FAQ for
Groundhog Day (1993) More at IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags have been used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for Groundhog Day can be found here.

Groundhog Day is based on an original script by screenwriter Danny Rubin and further adapted for the screen by Rubin and director Harold Ramis.

According to director Harold Ramis, it goes on for about 10 years (3,600+ iterations). There are a minimum of 34 separate Groundhog Days actually depicted onscreen in the film.

No. The man was simply a homeless man that Phil decided to help. Phil just affectionately called him Dad and Pop.

He did try staying up all night. After Phil gets Rita to believe that he has been reliving the same day over and over again, she decides to stay with him just to see what happens. First she thinks it will end at midnight, but finds out that it starts over at 6:00 AM every morning. She falls asleep but Phil stays awake all night just whispering to her as she sleeps. The alarm then goes off and he looks where Rita was just sleeping to see that she has disappeared. We also never see him go to sleep in the jail cell after his arrest. We only seeing him waking up the next morning, happy that he is no longer in jail.

Just because we don't see Phil try certain things in order to prevent the recurrence of Groundhog Day doesn't mean he didn't try it. Some things occur off camera. Considering he mentions dying in every way there is possible, but we only see him kill himself a few different ways. Also, he gets to know everything about every person in the town. He is clearly not seen doing this throughout the film. So we are lead to believe he took at least one day to get to know every single person.

For the same reason nobody else ages. The day starts over exactly the same as it did the first time. If Phil aged throughout his stay in Groundhog day, he would likely retain something from the day before (e.g. if he was burned one day, the next day he'd have the same burn or scar from the previous day, and so in fact everyone ELSE would be repeating the day and just have no memory of it.)