The double bill was a lost art long before I was born.
The art of choosing two complementary or contrasting films to run together died out in the 1960s. It is only kept alive in the odd arthouse cinema, but is utterly unheard of in the modern multiplex. The Astor Theatre in Melbourne has some neat double bills including The Terminator with Starman and Spider-Man with The Amazing Spiderman.
But the art of the double bill is alive and kicking in the strangest of places.
A friend's dad finds his films by trawling the DVD bargain bins at The Warehouse. Included in his hauls are always a couple of those strangely cheap box-sets where they group together films of a broadly similar nature. Often these are hatchet jobs that make odd bedfellows of Contact, AI and Paycheck just because they are sci-fi films.
But one box-set caught my eye. It was a triple bill under the banner "Killer Couples" that included Bonnie and Clyde, The Getaway and Natural Born Killers. The violent, couple-on-the-run subgenre is a lively and enduring one that could also include great films like Badlands, True Romance and Pulp Fiction.
I borrowed this box-set and watched The Getaway last night. It is a starry lineup of 1970s powerhouses - written by Walter Hill, scored by Quincy Jones, directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw.
Watching this hard-nosed, existential crime caper, it became clear that The Getaway has a perfect double bill twin - No Country for Old Men.
There are many echoes of The Getaway in the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men that must ultimately come from the Cormac McCarthy source novel. They are both set in Texas, they both involve a bag of money, a climactic shootout in a hotel, an injured, eccentric hitman on the trail of the hero, a border crossing into Mexico, a wise old cowboy and a couple realising that a bag of money isn't all its cracked up to be. The echoes are so clear that they must be deliberate. The Coen Brothers are so reluctant to expand on their films that we shall perhaps never know.
I would like to hear your ideas for double bills. Films that either go together perfectly or offer starkly different views on the same idea. Films that echo and reflect each other in unusual ways.
Here are a couple more to get you started.
I always think The Thing and E.T. would make a great double bill. They both came out in 1982, but offer very contrasting ideas about how an alien might interact with people on a visit to Earth.
Another good double bill would be Chinatown and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The two films have a surprising connection. Chinatown screenwriter Robert Towne envisaged a corruption trilogy that began with water in the 1930s (Chinatown), then covered oil in the 1940s (The Two Jakes) and then the construction of a freeway in the 1950s (the never-made Cloverleaf).
Cloverleaf may never have been made, but Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was. The plot centres on a plot by Cloverleaf Industries, deliberately named after Towne's unmade third film, to build a freeway through Toon Town. Thus, in a strange way, Roger Rabbit is a sequel to Chinatown.
Swap out the disappointing Two Jakes for There Will Be Blood and you have a pretty awesome triple bill of Chinatown, There Will be Blood and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? that completes Towne's vision in a warped, unusual and entertaining way.
What are your dream double bills? Post them below.
Follow on Twitter.
Sponsored links
Newest First
Oldest First
I am a great fan of the "Old vs New" double bill, as it can be illuminating to compare original films with their remakes. Other double bills I have found work well were Up with Grand Torino, Le Samurai with The American, and Rocketeer with Captain America.
Just for laughs: Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (original)/Requiem for a Dream Ghost/Poltergeist
Just for Kicks: Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure/ The Matrix Memento/Inception Willow/LoTR
Just for ? Life is Beautiful/The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas The Departed/Infernal Affairs Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven
I did an accedintal double bill the otherday that worked well together, the other night...Grizzly Man and Into the Wild.
Also, Charlie, are you old enough to remember that days of the 'Intermission'? When I was a kid, right in the middle of the movie, the curtains would suddenly roll shut, and the lights would come up with the intermission message. Time for Jaffa's, Tangy Fruits etc. Then about 10 mins later, the movie would resume.
I'm not saying it was better that way. You could say it was worse. But its certainly a memory Of The Way Things Used To Be, and an opportunity for ageing fogeys-in-training like me to bore the kids with our stories. Now get off my lawn.
My very first movie experience as a 5 or 6 year old was a double bill of Romancing the Stone and Back to the Future. Loved movies ever since :)
I think some good ones might be Blade Runner and The Hunger Games. Inception and Cypher. Vampires Kiss and Bad Santa.
Oh and I forgot, my favourite double bill of all time was easter 3 years ago, my wife and I cooked dinner for a group of friends, and we watched the double bill of Choke and Teeth. They complemented each other surprisingly well.
The Fountain/The science of sleep Would make for an interesting night! Very different perceptions of life and if you can handle that much thinking would change your life
ET/Super 8. Super 8 is JJ Abrhams' ET homage-type movie.
Back in the day, provincial cinemas had 6 day "seasons". The Rank war.season, which it was. Double featurres were B movies, typically a Western with.Barbara Stunwhack, and a crime thriller with William Syllvester.
The best and only double bill I ever saw was in the Rialto cinema in Dunedin. Would hae been 98 or 99. It was Kull the Conqueror followed by Starship Troopers.
I'm from Buenos Ares and I say kill them all.