Groundhog Day
(, 2nd edition)
Publishing Details
Groundhog Day
By (Author) Ryan Gilbey
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
BFI Publishing
5th March 2026
2nd edition
United Kingdom
Classifications
Tertiary Education
Non Fiction
Film guides and reviews
Film history, theory or criticism
Physical Properties
112
Width 135mm, Height 190mm
Description
Groundhog Day (1993), directed by HaroldRamis and starring BillMurray, is widely regarded as one of the most original and enduring films of 1990s Hollywood. What begins as a high-concept romantic comedy about a cynical television weatherman forced to repeatedly relive the same day soon deepens into a tale of despair and renewal, coloured by existential unease and the spirit of SamuelBeckett.
In this engaging study, RyanGilbey traces the films unlikely journey from DannyRubins speculative script, centred on a man condemned to eternity in a small town, to its transformation into a studio classic. Drawing on fresh interviews with Rubin, Gilbey explores the inspired casting of Murray and AndieMacDowell, the films quietly radical structure, and the delicate balance between comedy and melancholy that gives Groundhog Day its lasting power.
This new edition includes an afterword in which Gilbey reflects on the films continuing cultural impact, its themes of repetition and despair assuming fresh resonance in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic with its cycle of lockdown and re-opening. He considers Groundhog Days influence on movies and television from Source Code (2011) and Edge of Tomorrow (2014) to Russian Doll (20192022) and IMayDestroyYou (2020), as well as the 2016 stage musical based on the movie. Groundhog Day, Gilbey argues, has become more than a film; it is now a lens through which we examine repetition, transformation and the rhythms of contemporary life.
Author Bio
Ryan Gilbey is a writer and critic based in London. He was named the Independent/Sight and Sound Young Film Journalist of the Year in 1993 at the age of 22, won a Press Gazette award for his reviews at the New Statesman, where he was film critic from 2006 until 2023, and has written for the Guardian since 2002. He is the author of It Don't Worry Me: Nashville, Jaws, Star Wars and Beyond (2003) and It Used to Be Witches: Under the Spell of Queer Cinema (2025).
