Twin films
Twin films are films with the same, or very similar, plot produced or released at the same time by two different film studios. The phenomenon can result from two or more production companies investing in similar scripts around the same time, resulting in a race to distribute the films to audiences. Some attribute twin films to industrial espionage, the movement of staff between studios, or that the same screenplays 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.
Screenwriter Terry Rossio notes that there are always film projects with similar subjects being developed in multiple studios while usually only one of them makes it into production in a given period of time, and therefore twin films are better regarded as exceptions to this tendency. 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 film.
While twin films usually are big budget films, a mockbuster can be made with a low budget, with similar titles, aesthetics or theme as blockbuster films. 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.
Producer Bingham Ray recalls a conversation where the screenwriter of the 2006 Truman Capote biopic Infamous phoned to announce that his script had been finished. Ray said "I know, I've got it on my desk!" before realizing that he actually had the screenplay to Capote, a biopic by a different writer.
Notable examples
Notable examples of twin films are included in this list:| First film | Release date | Second film | Release date | Further info |
| The Rise of Catherine the Great | 1934 | The Scarlet Empress | 1934 | Both are about Catherine the Great. |
| Jezebel | 1938 | Gone with the Wind | 1939 | William Wyler's Jezebel was reportedly created for Bette Davis when she failed to win the highly coveted role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. Both films were about feisty, independent Southern belles during the American Civil War. |
| Young Mr. Lincoln | 1939 | Abe Lincoln in Illinois | 1940 | - |
| Oscar Wilde | 1960 | The Trials of Oscar Wilde | 1960 | Both are about the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde. |
| Dr. Strangelove | 1964 | Fail-Safe | 1964 | Both deal with the concept of accidental nuclear war, although Dr. Strangelove is satire, while Fail-Safe is a drama. |
| Harlow | 1965 | Harlow | 1965 | Both were based on the life story of Jean Harlow. |
| You're a Big Boy Now | 1966 | The Graduate | 1967 | Also Benjamin. All are coming-of-age comedy-drama films about a young man being pursued by an older woman. |
| Yours, Mine and Ours | 1968 | With Six You Get Eggroll | 1968 | Both movies deal with widowed parents marrying and combining both of their families. |
| Leo the Last | 1970 | The Landlord | 1970 | Both deal with issues of class and race and feature an upper-class white 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.. All are dramas about campus revolt. |
| Bloody Mama | 1970 | The Grissom Gang | 1971 | Both based on the life story of Ma Barker. |
| Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song | 1971 | Shaft | 1971 | Both are frequently credited as the earliest examples of the blaxploitation genre. |
| Godspell | 1973 | Jesus Christ Superstar | 1973 | Both adaptations of Broadway musicals based on the life of Jesus Christ. |
| The Gambler | 1974 | California Split | 1974 | Both portray Jewish protagonists addicted to gambling on a downward spiral. |
| The Conversation | 1974 | The Parallax View | 1974 | Also Executive Action. All are paranoid thrillers about an assassination. |
| Cannonball | 1976 | The Gumball Rally | 1976 | Both about the same illegal cross-country race. |
| Go Tell the Spartans | 1978 | Coming Home | 1978 | Also The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now. All are about American involvement in the Vietnam War. |
| The Warriors | 1979 | The Wanderers | 1979 | Both are about gang wars between New York teenage street gangs of various ethnicities. |
| ' | 1979 | Dracula | 1979 | Also Love At First Bite. All are based on Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. |
| The Amityville Horror | 1979 | The Shining | 1980 | Both are supernatural horror films about a family moving into a building where a previous family of tenants has been murdered, in which the father "becomes" the previous murderer, ultimately attacking his family with an axe. |
| Border Cop | 1979 | Borderline | 1980 | Also The Border ; All involve border patrol or immigration enforcement agents that have dangerous encounters with criminals. |
| The Howling | 1981 | Wolfen | 1981 | Also An American Werewolf In London ; All either involve werewolves or supernatural wolf-like creatures. |
| Porky's | 1981 | The Last American Virgin | 1982 | Also Screwballs and Losin' It ; All are sex comedies depicting a group of young male friends trying to lose their respective virginities or perform another sexually related mission. |
| The Killing of Angel Street | 1981 | Heatwave | 1982 | Both were loosely based on the disappearance of Australian anti-development activist Juanita Nielsen. |
| Some Kind of Hero | 1982 | First Blood | 1982 | Both feature a Vietnam War vet who returns home who then has trouble adjusting to civilian life. |
| Carmen | 1983 | Carmen | 1984 | Both are adaptations of Georges Bizet's opera Carmen. |
| Octopussy | 1983 | Never Say Never Again | 1983 | Both films feature slightly older than usual versions of the fictional super-spy, James Bond as played by actors who had played him in multiple past Bond films. Both films are based on older prose stories authored or co-authored by Ian Fleming; Octopussy was based on the short story of the same name and 'The Property of a Lady' and Never Say Never Again was based on Thunderball. |
| Wild Style | 1983 | Beat Street | 1984 | Both are well-received golden age hip hop films, focusing on all four pillars of hip hop culture. See also 1983 documentary, Style Wars, focusing on graffiti and to a lesser extent breakdancing; 1984 film Breakin focused largely on breakdancing; 1985's Krush Groove, a fictionalized retelling of the founding of Def Jam, focused more on and rap music. Many overlapping performers appear in the films, such as the Rock Steady Crew in Wild Style, Style Wars, and Beat Street. |
| Country | 1984 | The River | 1984 | Also Places in the Heart ; All are about the difficulties faced by family farms. |
| Dreamscape | 1984 | A Nightmare On Elm Street | 1984 | Both are about people entering the dreams of others and being able to kill them in real-life by killing them in their dreams. |
| Gremlins | 1984 | Ghoulies | 1985 | Also Critters. All involve small destructive, evil creatures. |
| ' | 1985 | Commando | 1985 | Also Missing in Action. All are one-man army action films. |
| The Return of the Living Dead | 1985 | Day of the Dead | 1985 | Both are zombie movies, released almost simultaneously, and arising from the collaboration between John Russo and George A. Romero on Night of the Living Dead. |
| Weird Science | 1985 | Real Genius | 1985 | Also My Science Project. All feature teens dabbling in mad science and winding up in over their heads. |
| Back to the Future | 1985 | Peggy Sue Got Married | 1986 | Both feature protagonists who go back in time and meet high school versions of their family members, played by the same actors. |
| Fright Night | 1985 | Vamp | 1986 | Also The Lost Boys and Near Dark ; All are vampire films involving teenage characters. |
| Top Gun | 1986 | Iron Eagle | 1986 | Both are films about fighter pilots. |
| An American Tail | 1986 | The Great Mouse Detective | 1986 | Both are animated feature films featuring mice. |
| ' | 1986 | ' | 1986 | Both are animated feature films derived from TV cartoons based on toy lines about transforming robots. |
| The Vindicator | 1986 | RoboCop | 1987 | Both are about an innocent man who is left mutilated and near-dead by villains, is reconstructed into a cyborg by a special-weapons company, and seeks revenge on the people responsible for his fate. |
| Gothic | 1986 | Haunted Summer | 1988 | Also Rowing with the Wind. All are set in 1816 when Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley and John William Polidori spend a summer in the isolated Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva. |
| Link | 1986 | Monkey Shines | 1988 | Both are horror-films with primates as the antagonist. |
| The Secret of My Succe$s | 1987 | Working Girl | 1988 | Both are about people starting new lower-level jobs in New York City, pretending to be executives, coming up with great ideas regarding takeovers, and getting the girl/guy that was "out of their league". |
| Like Father, Like Son | 1987 | Big | 1988 | Also Vice Versa, 18 Again! and 14 Going on 30 ; all portray boys who transform into, or who switch bodies with, adult men. |
| Dangerous Liaisons | 1988 | Valmont | 1989 | Both are adaptations of the novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses, with Dangerous Liaisons being based on the recently successful stage play of Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Christopher Hampton. |
| 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 and The Rift ; all are underwater thrillers involving explorers discovering strange new creatures in the ocean. |
| The Forbidden Dance | 1990 | Lambada | 1990 | Both are films that centre around the dance, the Lambada. See also 1990's Lambada, also known as Rhythm and Passion, a third similar film from Brazil and Italy. |
| ' | 1991 | Robin Hood | 1991 | Both are based on the legend of Robin Hood. |
| The Super | 1991 | Life Stinks | 1991 | Both are about ruthless upper-class white men who are forced to live in an urban slum. |
| December Bride | 1991 | The Playboys | 1992 | Both films tell of a young Irish woman in a small rural community who decides to have a child out of wedlock. |
| Point Break | 1991 | Stone Cold | 1991 | Also Beyond the Law. All are stunt heavy, action-crime films where an undercover cop must infiltrate a criminal organization while being berated by their superiors. |
| ' | 1992 | ' | 1992 | Both are about Christopher Columbus and his discovery of the Americas in 1492. |
| Fear of a Black Hat | 1993 | CB4 | 1993 | Both are hip hop parodies, Fear of a Black Hat is a mockumentary, and both films largely parody N.W.A, among other popular acts. |
| Mad Dog and Glory | 1993 | Indecent Proposal | 1993 | Both films involve a man buying a woman who is not a prostitute for a short period of time and a large amount of money. |
| Hard Target | 1993 | Surviving the Game | 1994 | Both are modern-day action-adventure thrillers that are heavily inspired by The Most Dangerous Game. |
| Tombstone | 1993 | Wyatt Earp | 1994 | Both are Wyatt Earp biopics. |
| Rookie of the Year | 1993 | Little Big League | 1994 | Both are films in which a 12-year-old boy becomes involved in Major League Baseball. |
| 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 killing sprees and all directly or loosely based on real murderer Charles Starkweather. Both films have Juliette Lewis as a main character. |
| Three of Hearts | 1993 | Threesome | 1994 | Both films involve a love triangle between a heterosexual, a homosexual and a bisexual. |
| Terminal Velocity | 1994 | Drop Zone | 1994 | Both are action films that involve skydiving. |
| The Air Up There | 1994 | The Scout | 1994 | Both films are about a desperate American scout who thinks he found an extraordinary talent in an unlikely foreign locale, but bringing the player to stardom has unthought-of difficulties and the scout learns life lessons from the player he is supposed to be developing. |
| Camp Nowhere | 1994 | Heavyweights | 1995 | Both movies take place at summer camp and include a preteen protagonist who's initially reluctant to go. |
| The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert | 1994 | To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar | 1995 | Both have the plot of drag queens going on a road trip across their continent, in a journey of self-discovery. |
| Street Fighter | 1994 | Mortal Kombat | 1995 | Also Double Dragon. All are martial arts action adventure films based on one-to-one fighting video game franchises. DD, in the case of. |
| Braveheart | 1995 | Rob Roy | 1995 | Also The Bruce ; All are adventure/war biopics set in Scotland. |
| Babe | 1995 | Gordy | 1995 | Both are family films starring piglets. |
| A Kid in King Arthur's Court | 1995 | Kids of the Round Table | 1995 | Both involve a modern American boy who encounters characters from Arthurian legend, leading the boy to experience adventure and an increase in self-confidence. |
| Showgirls | 1995 | Striptease | 1996 | Both are erotic drama films centered around a lead character involved in the stripper profession. |
| Powder | 1995 | Phenomenon | 1996 | Both tell the story of a man with telepathic powers that make him an outcast in a small town. |
| The Craft | 1996 | Little Witches | 1996 | Both are films about young teenage outcasts becoming witches. |
| Executive Decision | 1996 | Air Force One | 1997 | Both are films about terrorists hijacking a plane and a rescue team saving the passengers and defeating the terrorists. |
| Dante's Peak | 1997 | Volcano | 1997 | Both are disaster films centered around volcanic eruptions. |
| The Jackal | 1997 | The Assignment | 1997 | Both are action thrillers dealing with assassins called "Jackal." |
| 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. |
| Murder at 1600 | 1997 | Absolute Power | 1997 | Both films center around a Washington, D.C. murder investigation involving the President/at the White House. |
| The House of Yes | 1997 | The Myth of Fingerprints | 1997 | Both films center around dysfunctional families gathering for Thanksgiving. |
| Prefontaine | 1997 | Without Limits | 1998 | Both are biographical sports films about distance runner Steve Prefontaine. |
| 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. |
| Deep Impact | 1998 | Armageddon | 1998 | Also Doomsday Rock , Asteroid , Judgment Day , and Tycus. All are global catastrophic risk disaster films centered around an impending impact event that threatens to end most or all life on Earth. Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 had impacted Jupiter in 1994. |
| Saving Private Ryan | 1998 | The Thin Red Line | 1998 | Both are prestige dramas about World War II. |
| Dead Man on Campus | 1998 | The Curve | 1998 | Both films involve college students attempting to utilize pass by catastrophe. |
| '54' | 1998 | Last Days of Disco | 1998 | Both films are set again the backdrop of the waning disco era of the late 1970s. |
| The Truman Show | 1998 | Ed TV | 1999 | Both are films in which a man's life is a 24-hour-a-day TV show. |
| Tale of the Mummy | 1998 | The Mummy | 1999 | Both are about mummies coming back to life and killing people. |
| Dark City | 1998 | The Matrix | 1999 | Also The Thirteenth Floor and eXistenZ ; all are science fiction films involving the theme of whether the world is real or an illusion. All except for Dark City involve virtual reality in a computer system. |
| Entrapment | 1999 | The Thomas Crown Affair | 1999 | Both are caper films 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 ; 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. |
| The Haunting | 1999 | House on Haunted Hill | 1999 | Both are horror films in which a group of strangers are brought under false pretenses to spend a night in a haunted house. Both based on original works from 1959 with similar names, the novel The Haunting of Hill House and the film House on Haunted Hill, respectively. |
| Bicentennial Man | 1999 | A.I. Artificial Intelligence | 2001 | Both are science fiction films dealing with the theme of humanoid robots seeking to experience emotion and be human. Both are also adapted from works of prominent sci-fi authors; Isaac Asimov and Brian Aldiss respectively. See also I, Robot. |
| The Road to El Dorado | 2000 | The Emperor's New Groove | 2000 | Both are historical animated comedies set in what is now Latin America. |
| Scary Movie | 2000 | Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth | 2000 | Both are horror movie spoofs. |
| Mission to Mars | 2000 | Red Planet | 2000 | Both are science fiction adventure films about expeditions to Mars. |
| Wonder Boys | 2000 | Finding Forrester | 2000 | Both are films involving a writer and his friendship with a student. |
| The Score | 2001 | Heist | 2001 | Both are crime thriller films involving a major robbery. |
| Autumn In New York | 2000 | Sweet November | 2001 | Both films center on free-spirited young women who are diagnosed with terminal illnesses set against the fall backdrop. |
| Joe Dirt | 2001 | Run Ronnie Run! | 2002 | Both are crude humor stories about lovable-ish rednecks. There are jokes that are nearly identical in each movie. However, Run Ronnie Run! is based on a Mr. Show with Bob and David character that first appeared in 1995. |
| Stealing Harvard | 2002 | Orange County | 2002 | Both are comedy films about someone resorting to drastic measures in order to obtain acceptance to, or tuition for, a prestigious college. |
| Liberty Stands Still | 2002 | Phone Booth | 2002 | Both movies revolve around people who answer a ringing phone in a public place and are held hostage there by a sniper who has an agenda. |
| Treasure Planet | 2002 | ' | 2003 | Both are traditionally-animated films about pirates that set sail. However, they're both box office failures. |
| Finding Nemo | 2003 | Shark Tale | 2004 | Both are computer-animated films that take place in the ocean and center around anthropomorphic fish characters. |
| Freddy vs. Jason | 2003 | Alien vs. Predator | 2004 | Both feature horror icons from the '80s fighting against each other, while humans end up in the crossfire. |
| Chasing Liberty | 2004 | First Daughter | 2004 | Both are romantic comedy films about the rebellious daughter of the President of the United States. |
| The Cave | 2005 | The Descent | 2005 | Both are horror films in which people encounter deadly creatures in a cave system. |
| Red Eye | 2005 | Flightplan | 2005 | Both are thriller films set on airplanes. |
| War of the Worlds | 2005 | H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds | 2005 | Both are adaptations of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. |
| Sky High | 2005 | Zoom | 2006 | Both are about kids training to become superheroes. |
| Madagascar | 2005 | The Wild | 2006 | Both are computer-animated films involving similar animal characters from New York's Central Park Zoo being introduced to the wild. See The Wild#Madagascar similarities. |
| Capote | 2005 | Infamous | 2006 | Both are dramas about Truman Capote and the writing of In Cold Blood. |
| Beowulf & Grendel | 2005 | Beowulf | 2007 | Both are fantasy adventure films based on the Old English epic poem Beowulf. |
| Zzyzx | 2006 | Zyzzyx Road | 2006 | Both are thrillers about people trying to hide a dead body on Zzyzx Road in California |
| 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. |
| Over The Hedge | 2006 | Open Season | 2006 | Both are computer-animated films about wild animals who are at war with humans. |
| Happy Feet | 2006 | Surf's Up | 2007 | Both are Computer-animated family comedy films about penguins. |
| The Zodiac | 2006 | Zodiac | 2007 | Also Curse of the Zodiac ; All are films based on the story of the Zodiac Killer. |
| An American Crime | 2007 | The Girl Next Door | 2007 | Both are based on the torture and murder of Sylvia Likens. |
| 27 Dresses | 2008 | Made of Honor | 2008 | Both are romantic comedies centering on weddings and loyal friends taking part as bridesmaids. |
| Coco Chanel | 2008 | Coco Before Chanel | 2009 | Also Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky. All are related to French fashion designer Coco Chanel. |
| 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 ; all are science fiction films in which people control physical remotely-operated bodies. |
| Knowing | 2009 | 2012 | 2009 | Both are science fiction disaster films about the end of the world. |
| The Road | 2009 | The Book of Eli | 2010 | Both films are set in a post-apocalyptic world, where the main characters try to survive by travelling. |
| Armored | 2009 | Takers | 2010 | Both are stylized, action-crime robbery thrillers. Matt Dillon stars in both films. |
| The A-Team | 2010 | The Losers | 2010 | Both are fast-paced action films about dishonored military operatives seeking redemption and revenge after being betrayed on a secret mission. In addition, both are based on pre-existing series from other mediums. |
| Despicable Me | 2010 | Megamind | 2010 | Both are computer-animated films about super-villains who turned evil because of bad upbringings, finding themselves seduced to the good side to defeat an even worse villain. |
| 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. |
| The Bounty Hunter | 2010 | One for the Money | 2012 | Both are films about a bounty hunter and going after a former love interest. |
| 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. |
| War of the Buttons | 2011 | 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 crimelord, wherein the crimelord attempts to turn the residents against the officer. |
| Extraterrestrial | 2011 | Seeking a Friend for the End of the World | 2012 | Also ' and Melancholia. All are apocalyptic science fiction films. |
| Quartet | 2012 | A Late Quartet | 2012 | Both are about the members of a string quartet facing old age. |
| The Girl | 2012 | Hitchcock | 2012 | Both are Alfred Hitchcock biopics. |
| Mirror Mirror | 2012 | Snow White and the Huntsman | 2012 | Both are Snow White films. |
| Zero Dark Thirty | 2012 | ' | 2012 | Both films are about the assassination of Osama bin Laden. |
| Battleship | 2012 | Pacific Rim | 2013 | Both involve the invasion of Earth by extraterrestrials that are fought at sea. The protagonist also loses his brother in combat during both movies. |
| 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. |
| ' | 2013 | The Grandmaster | 2013 | Both are Hong Kong produced martial arts drama films about the life of Ip Man, intending to cash in on the successes of the Ip Man franchise. |
| 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. |
| 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 ; all are apocalyptic comedy films. |
| The Double | 2013 | Enemy | 2013 | Both are about a man who finds his physical doppelgänger in a seemingly totalitarian state. |
| The Machine | 2013 | Automata | 2014 | Also Transcendence, Uncanny, and Ex Machina ; All are science fiction films involving robots and/or artificial intelligence. |
| Yves Saint Laurent | 2014 | Saint Laurent | 2014 | Both are Yves Saint Laurent biopics. |
| Hercules | 2014 | The Legend of Hercules | 2014 | Also Hercules Reborn ; All are about Hercules. |
| 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. All three are romantic comedies involving zombies. |
| This Is Where I Leave You | 2014 | ' | 2014 | Both movies involve dysfunctional families reuniting after the death of the patriarch. |
| Unfriended | 2014 | Friend Request | 2016 | Both are horror films with plots centered around social media. |
| Labyrinth of Lies | 2014 | The People vs. Fritz Bauer | 2015 | Also . All are films depicting the effort which led to the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials by a group of prosecutors headed by Fritz Bauer. |
| 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 Florence Foster Jenkins' life. |
| The Martian | 2015 | Approaching the Unknown | 2016 | 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. |
| Freaks of Nature | 2015 | Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse | 2015 | Both are comedy horror films involving zombies. |
| Coming Through the Rye | 2015 | Rebel in the Rye | 2017 | Both are films about J. D. Salinger. |
| 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. |
| 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 SS-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. |
| Churchill | 2017 | Darkest Hour | 2017 | Both are films about Winston Churchill. Also, the TV film Churchill's Secret is about Winston Churchill. |
| Darkest Hour | 2017 | Dunkirk | 2017 | Both films are about planning of the evacuation of Dunkirk. |
| Goodbye Christopher Robin | 2017 | Christopher Robin | 2018 | Both films are about the life of Winnie-the-Pooh author A. A. Milne's son Christopher Robin. |
| 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". |
| U – July 22 | 2018 | 22 July | 2018 | Both are dramas based on the 2011 Utøya, Norway massacre. |
| 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. |
| Upgrade | 2018 | Venom | 2018 | Both are films about intelligent symbiotes, which are attached to and talk to their human host, giving the human enhanced powers and abilities, but gradually take control of the host. Respective stars Logan Marshall-Green and Tom Hardy are also noted to be physically similar. |
| Smallfoot | 2018 | Abominable | 2019 | Both are computer-animated films about abominable snowmen making first contact with humans and are both set in the Himalayas. |
| ' | 2018 | The Happytime Murders | 2018 | Both are dark comedies featuring puppets. |
| A Quiet Place | 2018 | The Silence | 2019 | Both involve the world coming under attack from terrifying creatures who hunt their human prey by sound. |
| 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. |
| Fyre Fraud | 2019 | Fyre | 2019 | Both are documentaries about the Fyre Festival. |
| A Dog's Journey | 2019 | The Art of Racing in the Rain | 2019 | Both are films about a dog's life in their owner's lives and are narrated and seen through the eyes of the dogs. |
| Portrait of a Lady on Fire | 2019 | Ammonite'' | 2020 | Both films are set around 1800 on the coast of the English Channel and feature a forbidden lesbian relationship worsened by class differences |
Other meanings
One story from two perspectives
The term "twin films" has also been used for films produced by the same production company with the purpose of telling the same story from two different points of view:- ' and ' use the same cast to tell the same story from two different points of view.
- The World War II films Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima are about the Battle of Iwo Jima, told from the perspective of United States Marines and Japanese soldiers.
Multiple-language films