuzzball nemesis to Woody Harrelson’s one-time phenom Roy Munson, and he gets to go way over the top — e.g. sequined outfit; custom-made, rose-encased ball; thinning hair floating off his scalp — at the climactic bowling showdown. It’s a gloriously broad performance.

The adult heart of this film belongs to Frances McDormand and Bruce Willis. Murray plays the discarded husband of a brood he doesn’t understand, but that’s who Murray is (onscreen) nowadays: an out-of-touch hippie who happened into a family. We want Murray to turn a corner, but he’s so far gone. 

If you encountered Murray well into the throes of a zombie apocalypse, you couldn’t hope for much better than the fictional fellow embodied by the actual Bill Murray in Ruben Fleischer’s “Zombieland.” Murray takes dead aim at his mythos in his uncredited appearance, and he gets his biggest laugh by disowning “Garfield.”

After his gonzo portrayal of Hunter S. Thompson and his just-plain-gone turn as Carl Spackler, Murray returned to Planet Earth and reunited with “Meatballs” director Ivan Reitman for this goofballs-in-the-military blockbuster. There’s not much to John Winger; he’s just an amiable, everyday doofus who, having lost everything, joins the army out of desperation. It’s a pure star turn for Murray, and he confidently strokes every pitch to the cheap seats. He also sets up his co-stars — Ramis, Warren Oates and, in what could’ve been an egregiously unfunny mud-wrestling scene, John Candy — for huge laughs. Just remember to shut off the film once the crew graduates basic training. The laughs stop right there.

Michael Almereyda’s magnificent, Manhattan-set adaptation of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy features Murray as a perfectly cast Polonius, a cautious adviser who delivers his clichéd wisdom with soothing earnestness to his children (Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles). Murray has a reputation for showing up and making magic on the spot, but you almost never see the casualness onscreen. He sticks to the well-known script here, and it’s like he’s been studying the text for decades.

Don Juan in heck. Murray’s post-“Rushmore” penchant for underplaying is well-utilized in this droll comedy about a man looking for his son. It’s a meandering film, but Murray commits to the downbeat groove; the sorrow resides in his visage. He’s not playing failure; he’s presenting it. 

Murray may be an unstoppable comedic powerhouse when he’s on, but few stars of his stature know how to gracefully insinuate themselves into an ensemble work like he does in “Ed Wood.” His portrayal of drag queen Bunny Breckinridge is thoroughly devoid of overt affectation; he seems to connect with the character on a human level and effortlessly blends in with the rest of the eccentrics who inhabit Wood’s orbit.

It was a notoriously contentious shoot, but director Sydney Pollack and star Dustin Hoffman managed to keep from killing each other long enough to produce one of the greatest comedies of all time. Every single casting choice is inspired, but Murray’s uncredited turn as Hoffman’s playwright roommate is unflappable, behind-the-beat brilliance. Murray’s never deadlier as a comedic weapon than when he’s unexpected and underplaying, so it’s no surprise that he scores the film’s biggest laugh. (“That is one nutty hospital.”)

John McNaughton’s idiosyncratic buddy comedy stars Murray as a Chicago mob boss who offers the services of an indebted female employee (Uma Thurman) to the crime scene photographer (Robert De Niro) who unexpectedly saved his life. Richard Price’s screenplay is a marvelous tough-and-tender character study that’s all left turns; what starts as a tale of unlikely friendship between Murray and De Niro turns into a bittersweet romance worthy of Billy Wilder. It’s fascinating to watch Murray use his imposing stature to play the heavy for once, and when things go south, he’s genuinely frightening.

This uproariously funny redo of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Story” was tailor-made for Murray by the screenwriting duo of Mitch Glazer and Michael O'Donoghue, and sure enough, the role of misanthropic TV executive Frank Cross fits him like a pair of black leather gloves. Of course, this evergreen story only works if the star can realistically segue from curmudgeon to ebullient saint, and Murray delivers beautifully in the film’s final scene. Though Murray expressed dissatisfaction with the final cut of the movie, this is some of his most accomplished work.

Murray’s arsenic-laced valentine to the city he hates to love received mixed reviews and flat-out bombed theatrically in 1990, but it’s acquired a devoted cult following over the years. It’s a classic bungled heist film featuring inspired performances from a murderer’s row cast that includes Geena Davis, Randy Quaid, Jason Robards, Stanley Tucci, Tony Shalhoub and Bob Elliott. Murray holds it all together as the would-be criminal mastermind tripped up by all manner of inconceivable complications as he tries to flee town with the money, his girl (Davis) and his dolt of a best friend (Quaid). Murray made his co-directorial debut alongside Howard Franklin, and evidently once was enough for him. 

Wes Anderson gifted Murray with a sad-sack amalgamation of Jacques Cousteau and, well, Bill Murray himself. This fanciful comedy missed the mark critically/commercially because it was too reminiscent of Anderson’s previous work. It’s a great film that builds to a moving climax with Zissou confronting the beautiful shark he’s long wanted to kill, and Murray’s reckoning in that moment is devastating.

“Cinderella story…outta nowhere…a former greenskeeper now about to become the Masters champion.” The zonked-out, slack-jawed Carl Spackler was Murray’s first iconic big-screen role. Whether he’s regaling a young caddie at pitchfork-point about the time he was a “looper” for the Dalai Lama, attempting to murder a particularly elusive gopher or consuming a soggy Baby Ruth bar that was thought to be…not a Baby Ruth bar, Murray gives an oddball performance for the ages.

Closing in on 50, Murray embraced his late middle age as jaded industrialist Herman Blume, and located a profound sadness that had never surfaced in his previous work. He’d done existential despair in “Groundhog Day” and “Scrooged,” but this was a lived gloom. Blume is overwhelmingly successful. He has money he’ll never lose. But there’s a gaping hole in his life, and he fills it by falling into a love triangle with a first-grade teacher and a boarding school brat. We were used to Murray bucking the system and gaining the upper hand; in “Rushmore,” he’s reckoning with the pointlessness of his youthful, white-boy rebellion. 

Conceptually, “Ghostbusters” was Dan Aykroyd’s baby, but it might’ve been an all-time flop had he failed to convince his former "SNL" cast mate Bill Murray to play the lovably rakish Peter Venkman. OK, maybe his hardball flirtation with potential client Sigourney Weaver hasn’t aged terribly well (though Weaver deflects and deflates his advances in this scene like a champ); those dated dynamics aside, Murray grounds the film with his glib, I-barely-believe-what-I’m-selling demeanor. It’s pantheon-level work, up there with Jack Benny in “To Be or Not to Be” and Cary Grant in “His Girl Friday.”

A May-October romance set in Japan that would be condemned as problematic in 2019. Why does it still work? Sophia Coppola brings a been-there/suffered-that perspective to the near-coupling that acutely approximates human yearning. Life happens. Love is a volatile emotion. And when it blossoms between consenting adults, how dare you try to place parameters on it. Murray is the perfect vehicle for this impossible romance, and if you’re still trying to tease out his whispered final words, you’re watching the wrong movie.

Murray’s pièce de résistance is another curmudgeon’s comeuppance fantasy, but unlike “Scrooged,” there’s a transcendent spiritualism at work here that grows more resonant on repeat viewings — which is nice, because if ever a film lent itself to repeat viewings, it’s “Groundhog Day.” Murray’s Phil Connors is an irredeemable lout forced to live out the same day as some kind of inscrutable cosmic joke. It’s actually more of a riddle, however, and watching Murray solve it is a profoundly uplifting experience.