Bill Murray: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

1. Phil Connors - Groundhog Day (1993)

The real genius of Groundhog Day is that it does the same thing a million different ways and at no point loses anything in the telling. The reason it works, even despite a typically stoney performance by Andie McDowell and a frankly ludicrous central premise is that Bill Murray is Phil Connors, and he sells the emotional journey perfectly. Having already played one version of Scrooge five years previously, Murray was at it again, this time without the guiding influence of anything as blatant as ghosts of past, present and future. This Scrooge was trapped in the perpetual Hell of his own life, being forced to live, die, repeat without anything as spectacular to target as thwarting an alien invasion: he just had to stop being himself. Typically, Connors cruises the line between unlikeable and charming that most of Murray's best performances do, and it is the actor's sell of the various stages of grief - reimagined as denial, madness, suicide, acceptance and growth - that propels the film forward to classic status.