Twin films are films with the same or similar plots produced and released within a close proximity of time by two different .Jasper Rees. " Hooray for Bollywood", Evening Standard, 12 October 2001. Retrieved 23 June 2011. The phenomenon can result from two or more production companies investing in similar scripts at the same time, resulting in a race to distribute the films to audiences.Fredrik Strage. " Tvillingfilmer resultatet av ängsliga filmbolag ", Dagens Nyheter, 28 September 2009. Retrieved 22 June 2011. (In Swedish)Henrik Arvidsson. " Först till kvarn i Drömfabriken" Dagens Nyheter, 11 July 2008. Retrieved 22 June 2011. (In Swedish) Some attribute twin films to industrial espionage, the movement of staff between studios, or that the same are sent to several film studios before being accepted. Another possible explanation is if the films deal with topical issues, such as volcanic eruptions, reality television, terrorist attacks, or significant anniversaries, resulting in multiple discovery of the concept.
While twin films are often big budget films, a mockbuster can be made with a low budget, with similar titles, aesthetics, or theme as blockbuster films.Rolf Potts. " The New B Movie" The New York Times Magazine, 7 October 2007. Retrieved 12 January 2009. Mockbusters are usually given more limited release and marketing, intending to take advantage of the public interest in the topic driven by the major film.
The 2008 film Who Do You Love?, about American record label Chess Records, had its widespread release delayed until 2010 to avoid competing with Cadillac Records, a higher-budget 2008 film on the same subject.
In one case, for the 1974 film The Towering Inferno, the fear of having competing action thrillers, both set in a burning skyscraper, convinced two Hollywood studios to merge their productions into one (all-star) film.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | 1920 | Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | 1920 | Based on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) (2025). 9781936168682, Midnight Marquee Press. ISBN 9781936168682 |
Ingagi | 1930 | Africa Speaks! | 1930 | Both exploitation films about an expedition in the Belgian Congo. |
Dishonored | 1931 | Mata Hari | 1931 | Both films are about female spies. MGM studios, alarmed by the competition that the Sternberg-Dietrich phenomena posed to star Greta Garbo, responded with the copycat Mata Hari the same year.Chicago Film Society, 2011 Riche, 2008 Sarris, 1966. p. 32 |
The Black Cat | 1934 | Maniac | 1934 | Both are loose adaptations of The Black Cat. |
Young Mr. Lincoln | 1939 | Abe Lincoln in Illinois | 1940 | Both are about Abraham Lincoln. |
Alice au pays des Merveilles | 1949 | Alice in Wonderland | 1951 | Both are Animation adaptations of Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The Walt Disney Company would sue the French film's distributors to prevent release of the British version in the U.S., and the case was extensively covered in Time magazine. The company that released the British version accused Disney of trying to exploit their film by releasing its version at virtually the same time. |
Sign of the Pagan | 1954 | Attila | 1954 | Both films about Attila and his invasion of the Western Roman Empire; a contemporary review in The New York Times writes, "Attila the Hun, quite ignored by moviemakers up to now, is about to step into the limelight in two new films." |
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines | 1965 | The Great Race | 1965 | Both are slapstick films about a race in the early 1900s, inspired by the success of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). The films were released two weeks apart. |
You're a Big Boy Now | 1966 | The Graduate | 1967 | Also Benjamin (1968). All are coming-of-age Comedy drama about a young man being pursued by an older woman. |
Leo the Last | 1970 | The Landlord | 1970 | Both deal with issues of class and race and feature an upper-class man who moves into a lower-class black neighborhood and gets involved with the residents. |
The Strawberry Statement | 1970 | Getting Straight | 1970 | Also The Revolutionary and R. P. M. (1970). All are dramas about campus revolt. |
Bloody Mama | 1970 | The Grissom Gang | 1971 | Both based on the life story of Ma Barker. |
Godspell | 1973 | Jesus Christ Superstar | 1973 | Both adaptations of 1971 Broadway musicals based on the life of Jesus Christ. |
The Killing of Angel Street | 1981 | Heatwave | 1982 | Both were loosely based on the disappearance of Australian anti-development activist Juanita Nielsen. |
Wild Style | 1983 | Beat Street | 1984 | Both are well-received old-school hip hop films, focusing on all four pillars of hip hop culture. |
Top Gun | 1986 | Iron Eagle | 1986 | Both are films about fighter pilots. |
Platoon | 1986 | Full Metal Jacket | 1987 | Also Hamburger Hill (1987) and 84C MoPic (1989). All are bleak, violent and unglamorized depictions of the Vietnam War. John Irvin interview, The Flashback Files |
K-9 | 1989 | Turner & Hooch | 1989 | Both are buddy cop-dog films about a police officer who gets a dog for a partner. |
DeepStar Six | 1989 | Leviathan | 1989 | Also The Abyss, The Evil Below, Lords of the Deep (1989) and The Rift (1990); all are underwater thrillers involving explorers discovering strange new (and in most of the movies hostile) creatures in the ocean. |
1989 | 1990 | Both are biopics of James Bond creator Ian Fleming. | ||
King of New York | 1990 | New Jack City | 1990 | Both portray gang culture in New York City and were released within 6 months of each other near the end of 1990. |
1992 | 1992 | Both films deal with Columbus' discovery of the New World. These films were released to commemorate the 500th anniversary of this discovery. A comedic version of the discovery was also released in 1992 with Carry on Columbus. | ||
American Me | 1992 | Blood In Blood Out | 1993 | Both films depict gang violence in the Mexican-American community in California. At one point, American Me star and director Edward James Olmos was offered to star in and direct Blood In Blood Out, but passed on the film due to creative differences. Floyd Mutrux is credited as a co-writer on both films. |
Carnosaur | 1993 | Jurassic Park | 1993 | Both are action adventure films involving the genetic recreation of dinosaurs or prehistoric animals. Both are also based on books. |
Groundhog Day | 1993 | 1993 | Both are about an individual stuck in a 24 hour time loop where the protagonist wakes every morning on the same day and experiences the events of that day over and over until they discover how to break the cycle. 12:01 is based on a previously made into . | |
Kalifornia | 1993 | Natural Born Killers | 1994 | Also 1993 mini-series Murder in the Heartland. All are road movies about a couple engaging in multi-state Spree killer and all directly or loosely based on real murderer Charles Starkweather. Both films have Juliette Lewis as a main character. |
Tombstone | 1993 | Wyatt Earp | 1994 | Both are Wyatt Earp biopics. |
Gordy | 1994 | Babe | 1995 | Both are starring piglets. |
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert | 1994 | To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar | 1995 | Both have the plot of Drag queen going on a road trip across their country (in one case Australia, in the other, the United States), in a journey of self-discovery. |
Braveheart | 1995 | Rob Roy | 1995 | Also The Bruce (1996); all are adventure/war biopics set in Scotland. |
Showgirls | 1995 | Striptease | 1996 | Also Stripteaser (1996). All three are erotic film featuring a lead character involved in the stripper profession.Gary Dudak. " Twin Movies: A History of Two Similar Films Coming Out at the Same Time" Mandatory, 14 April 2014 |
Powder | 1995 | Phenomenon | 1996 | Both tell the story of a man with telepathic powers that make him an outcast in a small town. Both films were also released by Disney's Buena Vista Pictures. |
Tornado! | 1996 | Twister | 1996 | Also Night of the Twisters (1996). All deal with tornado chasers in their line of work who must track down a large tornado. |
The Arrival | 1996 | Contact | 1997 | Both are science fiction Thriller film in which the main character is a radio astronomer that takes part in a conspiracy involving making first contact with an alien race. |
Executive Decision | 1996 | Air Force One | 1997 | Both are films about Terrorism hijacking a plane and a rescue team saving the passengers and defeating the terrorists. Con Air (1997) also has a similar concept, though involving convicts. |
Dante's Peak | 1997 | Volcano | 1997 | Also (1997). All three are disaster films centered around volcanic eruptions. |
Kundun | 1997 | Seven Years in Tibet | 1997 | Both are fact-based dramas set in mid-20th century Tibet, with the 14th Dalai Lama as a main character. |
The House of Yes | 1997 | The Myth of Fingerprints | 1997 | Also The Ice Storm (1997). All three films center around dysfunctional families gathering for Thanksgiving. |
Murder at 1600 | 1997 | Absolute Power | 1997 | Both films center around a Washington, D.C. murder investigation involving the President/at the White House. |
Antz | 1998 | A Bug's Life | 1998 | Both are computer-animated films about insects, starring a non-conformist ant who falls in love with an ant princess, leaves the mound, and eventually returns and is hailed as a hero. |
The Curve | 1998 | Dead Man On Campus | 1998 | Both are thrillers where two college roommates try to get roommate to commit suicide in order to get a passing grade. Both are also based on the same urban legend. |
Deep Impact | 1998 | Armageddon | 1998 | Also Doomsday Rock (1997), Asteroid (1997), Judgment Day (1998), and Tycus (1998). All are global catastrophic risk centered around an impending impact event that threatens to end most or all life on Earth. |
Saving Private Ryan | 1998 | The Thin Red Line | 1998 | Also Life Is Beautiful (1997). All are dramas about World War II. |
Sliding Doors | 1998 | Run Lola Run | 1998 | Both films tell the same story of a woman multiple times, changing a minor detail at the beginning and depicting how that change drastically affects the outcome. |
54 | 1998 | Last Days of Disco | 1998 | Both films are set against the backdrop of the waning disco era of the late 1970s and early 1980s. |
The Truman Show | 1998 | EDtv | 1999 | Also Pleasantville (1998). All are films in which a person or a large group of people's lives are broadcast on TV. |
Overnight Delivery | 1998 | Road Trip | 2000 | Both are romantic comedy Road movie where a college student believes his girlfriend, attending another college, is cheating, and sends nasty letter. He then discovers that she's not cheating, and must embarks on a road trip to her campus recover the package before she gets it., while being joined by his friends. |
The Matrix | 1999 | The Thirteenth Floor | 1999 | Also eXistenZ (1999) and Dark City (1998); all are science fiction films involving a false reality, and the theme of whether the world is real or an illusion. |
Anywhere But Here | 1999 | Tumbleweeds | 1999 | Both films concern a mother-daughter pair who drive across the country to settle in California. |
Entrapment | 1999 | The Thomas Crown Affair | 1999 | Both are focused on the relationship between an attractive female insurance investigator and a male thief who steals an expensive painting by a famous artist. |
End of Days | 1999 | Stigmata | 1999 | Also Lost Souls (2000); all are supernatural religious horror films involving the Catholic Church. Both End of Days and Stigmata star Gabriel Byrne as a main character. Both End of Days and Lost Souls involve the theme of Satan taking possession of a man's body. |
10 Things I Hate About You | 1999 | Hamlet | 2000 | Also O (2001); All are modern-day adaptations of William Shakespeare plays, featuring Julia Stiles as the female lead. |
Scary Movie | 2000 | Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth | 2000 | Both are horror movie Parody featuring a killer wearing a Ghostface mask; Scary Movie additionally had the working title Scream If You Know What I Did Last Halloween. |
2000 | 2000 | Both are Italian Television film are about Padre Pio. | ||
Mission to Mars | 2000 | Red Planet | 2000 | Also Blood Red Planet (2000) and Ghosts of Mars (2001). All are science fiction adventure films about expeditions to Mars. However, Ghosts of Mars is a horror film. |
Wonder Boys | 2000 | Finding Forrester | 2000 | Both are films involving a writer and his friendship with a student. |
Bring It On | 2000 | Sugar & Spice | 2001 | Both films are comedies about high school cheerleading squads. Sugar & Spice star Marley Shelton was the second choice to play Bring It On character Torrance Shipman, prior to Kirsten Dunst being cast in the role, after previously turning it down. Also, according to Bring It On star Gabrielle Union, she and many of her Bring It On co-stars also auditioned for Sugar & Spice. |
U-571 | 2000 | Enigma | 2001 | Both are fictional thrillers set in World War II about the Germans' Enigma machine. |
The Score | 2001 | Heist | 2001 | Both are crime thriller films involving a major robbery. |
Chasing Liberty | 2004 | First Daughter | 2004 | Both are romantic comedy films about the rebellious daughter of the President of the United States. |
Red Eye | 2005 | Flightplan | 2005 | Both are thriller films set on airplanes. |
Capote | 2005 | Infamous | 2006 | Both are drama films about Truman Capote and the writing of In Cold Blood. The confluence of the two films led to an incident in 2003 when Infamous writer-director Douglas McGrath called producer Bingham Ray to announce that his script had been finished, and Ray responded "I know, I've got it on my desk!" before realizing that he actually had the screenplay to Capote.John Seabrook. " Tru, Two", The New Yorker, 25 September 2006. Retrieved 23 June 2011. |
The Zodiac | 2005 | Zodiac | 2007 | Also Curse of the Zodiac (2007); All are films based on the story of the Zodiac Killer. |
Zzyzx | 2006 | Zyzzyx Road | 2006 | Both are thrillers about people trying to hide a dead body on Zzyzx Road in California.Faraci, Devin. (January 10, 2007) Chud.com Crisis on infinite Zyzzyx roads. |
United 93 | 2006 | Flight 93 | 2006 | Both are dramas about United Airlines Flight 93. |
The Prestige | 2006 | The Illusionist | 2006 | Both are films about 19th-century magicians. |
Happy Feet | 2006 | Surf's Up | 2007 | Both are computer-animated comedy films about penguins. |
This Christmas | 2007 | Nothing Like The Holidays | 2008 | Both Holiday film, set in Chicago, revolve around extended families celebrate the Christmas holiday season. |
Eagle Eye | 2008 | Echelon Conspiracy | 2009 | Both center around a government AI supercomputer that is tasked with protecting the US through ubiquitous surveillance and endless access to nearly all technology, which becomes too autonomous and powerful. |
Repo! The Genetic Opera | 2008 | Repo Men | 2010 | Set in a dystopian future, both films are about one or more corporate-employed "repo men" who fatally repossess artificial organs when patients default on their payments. |
Observe and Report | 2009 | 2009 | Both are comedy films about an overweight mall cop. | |
Gamer | 2009 | Surrogates | 2009 | Also Avatar (2009); Science fiction films in which people control physical remotely-operated bodies. |
Despicable Me | 2010 | Megamind | 2010 | Both are computer-animated films featuring a stereotypical supervillain as the protagonist. |
Skyline | 2010 | 2011 | Both are alien invasion movies that primarily take place in Los Angeles. Sony Pictures, the studio of Battle, initiated legal action against the directors and special effects gurus of Skyline for allegedly ripping off ideas and equipment for their similar film. Sony later dismissed their arbitration, stating they were satisfied their own special effects were not used in Skyline. | |
No Strings Attached | 2011 | Friends with Benefits | 2011 | Both are romantic comedies about a pair of friends who have a casual, non-romantic sexual relationship and eventually fall in love. No Strings Attached had the working title Friends with Benefits, but had to be renamed due to a conflict with the other film. |
Yann Samuell's War of the Buttons | 2011 | Christophe Barratier's War of the Buttons | 2011 | Both are French film adaptations of the 1912 novel War of the Buttons, released a week apart from one another, though the first was set in the Algerian War while the second was set in World War II. |
The Raid | 2011 | Dredd | 2012 | Both films deal with a law enforcement officer infiltrating a tall residential building in pursuit of a crime lord, wherein the crime lord attempts to turn the residents against the officer. |
Extraterrestrial | 2011 | Seeking a Friend for the End of the World | 2012 | Also (2011) and Melancholia (2011). All are apocalyptic science fiction films. |
Quartet | 2012 | A Late Quartet | 2012 | Both are about the members of a classical music quartet facing old age. |
Mirror Mirror | 2012 | Snow White and the Huntsman | 2012 | Both are loose adaptations of the fairy tale Snow White. Also the Spanish 2012 film Blancanieves adapts Snow White, using black-and-white silent cinematography like the 2012 French film The Artist. |
Upside Down | 2012 | Patema Inverted | 2013 | Both are a romance between characters of twin worlds, each with gravity opposite to the other. |
The Other Son | 2012 | Like Father, Like Son | 2013 | Both films revolve around two young men who were switched at birth and raised by families from contrasting socioeconomic strata. |
A Hijacking | 2012 | Captain Phillips | 2013 | Both are about a pirate attack on a cargo ship off the coast of Somalia. |
Jobs | 2013 | Steve Jobs | 2015 | Both are Steve Jobs biopics. |
Olympus Has Fallen | 2013 | White House Down | 2013 | Both are action films about terrorist attacks on the White House.Roger Wilson. " Tvillingfilmer", Godmorgon, världen!, Sveriges Radio P1, 18 May 2014. Retrieved 18 May 2014. (In Swedish) |
Oblivion | 2013 | After Earth | 2013 | Both films include a protagonist who must fight for survival on a post-apocalyptic Earth. |
This Is the End | 2013 | The World's End | 2013 | Also Rapture-Palooza (2013); all are apocalyptic comedy films. Both This Is the End and Rapture-Palooza star Craig Robinson as a main character. |
The Double | 2013 | Enemy | 2013 | Both are about a man who finds his physical doppelgänger in a seemingly totalitarian state. |
Yves Saint Laurent | 2014 | Saint Laurent | 2014 | Both are Yves Saint Laurent biopics. |
The Equalizer | 2014 | John Wick | 2014 | Both films involve a highly trained protagonist who seeks vengeance through killing. |
Life After Beth | 2014 | Burying the Ex | 2014 | Also Warm Bodies (2013). All three are romantic comedies involving zombies. |
Moonwalkers | 2015 | Operation Avalanche | 2016 | Both are films based on Moon landing conspiracy theories. |
The Beauty Inside | 2015 | Every Day | 2018 | Both are a romance between a woman and a spirit who wakes up every day in a different body. |
Marguerite | 2015 | Florence Foster Jenkins | 2016 | Both films are based on the life of Florence Foster Jenkins. |
The Martian | 2015 | Approaching the Unknown | 2016 | Also Forsaken (2018). Both are about a man who is stranded in space on a mission to Mars and has to figure out a way to survive. |
Spectre | 2015 | 2015 | Both films feature the protagonists chasing after secret criminal organisations through Austria, Morocco and London while their intelligence agencies are shutting down. Paramount had to advance the release date of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation to avoid conflicting with Spectre. Also, . | |
Other People | 2016 | The Hollars | 2016 | Both are about a male writer living in New York City who returns to his hometown for his mother dying of cancer. |
Christine | 2016 | Kate Plays Christine | 2016 | Both are films about Christine Chubbuck, though Kate Plays Christine is a documentary about the acting process. |
Patriots Day | 2016 | Stronger | 2017 | Both films revolve around the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings and their aftermath. |
Captain Fantastic | 2016 | The Glass Castle | 2017 | Both are about a large family who lives secluded from the civilized world and deal with its moral ramifications. |
Anthropoid | 2016 | The Man with the Iron Heart | 2017 | Both films are about Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of Schutzstaffel-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich. |
The Jungle Book | 2016 | 2018 | Both are live-action, CGI-heavy adaptations of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, though the 2016 film is a remake of the 1967 animated musical film. | |
Crowhurst | 2017 | The Mercy | 2018 | Both films are about Donald Crowhurst's ill-fated entry in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, a non-stop round-the-world sailing competition. Uniquely, these films not only have an identical subject, but were also distributed by the same studio, namely StudioCanal: according to the head of StudioCanal UK, Danny Perkins, the company bought the low-budget production Crowhurst "so we could control it". |
Sink or Swim | 2018 | Swimming with Men | 2018 | Both are about a man who is facing a midlife crisis and joins an all-male synchronised swimming team. |
2018 | The Happytime Murders | 2018 | Both are dark comedies featuring puppets. | |
Beautiful Boy | 2018 | Ben Is Back | 2018 | Both are melodramas about a family with a teenage son facing a drug addiction. |
Skate Kitchen | 2018 | Mid90s | 2018 | Both are coming of age stories about a group of skateboarding teenagers played by inexperienced actors who skateboard in real life. In both films, the primary character is the newest member of the group and has a contentious relationship with their single mother. |
Widows | 2018 | The Kitchen | 2019 | Both are about the law-abiding wives of criminals who take up their husbands' criminal plans when they are gone. |
Lez Bomb | 2018 | Happiest Season | 2020 | Both films revolve around lesbians who plan to come out to their conservative families during the holidays, only to be confronted by their ex-boyfriends; Lez Bomb is set on Thanksgiving while Happiest Season takes place on Christmas. |
Fyre Fraud | 2019 | Fyre | 2019 | Both are documentaries about the Fyre Festival. |
The Haunting of Sharon Tate | 2019 | Once Upon a Time in Hollywood | 2019 | Both are films about Sharon Tate and her murder. Although the former is a horror thriller film that dramatizes the events, the latter takes place in an alternate universe where the murder did not take place. |
The King's Letters | 2019 | Forbidden Dream | 2019 | Both are about King Sejong the Great and his patronage of scholarship. |
Ujda Chaman | 2019 | Bala | 2019 | Both movies are about men facing premature baldness, hence becoming a subject of social ridicule and facing problems finding a spouse. |
The Curse of La Llorona | 2019 | La Llorona | 2019 | Both films are about the legend of La Llorona. |
Killer Spider | 2020 | Holy Spider | 2022 | Both are dramatizations of the case of Saeed Hanaei, a serial killer who targeted sex workers in Iran. |
Pinocchio | 2022 | Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio | 2022 | Also (2022) and Pinocchio and the Water of Life (2023) . All films are based on The Adventures of Pinocchio. Three of the films— Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, Pinocchio: A True Story, and The Adventures of Pinocchio—star Tom Kenny. |
Violent Night | 2022 | The Mean One | 2022 | Also Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022). All are films about a murderous Santa Claus figure. |
Elvis | 2022 | Priscilla | 2023 | Both are films about or revolve around Elvis Presley. |
The Beast in the Jungle | 2023 | The Beast | 2023 | Both are French adaptations of the Henry James novella The Beast in the Jungle. |
The Covenant | 2023 | Kandahar | 2023 | Also Warhorse One. All films are set in a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. |
The Great Escaper | 2023 | The Last Rifleman | 2023 | Based on the true story of Bernard Jordan, both are films about an elderly World War II veteran who escapes his nursing home in order to attend a milestone anniversary commemorations of the Normandy landings in France. |
Reality | 2023 | Winner | 2024 | Both are films about American whistleblower Reality Winner. |
2023 | The Mouse Trap | 2024 | Also (2025). All three are slasher films based on famous works only recently made part of the public domain – Bambi, Winnie-the-Pooh, and the Steamboat Willie design of Mickey Mouse, respectively. | |
The Pope's Exorcist | 2023 | The Exorcism | 2024 | Both films star Russell Crowe, in which he plays some form of exorcist. |
Totally Killer | 2023 | Time Cut | 2024 | Both films are about a female high school student who is accidentally transported back in time and must unmask an unidentified serial killer who terrorized their town and prevent the murder of a female relative who is in high school at the time. |
The First Omen | 2024 | Immaculate | 2024 | Both films are about young American nuns who travel to Rome, Italy, and become unexpectedly pregnant with what turns out to be a demon fetus/the antichrist. |
An Unfinished Film | 2024 | Caught by the Tides | 2024 | Both are Chinese films set during the COVID-19 pandemic that use footage of the same actors filmed by the director in the 2000s and 2010s. |
Piece by Piece | 2024 | Better Man | 2024 | Both movies are musical biopics about artists with the surname Williams depicted in an unorthodox fashion: Piece by Piece shows Pharrell Williams' life through brickfilm, while Better Man depicts Robbie Williams as a CGI chimpanzee. |
|
|