19Lost in Translation (2003)

Arguably the best role ever written for Bill Murray, in terms of capturing his ineffable qualities—the goofball, the empath, the ironist. Sofia Coppola has said she based her 2004 Writers Guild Award-winning Original Screenplay on trips she took to Tokyo in her 20s. The age-inappropriate connection between Murray’s Bob Harris, an actor shooting a high-paying whiskey commercial, and Scarlett Johannsen’s Charlotte, a young woman stranded by her photographer husband, simmers with sadness. With their middle-of-the-night jet lag, it’s as if Bob and Charlotte have slipped into another dimension, guided by Coppola’s keen powers of observation.