Barbie and Oppenheimer are two of the biggest movie releases of 2023, and both have received a great deal of publicity for their shared release date. When the two films were each scheduled for release on July 21, 2023, inevitable memes and discussion followed, given one’s a dark historical drama about the invention of the atomic bomb, and the other’s a fantastical comedy about a doll questioning her world and existence.
It’s safe to say that “Barbenheimer” fever has swept the internet, but the unexpected release date double-up is far from the only time such a thing’s happened. The following pairs of movies – most from recent memory – also had almost nothing in common, besides, of course, the dates on which they were released in the U.S.
Updated August 3, 2023, by Jeremy Urquhart:
There was always a good amount of hype for the famed “Barbenheimer” double feature, but it’s safe to say that few people expected it to be quite as big as it was. The box office results for Barbie and Oppenheimer have proven staggering, showing that there’s indeed interest in unusual double feature pair-ups of two movies released on the same day. These previous pairings could well be movies to watch before Barbie and Oppenheimer, showing that the Greta Gerwig Barbie movie and Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer aren’t the first double feature pairing to share an unlikely release date.
13 July 18, 2008: ‘Mamma Mia!’ & ‘The Dark Knight’
Oppenheimer isn’t the first Christopher Nolan movie to get released alongside another far different wide release, given the same thing happened to The Dark Knight 15 years earlier. On July 18, 2008, his second (particularly dark) Batman movie was released the same day as Mamma Mia!, a jukebox musical using the songs of the legendary Swedish pop group ABBA.
The two movies would make for just as jarring (or possibly entertaining) a double feature as Barbie and Oppenheimer, but less social media in 2008 probably meant the double-up wasn’t quite as meme-able. Still, both films seemed to appeal to different enough audiences and succeed in their own ways to each be financially successful, with Mamma Mia! grossing over $600 million, and The Dark Knight just exceeding $1 billion.
12 June 27, 2008: ‘WALL-E’ & ‘Wanted’
Another example from the distant past of 2008, the month before Mamma Mia! and The Dark Knight got released featured another novel double-up. On June 27 of that year, the visually stunning animated sci-fi film from Pixar, Wall-E, came out, as did a particularly violent and firearm-heavy comic book film, Wanted.
Perhaps it’s fair to compare the fact that each movie is well-remembered for its visuals and presentation, given Wall-E‘s dialogue-free opening act and all the accompanying visual storytelling, and Wanted‘s action scenes featuring novel curved bullets. Both movies also begin with “Wa.” That’s about where the limited similarities end, though.
11 February 3, 2023: ‘Knock at the Cabin’ & ’80 for Brady’
The early months of the year are generally dominated by films that aren’t really seen as awards contenders, nor ones that can be counted as big blockbusters. The former type of movie’s more likely to get released in the final months of a year, and the latter type of movie typically gets released in the middle of the year, to coincide with the Northern Hemisphere’s summer months.
Both and 80 for Brady were released on the same day in early February 2023, and both had modest budgets – $20 million for Knock at the Cabin and $28 million for 80 for Brady. Yet the two also happen to be hugely different movies, with the former being a psychological horror movie with an apocalyptic setting and premise, and the latter being a sports/comedy movie about four elderly women who go to watch the 51st Super Bowl in 2017.
10 October 3, 2014: ‘Gone Girl’ & ‘Left Behind’
David Fincher is a filmmaker well-suited to psychological mystery/thriller movies, with Gone Girl being another winning effort from the director, and a film that’s endlessly suspenseful and unpredictable. It was released on October 3, 2014, the same day as the bizarre Nicolas Cage-starring apocalyptic thriller film Left Behind, which is set during – and immediately after – what appears to be a biblical rapture.
Both films could broadly be described as thrillers, sure, but the contrast comes from the fact that Gone Girl was one of the best movies of 2014, and Left Behind was undoubtedly one of the worst. As such, it’s pretty funny that two films of such varying quality both happened to be released on the exact same day.
9 April 28, 2023: ‘Peter Pan & Wendy’ & ‘Sisu’
Both Peter Pan & Wendy and Sisu were released in the U.S. on the same day: April 28, 2023. However, it should be noted that the former was a straight to Disney+ release, becoming available for all members to stream on April 28, and the latter was released earlier in other territories, and even debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022.
The release date double-up is still worth noting, disclaimers aside, because the two films almost couldn’t be more different. Peter Pan & Wendy is a family-friendly fantasy movie, and yet another film version of Peter Pan. Sisu is a gritty and ultraviolent action movie set in World War II, following a Finnish commando waging a one-man war against Nazi forces. Watching the two movies one after the other would probably give anyone whiplash.
8 June 2, 2023: ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ & ‘Past Lives’
There have been plenty of multiverse movies coming out lately, but Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ranks as one of the very best, as well as one of the most visually overwhelming. It came out the same day as Past Lives, which is a movie that looks to the past like the Spider-Verse movies tend to do, but that’s about where the similarities end.
While Across the Spider-Verse is loud and bombastic in its presentation, Past Lives is completely different by being a quieter, gentler, and entirely grounded in reality romance/drama film. Still, both are two of the most acclaimed movies of 2023 so far, highlighting just how diverse cinema can still be, even among certain uninspired or repetitive theatrical releases.
7 June 24, 2022: ‘Elvis’ & ‘Marcel the Shell with Shoes On’
June 24, 2022 saw the release of another bombastic, music-heavy Baz Luhrmann film, with the director turning his sights on the dramatic life and music career of Elvis Presley, and making a 159-minute-long movie about the singer. The same day, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On got a wide U.S. release, and few of the words used to describe Elvis could be applied to Marcel.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes on is almost 70 minutes shorter, and is far more intimate while lacking the decades-spanning narrative Elvis has. Elvis does indeed work as a larger-than-life movie about a larger-than-life historical figure, while Marcel the Shell with Shoes On packs a punch because of how gentle, moving, and humorous it is, making the two films hard to compare beyond their shared release date.
6 July 16, 2021: ‘Space Jam: A New Legacy’ & ‘Pig’
The difference in critical reception between Space Jam: A New Legacy and Pig (both released on the same day in 2021) isn’t as dramatic as the difference between the critical reception for the aforementioned Gone Girl and Left Behind, but it’s still notable. The Space Jam sequel was viewed as a huge disappointment, while Pig was seen as surprisingly good (and underrated) by many.
That’s to say nothing of how different the two movies are when it comes to tone and genre. Space Jam: A New Legacy is a comedic film that blends live-action and animation, while Pig is a quiet and understated character drama that’s remarkably more serious. Both films do admittedly have pig characters though – Porky Pig in the former, and an unnamed one belonging to Nicolas Cage‘s character in the latter.
5 April 30, 2010: ‘Furry Vengeance’ & ‘Harry Brown’
Furry Vengeance is a mostly forgotten family comedy starring Brendan Fraser, revolving around a real estate developer clashing with various forest animals. It was released on April 30, 2010, which was the same day Harry Brown, starring Michael Caine, got its U.S. release.
Harry Brown is a particularly brutal and dark revenge movie, more or less doing for Caine and Get Carter what Gran Torino did for Clint Eastwood and Dirty Harry. There is indeed revenge/vengeance in both movies released on that fateful day in 2010, but otherwise, the films couldn’t possibly be any more different.
4 May 19, 2023: ‘Fast X’ & ‘Master Gardener’
As the title implies, Fast X is the 10th movie in the long-running Fast & Furious series, reliably providing ridiculous action, plenty of car chases, and copious amounts of explosions. Master Gardener, on the other hand, is a slow-burn movie about a particularly meticulous gardener who may be keeping some sort of dark past from his wealthy employer.
The former cost approximately $340 million to make, while the latter’s budget was less than $5 million. Clearly, they both aim to tell entirely different stories, too, and each delivers what viewers would expect from a Fast & Furious movie (regarding the former) and a dark, character-focused drama (regarding the latter, given it was written and directed by Paul Schrader, who’s recently made movies like First Reformed and The Card Counter).
3 June 24, 2005: ‘Bewitched’ & ‘Land of the Dead’
Will Ferrell starred in Bewitched, a movie that was one half of an unusual double feature 18 years before Oppenheimer got released alongside Barbie, with Ferrell also appearing in the latter. Bewitched also starred Nicole Kidman, and it was a light romantic comedy/fantasy movie that served as a modern-day update of the classic sitcom of the same name.
The bubbly comedic film got released alongside a dark, post-apocalyptic zombie one with Land of the Dead, the fourth zombie movie from the legendary George A. Romero. It was at a time when the zombie genre was arguably at its most popular, leading it to go head-to-head with unlikely box office rivals – for example, a romantic comedy like Bewitched.
2 June 25, 2004: ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ & ‘The Notebook’
Back in the early 2000s, a new Michael Moore documentary was a big deal. He was – and maybe still is – the most well-known documentary filmmaker of his generation, with 2004’s Fahrenheit 9/11 being perhaps his most provocative and iconic, with it tackling the ongoing Iraq War, the state of America following the September 11 attacks, and the presidency of George W. Bush.
It was a huge box office success, and was released alongside another successful movie that belonged to an entirely different genre: The Notebook. This film, starring Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling, was a considerably less confronting and provocative work of cinema, and likely appealed to an entirely different audience than those interested in Fahrenheit 9/11.
1 October 28, 2005: ‘Saw II’ & ‘The Weather Man’
After the runaway success of the first Saw, making a Saw II was a no-brainer, and within a year, the first of the Saw sequels came out. Appropriately, its release was as close to Halloween as possible, which is of course fitting when the film in question contains gory violence, bizarre death traps, and intense psychological terror.
Also released close to Halloween in 2005 was the dramedy The Weather Man, which starred the great Nicolas Cage in the lead role and the equally great Michael Caine in a supporting role. Though there’s some dark comedy to be found in its story about a weather man having an unusual midlife crisis, it’s still far removed from the graphic violence and horror of Saw II. This would’ve made these two films quite the unlikely double feature for anyone who had extra time to spare at the cinemas back on October 28, 2005.
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