Has Bill Murray been in every Wes Anderson movie?

Wes Anderson’s distinct aesthetic and immaculately curated sense of narrative and visual whimsy have become so identifiable that they’ve launched online trends, been widely mocked by detractors of the filmmaker’s work, and evolved into a subgenre of their own. And yet, a Wes Anderson movie never truly feels like a Wes Anderson movie unless Bill Murray is involved.

The famously eccentric actor and the idiosyncratic filmmaker have blossomed into one of cinema’s most famous creative partnerships, and the director is also part of the highly exclusive club who know exactly how to track Murray down despite his well-known preference for making himself as unreachable as possible.

The Academy Award-nominated Saturday Night Live alum and comedy favourite has named Anderson one of the very few people he’ll work with, no questions asked. Considering he’s been in the business since the 1970s, that speaks volumes to his admiration for the auteur, especially when that particular list only features Sofia Coppola, Jim Jarmusch, and… well, that’s about it.

They’ve become as synonymous as they have inseparable, with the announcement of any new Anderson feature creating a sense of expectation that Murray will be involved in one way or another. While that’s almost entirely correct, there have been a couple of ones that got away. They’ve worked together ten times, which puts the actor second on the all-time collaborations list, but there’s nobody to have worked on every Anderson movie other than Anderson himself.

Music supervisor Randall Poster was drafted in on the filmmaker’s sophomore effort, Rushmore, the first of 11 consecutive pictures they made together. That film also welcomed Murray into the club, and it was the first of nine movies in a row Anderson directed him in.

So, how many Wes Anderson movies has Bill Murray been in?

Murray has been in ten Anderson flicks in total, technically 11. After his aforementioned nine-in-a-row feat, the Ghostbusters veteran was notably absent from Asteroid City and The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar and More, although there is a caveat related to the former.

The actor was originally cast in Steve Carrell’s role as the motel manager, but he dropped out after contracting Covid-19. Undeterred, Murray turned up to the set anyway following his recovery, where he was awarded a part in Asteroid City that kept him offscreen but involved nonetheless.

Anderson shot a promo piece for the desert-set romp that featured Murray as Tab Whitney, an actor who was playing the character of Jock Larkings, a business magnate and tangential character created solely for the filmmaker to draft in his lucky charm at short notice.

…and what was Bill Murray’s first movie as an actor?

Murray wasn’t even credited when getting his first taste of the silver screen spotlight, despite his character being awarded a name when he played Nick Kessler in writer and director Paul Mazurky’s 1976 dramedy Next Stop, Greenwich Village, which boasted a cavalcade of future stars that also numbered Christopher Walken and Jeff Goldblum.

He didn’t have to wait long for his first time being credited, though, which came with his second feature. Not only his first credited role but also his first time playing the lead and first time working with his Stripes and Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman, he led the line in the summer camp farce Meatballs.

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