-->"''Well, it's Groundhog Day... ''again''...''"

This 1993 film massively popularised the [[GroundhogDayLoop eponymous trope.]] With BillMurray at his deadpan best and a script that frequently finds new ways to entertain you in this day of repetition, the film is considered a modern classic.

Phil Connors, an arrogant and smarmy weatherman for local news, his new female producer Rita, and cameraman Larry go to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to film the Groundhog Day festival, an annual ritual which Phil loathes.

After being trapped in Punxsutawney by a blizzard, he wakes up the next morning to find it's still Groundhog Day. Everyone goes on ''exactly'' like they did the previous day, with only him aware of it. Surprised, he goes through the motions, still gets stuck in Punxsutawney, and wakes up the next morning to find it's still Groundhog Day, ''again''.

A few times round the loop, and Phil starts to see the upside. He can do anything he wants, with no fear of the consequences because tommorrow will never come. He can manipulate the townsfolk with ease using what he learned about them in previous iterations and he can steal money with perfect knowledge of an opening to take a bag of money. Soon he is living a dream life, with wealth enough to buy everything Punxsutawney can offer and inside knowledge that lets him talk every girl in town into bed.

Every girl but one. Rita remains resistant to his charms. No matter what he tries, he cannot find the magic sequence of words that will win her. Even when he tells her everything she's told him she wants to hear, she still detects his insincerity, and rebuffs him. He learns French poetry for her and she still keeps him at arms length.

Frustrated by his failure and the endless, unchanging repetition of the day taking it's toll on him, Phil [[DespairEventHorizon falls into despair]]. First trying to kill the groundhog, when that fails, just himself. But nothing works, he wakes up the next morning in Groundhogs Day. Eventually, he talks to Rita, telling her about his predicament and asking what she'd do. Rita, for the first time detecting something sincere and likeable within Phil, convinces him to look at the cycle as an opportunity not just for self-indulgence, but for self-improvement.

Phil starts using the time to improve himself, and the town. He takes this day seriously because this is ''his'' day. Over many repetitions he teaches himself numerous skills, such as piano-playing and ice sculpture, and puts right those things that went wrong on the original day. This culminates in a single perfect day, which is enough to win Rita.

The next day he wakes up to a brand new day, full of promise.
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!!Groundhog Day provides examples of:
* AGodAmI
--> '''Phil:''' "I said I'm like ''a'' god. I'm not ''the'' God... At least I don't think..."
* AntiHero
* BachelorAuction
* ButtMonkey - Both Larry and Phil, with each other.
* {{Cameo}} - by writer/director Harold Ramis, no less. He plays a doctor.
** The commentary reveals that this wasn't intentional. The extra they hired never showed, and somebody had to step into the big white coat.
*** Plus Harold Ramis makes a very good doctor, since most people associate him with [[GhostBusters Dr. Egon Spengler]]
* ComedicSociopathy
* ConvenientSlowDance: Although by that point, Phil is GenreSavvy enough to have deliberately arranged it.
* CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming - ''"When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn't imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter."''
** ''..."You're a sucker for French poetry and rhinestones. You're very generous. You're kind to strangers and children, and when you stand in the snow you look like an angel."'' Say it with me now: Awwwww!
*** Awwww!
* CursedWithAwesome
* DeadpanSnarker - Phil, ''par excellence''.
* DespairEventHorizon - Phil is eventually driven to the depths of suicidal despair by the endless repetition of February 2nd. Then, he's driven into even further depths of suicidal despair by the fact that suicide ''doesn't work''. Interestingly, it's when he's at his lowest that he eventually hits on simply telling Rita the truth of what's happening to him... and things begin to improve from that point on.
* TheDitz - Mrs. Lancaster means well, but... she's not all there upstairs.
--> '''Phil:''' "Do you ever have déjà vu?"
--> '''Mrs. Lancaster:''' "Oh, I don't think so, but I could check with the kitchen."
* EpilepticTrees - One of the more outlandish theories is that Phil was trapped in Groundhog Day for ''several thousand years''. (Although in an earlier, discarded draft of the script, he ''was''.) The current theory was that it was closer to about 10 years.
** It's mentioned someplace (perhaps in the older draft of the script?) that he read the entire Punxsutawney library, ''every'' book in it, by reading them one page a day. Each book would take months, if not years, to read; and there would be thousands of them in the library.
** As a point of fact, WordOfGod has it that [[http://www.dannyrubin.com/blogusgroundhogus/2008/01/29/the-magic-of-friendship/ the timeframe is intentionally ambiguous, but likely on the order of ten years]]. (It also confirms that the original plan was for thousands - although they only used a bookshelf at the bed & breakfast, not a library - and [[ExecutiveMeddling the studio wanted two weeks]].)
** This isn't that far out, actually - considering that he learns, from scratch, how to make ice sculptures with a [[ChainsawGood chainsaw!]]
* EverythingButTheGirl - Closer to "Everything ''Before'' The Girl," but it counts.
* EyeTake - used to full effect by Bill Murray.
* FridgeBrilliance - It's essentially a solid hour and a half of character development. I mean you could say that Phil did a 180 just to ensure a Hollywood happy ending, but actually getting from point A to point B through the rambling inner monologue of the protagonist in a logical way without making anyone carry the IdiotBall is something to appreciate. Especially if the finished version is funny.
* {{Foil}} - Ned Ryerson, provoking the same reactions from Phil that Phil causes in others.
* GroundhogDayLoop - TropeNamer.
* HeroicBSOD
* HighConcept - Man is forced to relive one day over and over. A simple concept that allows for so many scenarios.
* InherentlyFunnyWord - Gobbler's Knob, site of the groundhog ceremony
* InstantExpert
--> '''Piano Teacher:''' And you've ''never'' played before?
--> '''Phil:''' Not before today.
**Subverted in that he's only an InstantExpert from the rest of the town's time frame, not Phil's own.
* {{Jerkass}} - Phil most obviously, Ned somewhat less intentionally. It's also made pretty clear that Larry's a bit of a jerk as well.
* KarmaHoudini - At least initially; Phil exploits the time loop to do whatever he wants to whomever he wants whenever he wants and avoid the consequences, and ends up repeatedly robbing, seducing, attacking, cheating and manipulating the townsfolk seemingly without punishment. Over the course of the movie, however, it becomes pretty clear that the time loop ''is'' his punishment, not only for his actions in the movie but for his whole Jerkass nature before the day began. A deleted idea that the loop was the result of a curse from a jilted ex-lover underscores this point
* KickTheDog - Phil towards the beginning of the movie.
** Don't forget Larry, too. At first, he just comes off as a guy who won't put up with Phil's crap, but the scene where he steals back his tip money is supposed to be an indicator that he's not a very nice fella (if you missed it, then his later comeuppance seems to come literally out of nowhere).
* Main/LeisureSuitLarry - Larry the cameraman.
* Main/MentalTimeTravel
* {{Montage}} - Used effectively a couple of times.
* Main/ThePowerOfLove - Only by winning Rita's heart does Phil break the time loop.
* MenDontCry - After Rita says that the perfect man for her wouldn't be afraid of crying, Phil responds with, "This is a ''man'' we're talking about, right?"
** And he ''himself'' [[SubvertedTrope subverts this belief]] later when he finally [[ManlyTears learns how precious life is]] through his through his futile attempts to save a homeless old man from dying of old age.
* RingRingCRUNCH - Phil does this to his clock radio that won't stop playing "I Got You Babe" a number of times.
* SaveScumming - An unusual non-video-game example of this trope.
* SeenItAllSuicide - A rare, non-animated example when [[spoiler: an extremely bored and depressed Phil kills himself multiple times. Then in a subsequent scene he lists each one to Rita as a shocked waitress looks on. HilarityEnsues.]]
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong - The many errands Phil runs as he spends longer and longer in the loop.
* SmallNameBigEgo - Phil before the loop. He invariably responded to greetings with, "Hi, thanks for watching."
* SnowMeansLove - Several times.
** Once, really. See, this is why I hate time travel.
* {{Tearjerker}} - As Phil learns the fragility (and preciousness) of life through his repeated and futile attempts to save a dying, homeless old man whom he was mean to in the first "years" of his stay on Groundhog Day.
** Also, WordOfGod states that execs originally wanted this subplot dropped because it was [[ExecutiveMeddling too much of a downer]] for a comedy. The director insisted that it stay in, and rightly so, because it shows the egotistical Phil that he is not, in fact, "a god."
* TypeCasting - Mostly Bill Murray, alternately played straight and inverted during the course of the movie, but a couple of the others could be described as such too.
* ViewersAreGoldfish - Subverted by this film and many others that use GroundhogDayLoop plot devices, as each repetition has variations.
* ViewersAreMorons - Phil believes most of his audience are ("People love blood sausage: people are morons").
* WhatCouldHaveBeen - The original script featured the explanation for the unending loop and its escape clause, but they found by [[DoingInTheWizard leaving it out]] made the film more magical.
* YouCantFightFate
--> '''Phil:''' What's wrong with him (homeless old man)? [[{{Tearjerker}} Can't you]] [[ManlyTears do anything?]]
--> '''Doctor:''' He's very old. It happens.
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