Bill Murray's one of those actors who probably doesn't need an introduction, but he's going to get one anyway. An actor/comedian who started out in the 1970s, with his first prominent mainstream exposure being as a cast member/writer on Saturday Night Live during the end of that decade. By the start of the 1980s, he'd successfully transitioned into film, and has never really slowed down as an actor since, popping up in all sorts of roles - both lead and supporting - over the last 40+ years.

Given his comedian roots, most of the best Bill Murray movies have been comedies, but he's proven himself to be a surprisingly good dramatic actor in some less comedy-centered films over the years. Given how prolific he's been as an actor, highlighting the best of the best will lead to some omissions. As such, honorable mentions are in order, and include - but are not limited to - movies like Stripes, The French Dispatch, Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Moonrise Kingdom, Scrooged, and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

10 'Zombieland' (2009)

Director: Ruben Fleischer

Cinematic depictions of the end of the world aren’t usually as funny as shown in Zombieland, which combines blunt comedy, grisly horror violence, and memorable characters to satisfying effect. Much of the film revolves around four unlikely people forming an uneasy alliance to survive a zombie apocalypse together, with part of their misadventures including a stopover at the house of Bill Murray.

Murray plays himself in what amounts to an extended cameo, but it’s impressive how he uses minimal screen time to essentially steal what’s already a pretty good movie. Extra points also have to be awarded to both Zombieland and Murray for the self-deprecating humor present in the cameo, given how when Murray lies dying (spoilers for a 15-year-old movie, sorry), he admits that the only real regret of his life was voicing Garfield.

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9 'Caddyshack' (1980)

Director: Harold Ramis

A blunt and crude blend of comedy and sports genres, Caddyshack is certainly a film of its era, but those who don’t mind the sense of humor found in provocative 1980s comedy might still get something out of this one. It’s also a vital film within Bill Murray’s body of work, given his supporting role here as a simple-minded gardener who wages a losing war with a gopher was one of his earliest.

Given it was a pivotal film within Murray’s early days as a movie actor, and because Murray once again kind of steals the film (even without being the main character), Caddyshack does have to be considered one of the most memorable Bill Murray movies. Maybe other parts of this chaotic comedy about golf don’t really hold up that well, but Caddyshack does still have an odd charm to it, and it was one of many movies that Murray and Harold Ramis made together.

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8 'Broken Flowers' (2005)

Director: Jim Jarmusch

Bill Murray has been featured in a decent number of films directed by Jim Jarmusch, with 2005’s Broken Flowers likely being their best collaboration to date. It’s a quietly funny romance/drama movie, and has an engaging premise that revolves around a middle-aged womanizer visiting various loves of his life after getting a mysterious (and anonymous) letter telling him about the fact that he purportedly has a son.

Emphasizing character moments and a decidedly unique tone over telling a complex narrative or being laugh-out-loud hilarious, Broken Flowers has an undoubtedly striking and distinctive feel to it. It’s also a film that demonstrates Murray’s range outside the sorts of broad comedies he’s best known for, and is more than worth seeking out for that merit alone, especially for anyone most familiar with the goofier side of his filmography.

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7 'Lost in Translation' (2003)

Director: Sofia Coppola

Speaking of Bill Murray movies that successfully get a little more serious than you might expect, Lost in Translation is another quiet yet memorable 2000s release the actor starred in, and is a dramedy that emphasizes drama over comedy. The plot here is also very simple, with it revolving around a middle-aged man finding a connection with a younger woman (Scarlett Johansson) while both battle loneliness while staying in Tokyo for different reasons.

Not only is it one of Bill Murray’s best movies, but it was also one of Johansson’s first great roles, and might remain the best movie Sofia Coppola’s directed so far. It’s not a film that’s aged perfectly, but there’s a certain mood captured within Lost in Translation that’s intoxicating and hard to deny, and it’s similarly memorable for the strength of the performances given by its two leads.

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6 'The Royal Tenenbaums' (2001)

Director: Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson is a filmmaker who’s used Bill Murray many times throughout his filmography, featuring him in parts both large and small (aforementioned honorable mentions like The Grand Budapest Hotel and Moonrise Kingdom remained honorable mentions because Murray played a fairly small role overall). But The Royal Tenenbaums, despite it being a film with an ensemble cast, is one of the Anderson + Murray collaborations where the latter gets to shine.

The film, in typical Wes Anderson fashion, is a sometimes funny and sometimes very sad look at a dysfunctional family, with Murray playing a neurologist who marries into the titular Tenenbaum family. It’s an emotional and visually pleasing movie that balances itself well tonally, and as far as Wes Anderson movies go, was perhaps the first that showed he had a knack for directing movies with impressively large casts.

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5 'Ed Wood' (1994)

Director: Tim Burton

Biopics honestly don’t get much better than Ed Wood, which is an excellently made and overall underrated Tim Burton movie about cult filmmaker Edward D. Wood Jr., best known for the infamous 1957 sci-fi film Plan 9 from Outer Space. As a film, Ed Wood finds both humor and pathos in the story of this determined filmmaker, celebrating his creative output while being honest about the fact that his films were, by conventional standards at least, not very good.

There’s a great cast all doing great work in Ed Wood, with Johnny Depp being excellent in the title role and Martin Landau (in an Oscar-winning role) often stealing the show with his portrayal of Bela Lugosi. Murray appears as the real-life Bunny Breckinridge, a friend of Wood’s who appeared in Plan 9 from Outer Space, and someone who was one of the few people depicted in the film still alive when Ed Wood was released in 1994.

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4 'Rushmore' (1998)

Director: Wes Anderson

Rushmore finds humor in the awkwardness of growing up, and while it wasn’t Wes Anderson’s first feature film, it was arguably his first great movie. It’s also pivotal for being the first of many collaborations between Anderson and Murray, with the latter memorably playing a supporting character who competes, in a sense, with the protagonist – a smart but easily distracted teenager – with both of them falling for the same woman.

Just describing the premise might make Rushmore sound too weird or awkward to work, but it handles a potentially risky premise well, and ends up being a film that expertly balances both comedy and drama. With just a handful of characters, it’s one of Anderson’s smaller and more intimate movies, but this does help ensure all the main actors – including Bill Murray – are given ample opportunities to shine.

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3 'Ghostbusters' (1984)

Director: Ivan Reitman

Even though Bill Murray had been in some successful movies before 1984, it was that year’s Ghostbusters that feels like it made him a true superstar, at least in hindsight. It’s a movie that’s kicked off what’s now a long-running franchise, but you also can’t really beat the original, as far as Ghostbusters is concerned, with the 1984 film about a group of men starting a ghost-catching business in New York City being undoubtedly iconic.

Beyond Murray, there are also great performances here from the likes of Sigourney Weaver, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis… but all the funniest moments do tend to go to Murray, playing the sarcastic and wise-cracking Peter Venkman. Beyond being funny, Ghostbusters also has some creative fantastical elements and groundbreaking special effects, not to mention an impossible-to-forget theme song. Overall, calling it a classic of the 1980s is probably an understatement.

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2 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou' (2004)

Director: Wes Anderson

It’s understandable why some might not consider The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou to be Wes Anderson’s best movie, but it might well contain the best Bill Murray performance of all their collaborations. This is partly thanks to the film – even with its ensemble cast – belonging to Murray, as he plays the titular Steve Zissou: a man determined to hunt down and kill the shark that ate a good friend of his.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is whimsical and weird for much of its runtime, in typical Wes Anderson fashion, but gets surprisingly serious in parts, and the final scenes prove genuinely moving. It’s a film that’s likely to take viewers off guard, and Murray’s performance is similarly disarming in the sense that it feels like he’s doing his usual thing early on, but each new scene shows off layers to the titular figure, with Steve Zissou ending up as one of Murray’s best characters/performances.

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1 'Groundhog Day' (1993)

Director: Harold Ramis

As far as iconic Bill Murray movies go, Groundhog Day has it all: consistently good humor, an engaging premise, and a few moments of genuine pathos that let Murray showcase his dramatic capabilities. That’s not to say this decade-defining fantastical dramedy is ever miserable or overly downbeat, but it does explore some of the consequences that would come from being stuck in a time loop in a down-to-earth and quite honest way.

It's a film that would still be some degree of fun had it had a lesser actor in the lead role, but Groundhog Day is ultimately great because of Murray, given how often he’s on-screen and how directly the viewer is shown everything from his character’s point of view. It’s also very well-directed by Harold Ramis (who also co-wrote the film), but when talking about Bill Murray’s best movies specifically, Groundhog Day feels like a worthy #1.

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