Film gimmickry, like film grammar in general, has its roots in the silent period, when the possibilities of the new medium of cinema were being discovered in real time. In these exciting early decades, the emerging art of special effects wowed audiences, showing them things they had never seen before. One of those impossible tricks was watching an actor talk to themselves—or kiss themselves, as Mary Pickford did playing a mother and her son in 1921’s Little Lord Fauntleroy—an effect accomplished through the use of a technique known as double exposure.

Double exposures were invented in still photography, then developed for motion pictures: basically, a strip of film is shot twice, with a matte covering one side and then on the other to block off the part of the frame that’s not being exposed. When the complete film is developed, the same person appears on both sides of the screen. Everything else has to remain exactly the same—if the camera moves even a millimeter between takes, the final image won’t line up correctly. But skilled silent-era technicians were able to accomplish it seamlessly, and single actors were cast in multiple roles as early as 1912, when George Lessey portrayed the title characters in The Corsican Brothers, a short produced by Thomas Edison’s company.

There are other, less technical ways of creating twin illusions in movies; sometimes, it can be as basic as clever framing and a body double in a wig. But, on the whole, the history of dual roles is a history of special effects. Optical printing—and, later, digital compositing—expanded what was possible, but variations on the double-exposure technique are still used to accomplish miraculous shots in films like the newly released Sinners, in which Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers who uncover a terrifying secret in the Jim Crow-era South.

It’s also a history of popular psychology. In cinema, identical twins are almost always played for either comedy or horror; the “evil twin” is a potent symbol, and some older examples of this effects-heavy phenomenon imply that there’s something inherently sinister about two people who look exactly alike. That takes us into the murkier realm of doppelgängers and doubles, both common in sci-fi films like playing entire families!

There are far too many examples of dual roles to cover in a single list (sorry, The Social Network). They’re particularly popular in various Indian regional cinemas, culminating in actor Kamal Haasan portraying ten distinct characters in the 2008 Tamil action movie Dasavatharam. The closer you look, the more the possibilities multiply, which is why we’re concentrating primarily on single actors playing identical twins in English-language films. That being said, there are a few interpretations—because cinema, like nature, is too complex to be reduced to simple binaries. Even when it comes to twins.

Boris Karloff, The Black Room (1935)

An early sound-era example of the twin gimmick, this dusty old-fashioned horror film was released the same year as Bride of Frankenstein. Both star Boris Karloff, who proves here that attitude takes you a long way in a dual role as aristocratic brothers who are received completely differently by the residents of their feudal estate. The hostile Baron is hated, while his more reasonable twin Anton is beloved—a catch, even, for the young women of the village. It doesn’t help that the Baron has a pit full of decaying corpses in the onyx-lined room of the title. But the only one who knows about that is the family dog, who—spoilers for a 90-year-old film—reveals the brothers’ big secret late in the story.

Olivia de Havilland, The Dark Mirror (1946)

This Freudian psychological thriller is impressively realized, even if it does have some outdated ideas about twins (inherently defective) and women in general (better when they’re not too smart). Olivia de Havilland gives a skilled performance as identical twins Terry and Ruth, one of whom is responsible for the murder of a wealthy doctor. They’re not saying which one it was, however, leading detectives with no choice but to let them both off the hook. While Milton Krasner handled the cinematography, Deveraux Jennings and Paul K. Lerpae both get “special photographic” credits, and, indeed, the effects are better than in some twin films made 40 years after this one.

Dolores del Río, The Other (‘La otra’) (1946)

Also released in 1946, this Mexican take on film noir was later remade as a Bette Davis vehicle called Dead Ringer (more on that in a bit). Roberto Gavaldón’s original is the superior of the two, however, in everything from Dolores del Río’s lead performance to the spectacular high-contrast cinematography. It’s also the eerier of the two films, and the more nuanced, despite a flair for melodrama that’s typical of Mexican cinema of the period. Del Río plays up both the purity and the villainy in dual leads María and Magdalena, twin sisters whose lives have gone in very different directions. Poor twin María is the more virtuous of the two, while rich sister Magdalena is the evil one—at least, until María decides that it’s time to take what she believes she deserves.

Hayley Mills, The Parent Trap (1961)

This perky ’60s switch-’em-up is a classic of Disney’s live-action repertoire, starring Hayley Mills as twins separated at birth who scheme first to swap places in each other’s lives, then to reunite their estranged parents through the power of pranks and wholesome musical numbers. At the time, the film’s split-screen photography was innovative. In hindsight, each of the Millses dutifully stays on her side of the screen, and the “invisible” lines are less so when you notice the architectural features that neatly split each frame in half. The story is charming, however, as is Mills; whether she’s more charming than Lindsay Lohan in Nancy Meyers’ 1998 remake seems to be a matter of generational taste.

Margot Kidder, Sisters (1972)

Rear Window meets Freaks in this early effort from Brian De Palma, who takes his idol Alfred Hitchcock’s obsession with doubles and adds the carnivalesque touch of casting Margot Kidder as French-Canadian coned twins. Kidder spends most of the film as the fragile, wounded Danielle, whose attempt at a one-night stand turns into a blood-soaked mindfuck after her twin Dominique leaps out from under the covers and stabs the guy to death. Much of the film unfolds from the perspective of Grace (Jennifer Salt), Danielle’s neighbor who witnesses the murder; Salt even adopts Kidder’s point of view for a surreal sequence that unravels the sisters’ backstory, putting the audience in their fractured headspace as well.

Jeremy Irons, Dead Ringers (1988)

Dead Ringers is an evil-twin movie with a twist—namely, both twins are toxic in body-horror maestro David Cronenberg’s take on the concept. Beverly and Elliot Mantle, both played by Jeremy Irons, are twin gynecologists, which is strange enough. They also have, let’s say, poor boundaries around sex, as dominant twin Elliot allows the submissive Beverly to take over his affairs when Elliot gets bored with them. The twins have different personalities but carry themselves similarly enough that it can be difficult to tell them apart; most of the women who date the Mantles have no idea that they’ve been seduced by both of them, for example. That’s one unsettling detail in a film that’s full of them, enhancing the creepiness—and the symmetry—as Cronenberg contrasts warm flesh with cold steel instruments and the twins’ crimson surgical gowns.

Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin, Big Business (1988)

The special effects are minimal in this quintessentially ’80s twin comedy: most of the movie consists of the stars and their body doubles just missing each other in the elevators and corridors of a posh New York hotel. Just when the coyness starts to get obnoxious, however, a quadruple set of Lily Tomlins and Bette Midlers collide, the result of a cartoonish switched-at-birth premise that led to two mismatched sets of identical twins, both named Rose (Tomlin) and Sadie (Midler), growing up unbeknownst to one another in Manhattan and Jupiter Hollow, West Virginia. A guy named Roone is confused by sushi, Bette Midler puts on an Appalachian accent, greedy developers are foiled by pluck—it’s an ’80s movie all right, down to the FAO Schwarz montage.

Jean-Claude Van Damme, Double Impact (1991)

Neither version of Jean-Claude Van Damme is an especially good actor in this gimmicky dual-role action flick. The, ahem, impact of this shortcoming is minimal, however, because no one watches a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie for the performances. They watch them for dudes getting kicked in the face, which this movie delivers along with triad gangsters, an athletic sex scene to rival Showgirls and a henchwoman who can choke a man to death with her thighs. Both JCVDs are different shades of cocky—again, we don’t watch these for the acting—and it’s difficult to tell them apart at times. But the movie does go out of its way to explain why both of them have Belgian accents, even though one is supposed to be from LA and the other from Hong Kong.

Nicolas Cage, Adaptation. (2002)

Donald Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) is a person, but he’s also a projection. Specifically, he represents Adaptation. writer Charlie Kaufman’s (also Cage) insecurities, not to mention his contempt for, and eventual begrudging acceptance of, screenwriting formula. The brothers look alike, obviously. They act a lot alike, too. The difference is that Donald has confidence, and Charlie, who keeps referring to himself as “fat” and “pathetic” throughout the screenplay that he wrote, does not. As a result, women like Donald, and so do development executives—two groups that are consistently confounded by Charlie. Charlie eventually realizes that the stench of self-loathing wafting off of him is what keeps people away, but not before Donald makes a similarly symbolic sacrifice for his brother’s self-esteem.

Rachel Weisz, Constantine (2005)

She later took on the role(s) of the Mantle twins for a TV miniseries version of Dead Ringers, but Rachel Weisz’s first rendezvous with a dual role was in cinema’s first attempt at adapting the Constantine comics. As with Margot Kidder in Sisters, Weisz spends the majority of the film in the persona of the dominant twin, police detective (and, as she keeps reiterating, devout Catholic) Angela, a supernatural skeptic in the Dana Scully mold. Her twin Isabel, who’s in Hell for the sin of suicide, primarily appears in suspiciously high-def surveillance footage. But spooky twin powers do very much come into play, as do demons, angels and even Lucifer himself.

Paul Dano, There Will Be Blood (2007)

One of the heavier examples of on-screen twinning comes in Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, but there’s no deeper meaning to casting Paul Dano as identical twins Paul and Eli Sunday. As it turns out, the technique was a compromise, with Dano taking on the additional role when the original actor cast as Paul dropped out two weeks into shooting. Dano, then 22, slays both roles: the differences in the performances are minimal, given that Paul Sunday appears in just one scene, but both are clammy, craven little con men only out for themselves. As Eli, Dano drapes his narcissism in a blanket of soft-spoken piety. Paul is more direct, selling out his hometown—and his twin—for gold.

Adam Sandler, Jack and Jill (2011)

Adam Sandler is actually taller in his female form. It’s partially the heels, and partially this misbegotten comedy’s cruel streak: Jill is big and mannish, you see, which makes it funny when men are attracted to her. Beyond the whole “omg lol she’s a man” thing, Jack and Jill revolves around farts, diarrhea, Mexican stereotypes, shameless product placement and cameos from so many celebrities, some of them were bound to get canceled at some point. (Here, it’s Johnny Depp and Jared Fogle.) That’s all repellant, but underneath the crudity there’s an innocence to this movie’s juvenile nonsense that makes it weirdly watchable, even endearing as well. Even more puzzling? Al Pacino’s actually pretty great as himself (Dunkaccino)!

Tilda Swinton, Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Although they’re identical twins—the only way to tell them apart is by their sharp 1950s suiting—Thora and Thessaly Thacker (Tilda Swinton) hate being confused with each other. They hate each other in general, as writers Joel and Ethan Coen based Swinton’s dual role in Hail, Caesar! on real-life gossip columnists (and bitter rivals) Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, adding a layer of intrigue by making the competitors sisters as well. There’s a lot of history there: in interviews, Swinton says that she imagined that the Thackers were both failed actresses, contributing to their falling out and their hatred of Hollywood. It also allows for lots of comedic patter and wacky mix-ups, each executed with exquisite refinement by the Coens.

Neil Breen, Twisted Pair (2018)

The first of two films in which trash auteur Neil Breen plays twins (see also: 2023’s Cade: The Tortured Crossing) has the plug-and-play look, hideous green screen and galaxy-brained premise that Breen-heads love. It’s also got his signature narcissism: Breen casts himself in a dual role as identical twins Cade and Cale Altair, omniscient AI-enhanced superhumans gifted with powers by a “superior force” that’s somewhere between God and the CIA. The result is like an MCU movie shot at a community college. Breen’s face isn’t expressive enough to really distinguish the brothers through performance alone, so bad twin Cale helpfully dons a mustache and beard.

Lupita Nyong’o, Us (2019)

Even the extras have shuffling mutant doubles in Us, but Lupita Nyong’o stands out in the crowd. The Oscar winner gives another award-caliber performance as California girl Adelaide and her not-quite-twin counterpart Red in Jordan Peele’s uncanny second feature, carrying the film from its ominous setup to its violent climax. The part is both physically demanding and emotionally intense, and it’s particularly impressive when you learn how it was filmed: the interactions between the characters were too complex for Parent Trap-style split screen, so scenes were filmed multiple times, double-exposure style, using digital compositing to combine the best takes. That required the actors to shift between their surface selves and their underground “tethers” quickly; that Nyong’o was able to convey such extremes under the circumstances is extraordinary.

Michael B. Jordan, Sinners (2025)

Michael B. Jordan’s identical twin characters in Sinners wear different colored hats: red for the glad-handing Smoke, blue for the numbers-driven Stacks. That’s helpful, given that, beyond their approaches to business (and their tastes in women), the brothers act very much alike. Both are cocky and charming, and both are volatile enough to make “The Smokestack Twins” legends in their Mississippi hometown. According to writer-director Ryan Coogler, his reasons for incorporating twins into the story are both personal—his aunts are identical twins—and thematic, given Sinners’ uniting of the dichotomies between good and evil, church and blues, and sin and redemption. The technical side of the shoot was multifaceted as well, utilizing everything from CG replacement to good old-fashioned body doubles.