Tweedle Dum & Tweedle Dee, conceive one, get one free
Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
Sharing the Screen in: Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Seeing Double: Yup, that’s Matt Lucas x 2. One’s slightly frownier than the other; otherwise the preference for matching baby-goes-to-prison garb makes it impossible to tell them apart.
Separated at Birth? They’re perpetually scrapping with each other, but are so symbiotic they usually finish…
…each other’s sentences.
Eliot & Beverly Mantle
Sharing the Screen in: Dead Ringers (1988)
Seeing Double: Sleek computer-controlled camerawork allows Jeremy Irons to interact seamlessly with himself.
Separated at Birth? Utterly codependent. Confident Eliot seduces women so that Beverly can enjoy sloppy seconds on the sly.
But when Beverly sinks into drug addiction and depression, he brings Eliot down with him.
Luke Skywalker & Leia Organa
Sharing the Screen in: Star Wars (1977)
Seeing Double: Puppy-fat aside, blonde-haired Mark Hamill and brunette Carrie Fisher are chalk and cheese.
Which is presumably why, when they first meet, their first thought is inadvertently incestuous tonsil tennis.
Separated at Birth? And how! One’s a space-faring princess, the other a yokel farmhand.
But they are united in hatred for the Empire, and the chance to get one over on the errant dad who abandoned them for the Dark Side.
The Twins
Sharing The Screen in: The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
Seeing Double: Sallow skin and albino dreads mark them out as a two-fer. But, as real-life twins, Neil and Adrian Rayment needn't have gone to the effort.
Separated At Birth? Never seen apart, these guys stick together like 0 and 1.
Yes, yes, we've resorted to a binary joke. Then again, these nameless twins are computer programs, so we reckon the gag is justified.
Bob & Walt Tenor
Sharing The Screen in: Stuck On You (2003)
Seeing Double? They’re not a bad match facially, but nobody would mistake Greg Kinnear as Matt Damon’s Doppelganger.
Separated At Birth? Don’t be insensitive. Bob and Walt are conjoined twins.
However, personality-wise they couldn’t be further apart, as extrovert Walt dreams of becoming a Hollywood star against the wishes of web-surfing geek Bob.
Hilarity ensues, it says here.
Julius & Vincent Benedict
Sharing The Screen in: Twins (1988)
Seeing Double: You’re ‘aving a laugh. The entire premise of the film rests on the juxtaposition of unlikely birth-sharers Arnie Schwarzenegger (tall, ripped, monosyllabic) and Danny DeVito (short, balding, motormouth).
Separated at Birth? Oh yes. The result of a genetic experiment to create the perfect human, the scientists were aghast to find that, alongside Julius, they ended up with Vincent: genetic trash.
But twins are twins (and a mismatched buddy movie is a mismatched buddy movie) and they soon find they have more in common than they first thought.
Aubrey Fleming & Dakota Moss
Sharing The Screen in: I Know Who Killed Me (2007)
Seeing Double: For the second time in her career – following 1998 debut The Parent Trap – Lindsey Lohen plays both halves of a twin-set. Lindsey Lohan clearly has some serious twin envy issues.
Separated At Birth? Aubrey is kidnapped by a suburban family whose baby has died; Dakota stays with her crack addict mom and becomes a stripper.
But the two remain psychically linked, meaning they suffer each other’s experiences. Ironic, huh?
Ronnie & Reggie Kray
Sharing The Screen in: The Krays (1990)
Seeing Double: Gary and Martin Kemp swapped music for movies when the ex-Spandau Ballet chart-toppers were cast as the Krays.
Worth noting, however, that they’re not twins: Gary is two years older than Martin.
Separated At Birth: There’s no way doting ma Violet (Billie Whitelaw) would let these two fly the coop.
No matter that they’re psychotic villains turning the East End into their criminal empire through intimidation and cruewl violence, as long as they pop ‘round for a cuppa afterwards.
Fred & George Weasley
Sharing The Screen in: the Harry Potter series (2001-2011)
Seeing Double: On-screen, James and Oliver Phelps are scarily identical.
Off-screen, fact fans, James is the one doing all the racing around – he’s doubling as a runner on set to get experience as a filmmaker.
Separated at Birth: The Weasley Twins are the court jesters at Hogwarts, a neverending double-act of Wizarding Wheezes.
They’re pretty interchangeable, really, although we reckon you should be able to tell them apart by the end of The Deathly Hallows .
Duane & Belial Bradley
Sharing The Screen in: Basket Case (1982)
Seeing Double: Not exactly. Duane looks like your average sorta guy, but his ex-conjoined twin Belial is so deformed, parasitic and psychotic Duane hucks him around in a basket. Like people do.
Separated At Birth: Yes, much to their chagrin. Pa Bradley had Belial removed in the hope he would die; now the bros are out for revenge on the docs who performed the surgery.
First, however, Belial needs the loo...
Charlie & Donald Kaufman
Sharing The Screen In: Adaptation (2002)
Seeing Double: Frizzy-wigged Nic Cage is a dead ringer for the real-life Charlie, but looks nothing like Donald...mainly because the latter is fictitious.
Separated At Birth: Charlie's a successful Hollywood screenwriter, Donald a layabout moocher. And yet their Venn diagram carries significant cross-over.
While tortured artist Charlie seems hell-bent on destroying his careeer, the more instinctive Donald gets on writing insane - but commercial - psychological thriller The Three .
Terry & Ruth Collins
Sharing The Screen in: The Dark Mirror (1946)
Seeing Double: Olivia De Havilland tests Golden Age Hollywood’s split-screen FX by taking on dual roles as nice-and-nasty twin sisters.
Separated At Birth: A psychiatrist (Lew Ayres) is brought in after witnesses identify a Collins girl as a murder suspect. But which one?
His examinations reveal that one of the twins is an absolute psycho. See if you can guess which from the photo.
Paul & Eli Sunday
(Not) Sharing The Screen in: There Will Be Blood (2007)
Seeing Double: Paul Dano shows his versatility doing the Sunday double: scruffy, money-minded Paul versus starchy pastor Eli.
Separated At Birth: Eli is dead against Paul's scheme to sell the family's land to scary prospector Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis.)
Intriguingly, although Dano is credited as playing two characters, once Eli is introduced Paul never reappears, leading to the possibility that the two are one and the same.
Barry & Tom Howe
Sharing The Screen in: Brothers of the Head (2005)
Seeing Double: Rising stars Luke and Harry Treadaway already had their own band, Lizardsun, making their casting as conjoined twin musicians easy.
Separated At Birth: What do you think? But being joined at the hip (or stomach) in the 1970s needn’t be a burden if you’re a punk.
Soon Barry (vocals) and Tom (guitar) are wowing crowds as The Bang-Bang, with only unscrupulous promoters and Tom’s love affair with a journalist to get between them.
Seeing Double: Facially identical, it’s a good job the Bouvier gals wear their hair differently or we’d never tell ‘em apart.
Separated At Birth: Far from it; sadly, these two can’t escape each other’s mutually toxic atmosphere. Romantic Selma’s tried to get hitched five times, but ends up back in the bosom of her sour sis.
Fortunately, they can still find common ground in their shared loathing of brother-in-law Homer Jay Simpson.
The Grady Twins
Sharing The Screen in: The Shining (1980)
Seeing Double: Stanley Kubrick presumably cast twin sisters Lisa and Louise Burns because they look damned creepy together.
Separated At Birth? The Grady kids are so close not even death could separate them.
Butchered by bad dad Delbert, they’re destined to forever haunt the corridors of the Overlook hotel, endlessly jump-cutting into a pile of bloody rag-dolls.
Tom & Jake Sully
(Not) Sharing The Screen in: Avatar (2009)
Seeing Double: We never meet Tom, but the film’s plot hinges on him being a dead ringer for Jake. Presumably Sam Worthington will be cast if Tom ever shows in flashbacks.
Separated at Birth? Separate career paths, certainly. Paraplegic Marine Jake only replaces boffin Tom in the Avatar programme due to their shared biology.
Sharing The Screen in: Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
Seeing Double: From a distance, it’s hard to see the likeness between suave dandy Austin and scarred baldie Dr Evil.
Close-up, though, that glimmer of madness in the eyes can only belong to Mike Myers.
Separated at Birth? 'Fraid so. Superspy dad Nigel Powers (Michael Caine) thought son Dougie was killed in a car explosion; instead he survived, turning to evil only after being raised by Belgians.
Austin, who remained British, became a hero. The BNP must be so proud.
Violet & Daisy
Sharing The Screen in: Freaks (1932)
Seeing Double: Director Tod Browning scoured America's freakshows for the cast of his controversial horror movie about the differently abled.
So, alone amongst the conjoined twins in this list, Daisy and Violet Hilton are the real deal.
Separated At Birth: We're not going to dignify that with an answer.
For all its rep as an exploitation pic, Freaks at least takes the time to explore how the sisters' love lives work...even if Browning emphasises the kinky side of it.
Alfred Borden
Sharing The Screen in: The Prestige (2006)
Seeing Double: SPOILER ALERT: Eh? Surely that’s just one person? Nope: Borden's engineer pal “Fallon” is really his twin in disguise...
Who's also called Alfred. Confusing, isn't it?
Separated at Birth: Au contraire, the two ‘Alfreds’ are so close they’ve effectively merged into one identity in the pursuit of the ultimate magic trick.
Even when one Alfred sustains a ghastly hand injury, the stubborn buggers make sure the second twin suffers the same fate to keep their secret safe.
