10 Mind-Bending Films Where Actors Star Opposite Themselves

Why bother hiring more talent when you already have the best person for the job? That is what filmmakers have been saying since at least 1937, when Stewart Granger played opposite himself in The Prisoner of Zenda, as English gent Rudolf Rassendyll and his distant relative King Rudolf V.

And who can blame them? As technology advanced throughout the 20th century, it became more and more feasible to put the same actor on the screen twice, with the ability to make them appear as if genuinely interacting becoming more and more seamless - until CGI, Will Smith and Gemini Man ruined it for everyone.

Nevertheless, the trend of doppelgangers, doubles, clones and twins lives on, and directors and stars are still willing to go the extra mile with technical trickery, seamless editing and a well-appointed touch of the digital stuff to have actors star twice in unique, unexpected, confusing and frequently disturbing ways.

Charlie Kaufman did it to build a nigh impenetrable metafiction, Christopher Nolan did it to make magic seem real, Jordan Peele did it to scare the shiitake mushrooms out of us, and Bong Joon Ho kind of just did it for fun. Now it's your turn to try and wrap your head around these 10 mind-bending films where actors play opposite themselves.

First-time director Jordan Peele crashed onto the horror scene in 2016 with the critically lauded Get Out, and managed the unthinkable three years later by following it up with the equally stupendous Us.

The film takes us into the world of Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong’o), as she holidays with her family in the beachfront community where something strange happened to her as a child. Her trauma hangs over every moment, and as Adelaide grows concerned that something bad is on its way, a family of doppelgangers descend on the Wilsons’ holiday home.

An anomaly even in the world of doppelganger movies, just about every named character in Us has a mute, "tethered" underworld opposite, played by the same actor. But it is Nyong'o's lead performances that stand head and shoulders above the rest, as she contends with a double who can not only speak, but has quite the bone to pick.

The two face off in technically challenging and improbable ways throughout, and the feeling of our stomachs dropping out at the film's conclusion is matched only by the headache of trying to figure out how Peele and company managed such an intimate performance between an actor and herself.