David Cronenberg: All 21 Films Ranked From Worst To Best

4. Dead Ringers

He may have struggled in M. Butterfly's self-indulgent narrative, but Jeremy Irons had no such difficulties in Cronenberg's eerie Dead Ringers. Irons plays twin gynaecologists with unique personalities, one of whom is reserved and quiet where the other is a confident womaniser. The two brothers con women, as the braver of the two sleeps with them, gets bored, and passes them onto his brother. The film basically covers many familiar themes of sexuality from Cronenberg's other works, including mutilated genitalia, parasitic sexual sicknesses and almost symbiotic human relationships. The twins, despite their frequent fall-outs during the film, are connected in ways both psychic and organic, while the quieter brother's eventual adoration for a woman passed down to him provides the basis for a further exploration of these themes. Dead Ringers manages to be truly creepy without resorting to the same horrifying body horror of other Cronenberg films, and it is perhaps its slow subtlety that sets it apart. It's definitely one of his harder sells (the narrative is deeply symbolic, there's no schlock, and the premise is fairly bizarre), but it is also one of his most consistently fulfilling and thematically complex creations. Throw in the fact that Irons is magnificent throughout, and that the story of the brothers' demise is remarkably resonant, and you have a must-watch film that has gone down as one of the direct's best ever.