20 "Twin" Films That Were In Competition With Each Other

Rotten Tomatoes: 75%/73%

IMDB: 8.5/7.6

By 2006, Christopher Nolan had left a major impression on Hollywood, conquering the indie scene with the quick succession of Following and Memento - each novel takes on the neo-noir. He then set his sights a little higher, convincing Warner Bros. to reboot the Batman franchise. This time, however, Nolan wanted to get it right, his fidelity to some of the more famous moments and characters from the comics and grounding them in a gritty reality not dissimilar to Michael Mann's Heat.

But his faithfulness to Batman gave no indication of how he'd handle other properties - namely Christopher Priest's novel The Prestige. For the most part, he and brother Jonathan stayed true to the bare-bones of the novel, but Nolan's own flair for storytelling played even more dangerous games between dueling magicians Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman.

Around the same time, Limitless director Neil Burger was concocting his own period piece puzzle mystery with Edward Norton as the elusive magician. Beyond setting and the themes of magic and the joy and terror we often feel simultaneously during a dangerous trick, they were made independently of one another. Both were heralded for their performances (particularly Paul Giamatti's Inspector in the latter film) and dynamic scripts.

And while there is a lot to like in The Illusionist, including a score by Phillip Glass, but it will forever pale in comparison to the Nolan's tight, clever script. The Illusionist offered us some Glass, The Prestige gave us David Bowie onscreen.