10 Mind-Bending Films Where Actors Star Opposite Themselves

Remaking Dario Argento is no mean feat, least of all remaking Suspiria (widely considered to be the director's best), but Luca Guadagnino pulled it off. Set during the German Autumn of 1977 at an exclusive, all-female dance academy in Berlin, the film takes us into a world of witchcraft and deception via Susie Bannon (Dakota Johnson), an ex-Mennonite with exceptional talent who feels a supernatural draw to the school.

Although Johnson is the protagonist, Tilda Swinton is arguably the star, playing three different roles throughout. She is Madame Blanc, lead choreographer of the Markos Dance Academy; Helena Markos, the institution's mysterious matron; and Dr Josef Klemperer, a psychologist who is doing his best to expose the nefarious coven controlling the academy.

Mirrors are present throughout the film, and yet despite the unpacking of multiple selves - as Susie arrives at her spiritual destiny, becoming Mother Suspiriorum - Swinton's characters have precious little screentime together, each representing, in character and disposition, different vertices on a triangle of opposing ideologies. Nonetheless, this is one of the most intriguing and accomplished examples of an actor inhabiting multiple parts as, unless you have a really keen eye it's all but impossible to tell that anyone but Blanc is Swinton, with prosthetics and performances rendering each character distinctive and unique.