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Stream 5 Bill Murray Movies on Netflix This Groundhog Day
Since today is Groundhog Day (and something else called Super Bowl Sunday), in addition to Bill Murray Appreciation Day, we thought it wise to seek out our favorite movies starring the inimitable Bill Murray that are streaming on Netflix (sadly, Groundhog Day isn’t available). Check these out if you’d like to avoid all the Super Bowl madness.
Lost in Translation
Murray stars as an aging actor chillin’ in a Tokyo hotel, filming a whiskey commercial and avoiding his life back home when he meets a young woman (played by Scarlett Johansson) who is having a quarter-life crisis, unsure of what she wants to do with her life and feeling distant from her husband. The friendship and subtle romance that sparks between these two lost souls amid a dazzling Tokyo setting and set to an awesome shoegaze soundtrack marks the best work from everyone involved, from Murray to Johansson to writer/director Sofia Coppola.
Key Murray Scene: Singing “More Than This” by Roxy Music at a karaoke bar.
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Ghostbusters
One of those rare ’80s comedies that has aged remarkably well, Ghostbusters finds Murray at his quippiest as the wisecracking parapsychologist Peter Venkman.
Key Murray Scene: Peter Venkman meets a sexily possessed Sigourney Weaver.
Broken Flowers
Another of Murray’s late-career wins, Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers finds Murray paired with a number of notable actresses (Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange and Tilda Swinton) who play his ex-lovers, one of whom may be the mother of a child he didn’t know he had. Jarmusch, of course, is the auteur behind slacker classics like Permanent Vacation and Stranger Than Paradise; here, he’s in his later, subversive-Hollywood mode.
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Key Murray Scene: Murray has a cute scene having tea with one of his friend’s kids, telling her he bets her dad is Sam Spade with his trademark droll wit.
Scrooged
A cult classic in our book, this retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol sees Murray as a cold-blooded TV exec who learns compassion when three spirits … you know the story, but it’s funnier and darker on screen.
Key Murray Scene: Murray is fully unhinged after he returns from his cosmic trip and gets on live TV to share the true meaning of Christmas. Sweet and totally weird!
Where the Buffalo Roam
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This oddball early filmic take on the madness of Hunter S. Thompson (in 1980, before the far superior Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) is notable for Murray’s delightfully zany performance as the gonzo journalist, along with Peter Boyle as his deranged attorney friend, Carl Lazlo (a take on the real-life Oscar Zeta Acosta, or “Dr. Gonzo”).
Key Murray Scene: In the opening, Thompson shoots his distracting fax machine—don’t mess with a journalist on deadline.
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