10 Mind-Bending Films Where Actors Star Opposite Themselves

Denis Villeneuve may now be best known for mega-budget sci-fi epics, like Dune and Blade Runner 2049, but not so long ago the Québécois director was making small, thought-provoking features that challenge viewers to do a lot of the narrative and conceptual legwork ourselves. 

Nowhere is this ethos more apparent than in Enemy, which takes superstar Jake Gyllenhaal and puts him in post as quiet, unsuspecting college professor Adam Bell, whose ordinary life is impinged on by the discovery of his look-alike. Gyllenhaal plays opposite himself as actor Anthony Claire, who discovers Adam's attempts to delve into his life, and seizes the opportunity to blackmail him into a one-night-only wife-swap that ends in chaos and disaster.

Enemy uses its identical main characters to explore Adam's self-identity, his wish fulfilment and his projection of a life he never led - the actor with the motorbike who attends underground sex clubs. And while his ability to ingratiate himself into this life after Anthony suffers a fatal accident suggests something of the film's thematic concerns, the final image of a gigantic, cowering spider where his new wife ought to be leaves a lot more to ponder.