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50 free Bill Murray trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Bill Murray has no agent, answers a voicemail box when he feels like it, once got arrested on his 20th birthday for smuggling cannabis, and owns a slice of half a dozen minor-league baseball teams. He is also one of the great screen comedians, from Saturday Night Live and Caddyshack to Groundhog Day, Rushmore and Lost in Translation. This Bill Murray trivia quiz covers his whole career and the mythology around it: the Second City years, the Belushi connection, the four-year break at the Sorbonne, the ten Wes Anderson films, the Letterman firsts, the feuds and the Cubs. Questions range from easy (which Ghostbuster did he play, which film has him reliving February 2) to expert-level detail about the films he missed because nobody could reach him, his stint with the Grays Harbor Loggers and the album he cut with a cellist. It suits a movie night, a pub quiz or anyone who has argued about the best Murray performance. Every answer was checked against biographical and encyclopaedic sources before publishing, and each question carries a citation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which Chicago suburb was Bill Murray born in 1950?
Evanston
He was one of nine children in an Irish Catholic family and attended Loyola Academy, a Jesuit school in Wilmette.
Q 02How many siblings does Bill Murray have?
Eight
Three of them, John, Joel and Brian Doyle-Murray, are also actors, and his sister Nancy is a Dominican nun who tours a one-woman show as Catherine of Siena.
Q 03What job did the teenage Murray do to pay for his Jesuit high school education?
Golf caddy
He was inducted into the Caddie Hall of Fame in 2015, and Caddyshack became one of his first hits.
Q 04Why was Murray arrested at O'Hare Airport on his 20th birthday in 1970?
Trying to smuggle 10 lb of cannabis
He gave the game away by joking to a fellow passenger that there was a bomb in his luggage. He was sentenced to probation.
Q 05Murray briefly studied pre-med at which Denver school before dropping out?
Regis
The school gave him an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree in 2007.
Q 06At which Chicago improv troupe did Murray get his start, studying under Del Close?
The Second City
His older brother Brian Doyle-Murray got him the invitation, and by 1974 he was on The National Lampoon Radio Hour in New York.
Q 07In 1975 Murray joined the cast of a short-lived ABC variety show hosted by which sportscaster?
Howard Cosell
The show, confusingly titled Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell, lasted one season and was cancelled in early 1976.
Q 08Whose departure from Saturday Night Live opened the spot Murray filled in the show's second season?
Chevy Chase
Murray famously confronted Chase backstage when Chase returned to host in 1978. They made Caddyshack together the following year.
Q 09Which SNL castmate was Murray romantically involved with during his early seasons?
Gilda Radner
His SNL run from 1977 to 1980 earned him a Primetime Emmy for writing.
Q 10What was Murray's first starring film role, in 1979?
Meatballs
He played camp counsellor Tripper. Caddyshack and Stripes followed in 1980 and 1981.
Q 11Which gonzo journalist did Murray portray in the 1980 film Where the Buffalo Roam?
Hunter S. Thompson
Johnny Depp later played the same writer in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Q 12Murray was the very first guest on which talk show, on February 1, 1982?
Late Night with David Letterman
He was also on the first Late Show episode when Letterman moved to CBS in 1993 and was Letterman's final guest in May 2015.
Q 13Murray agreed to star in Ghostbusters partly to get Columbia to finance which passion project?
The Razor's Edge
Q 21How many Wes Anderson films had Murray appeared in as of The Phoenician Scheme in 2025?
Ten
He is also godfather to Anderson's daughter.
Q 22Which Shakespeare character did Murray play in Michael Almereyda's 2000 Hamlet?
Polonius
That same year he sang Luther Billis in a concert version of South Pacific at Lincoln Center.
Q 23In The Royal Tenenbaums, Murray plays Raleigh St. Clair, the husband of which character?
Margot Tenenbaum
Raleigh is a meek neurologist and writer; Gwyneth Paltrow played his secretive wife.
What product is Murray's character Bob Harris in Tokyo to advertise in Lost in Translation?
The W. Somerset Maugham adaptation, which he co-wrote, flopped, and he took a four-year break from acting afterwards.
Q 14For whom was Murray's Ghostbusters role of Peter Venkman originally written?
John Belushi
Ghostbusters became the highest-grossing film of 1984 and, at the time, the highest-grossing comedy ever.
Q 15During his four-year acting hiatus in the mid-1980s, where did Murray study philosophy and history?
The Sorbonne in Paris
He also haunted the Cinémathèque and made only one cameo, in Little Shop of Horrors, before returning with Scrooged in 1988.
Q 16Which 1990 film is Murray's only directing credit, shared with Howard Franklin?
Quick Change
He plays a bank robber dressed as a clown who cannot get out of New York.
Q 17Which director fell out with Murray on the set of their 1993 time-loop comedy?
Harold Ramis
Screenwriter Danny Rubin said they were 'like two brothers who weren't getting along'. They reconciled shortly before Ramis's death in 2014.
Q 18Who co-starred with Murray in Frank Oz's What About Bob? (1991)?
Richard Dreyfuss
Dreyfuss is one of several co-stars with whom Murray reportedly feuded on set.
Q 19In which 1996 film did Murray appear as Bill Murray alongside Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes?
Space Jam
That same year he played the con-man Ernie McCracken in the Farrelly brothers' Kingpin.
Q 20Which 1998 film began Murray's long collaboration with director Wes Anderson?
Rushmore
He won supporting-actor prizes from the New York, Los Angeles and National Society of Film Critics for playing Herman Blume.
Suntory whiskey
Murray has said Lost in Translation is his favourite of his own films. He lost the Oscar to Sean Penn for Mystic River.
Q 25Which awards did Murray win for Lost in Translation?
A BAFTA and a Golden Globe
He also took the Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead and was the favourite for the Academy Award he did not win.
Q 26Bill Murray agreed to voice Garfield after mistaking writer Joel Cohen for one half of which duo?
The Coen brothers
He nevertheless returned for Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties in 2006.
Q 27Murray's oceanographer Steve Zissou in The Life Aquatic was based on which real explorer?
Jacques Cousteau
The film bombed at the box office and split critics but has since built a cult following.
Q 28Which director made Broken Flowers (2005), Coffee and Cigarettes and The Dead Don't Die with Murray?
Jim Jarmusch
Roger Ebert wrote of Broken Flowers that 'no actor is better than Bill Murray at doing nothing at all'.
Q 29Which US president did Murray play in Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The film covers the 1939 visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. It earned Murray a Golden Globe nomination.
Q 30Which animal did Murray voice in Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox?
Mr. Badger
He also voiced Baloo in the 2016 Jungle Book and appeared in Anderson's stop-motion Isle of Dogs.