The year is 1886 — the newspaper of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania makes mention of a beast that has not seen its shadow, but it’s not until the following year that Groundhog Day becomes official when a group organized to consult the groundhog. And they’ve been going ever since, the numbers have grown substantially, and now they’ve even added livestream capabilities for people to join in the fun globally.
You know how it goes: If the giant North American ground squirrel sees his shadow it’s six more weeks of winter; If he doesn’t, then Spring is about to begin. That’s it. That’s Groundhog Day the holiday, but then along came the movie.
"Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today.” — Phil (Bill Murray)
The late great Harold Ramis made the 1993 film Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray as a weatherman assigned to cover the event who gets caught in a time-loop, reliving the same day over and over again. Pretty good reviews, success at the box office, but its lasting legacy is that the phrase now commonly refers to an unpleasant situation that continually repeats.
And while it’s not the first fictional work to employ the plot device/conceit of a time-loop it is the most memorable example in pop culture and responsible for inspiring other stories where the main character learns from each successive loop through time. Including:
Edge of Tomorrow
Tom Cruise is forced to relive the worst day of his life as he battles time-altering aliens in giant mechanical suits in Doug Liman’s sci-fi blockbuster.
Happy Death Day
You know that classic tale of the college student who is murdered on her birthday and relives the day on repeat while setting out to find the killer and stop her death? Well, you do now, because this horror-infused Groundhog Day-esque movie grossed $125 million and spawned a sequel.
Source Code
Jake Gyllenhall participates in a government experiment that sends him back eight minutes before a bombing over and over again until he can learn the identity of the bomber and get crucial information to stop the next attack.
When We First Met
Netflix’s 2018 romantic comedy variation of this found Adam Devine repeatedly attempting to win over Alexandra Daddario by going into an old school photo booth that sends him back to the night that they met over and over again.
Experiencing déjà vu yet? Starting to feel like we are talking about the same concept over and over again. Movie title, synopsis, repeat. Movie title, synopsis, repeat. Oh no, it’s happening again. Not again. This blog post is becoming more meta by the keystroke.
We’ll spare you the other twenty examples of time-loop movies and instead would love to know: What’s your favorite time-loop movie?
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Note From Tongal: “Thrown for a Loop: Groundhog Day and Other Timeloop Movies" is part of a series of Tongal Community-written blog posts that were originally sourced in the Tongal Blog Open Call Project. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Tongal. Read more Tongal Community-written posts here and then Pitch us a topic you'd like to write about for the Tongal Blog!
