After Sinners, I've Seen All Four Major Dual Performance Movies So Far In 2025, And There's A Clear Best And A Clear Worst

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains some spoilers for Sinners. If you have not yet seen the film, A) what are you waiting for?!, and B) proceed at your own risk.

In the early decades of cinema, having a single actor play two different characters performing together in a single scene was a magical feat that blew the minds of audiences… but on a technical level, it has become pretty basic in modern Hollywood. Between visual effects, advanced editing procedures, and cameras that can be programmed to repeat precise movements in multiple takes, contemporary filmmaking has taken the shine off that particular apple.

What can still make dual performances stand out, however, is the caliber of the actor pulling double duty – and we’ve seen a fascinating array of them in the first four months of 2025 alone between Christian Convery and Theo James in Osgood Perkins’ The Monkey, Robert Pattinson in Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17, Robert De Niro in Barry Levinson’s Alto Knights, and Michael B. Jordan in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners. It’s been a bit odd to see all of these movies released in close proximity to one another, and each employs the cinematic trick differently, but along the titles, there is a standout that executes it best and a standout that executes it worst.

Michael B. Jordan Does A Spellbinding Job Bringing Smoke And Stack To Life In Sinners

As far as capturing a dual performance is concerned, Ryan Coogler flexes his filmmaking skills early in Sinners, with the very first scene between Michael B. Jordan’s twin brothers Smoke and Stack featuring a moment where one lights the other’s cigarette. There isn’t a drop of artifice to it (certainly no faint line down the middle of the screen that the characters never cross), and the work has you see the two men independently, wearing stylish, color-accented suits and waiting for the opportunity to close the real estate deal that is the first step towards achieving their dream. Our eyes tell us that we are watching two brothers, but it’s truly Jordan’s performance that maintains the illusion throughout the horror/crime epic.

A lot of movies that utilize a dual performance in their storytelling use it as an opportunity to showcase a star’s range. The same actor plays two characters who look alike but otherwise have wildly divergent personalities – and it’s often the case that they will be protagonist and antagonist (The Monkey presents a textbook example of this, with the shy, introverted Hal presented in contrast to the bullying, aggressive Bill). This is a significant part of what makes Michael B. Jordan’s work in Sinners stand apart, however. They aren’t a study of opposites; it’s a masterpiece of realistic subtlety.

Let’s quickly examine who Smoke and Stack are. Elijah and Elias Moore are twin brothers who grew up together in the Mississippi Delta and are forever bonded from the trauma of their abusive father. They found freedom from that horror together, and when they matured, they chose to move to Chicago together to find their fortune. Their lives are intertwined from birth, and through their shared experiences, they developed shared goals. This is not a story for twins who mature in extreme contrast.

But it’s not as though Michael B. Jordan is playing two incarnations of the same character. If I can loosely play on the significance of music in Sinners, they are variations on a theme. Every person is wired differently, looks at the world through different eyes, and has experiences that impact their filters and behavior. In a dependent relationship, one’s shortcomings can be compensated for by the other’s skill. The blue and red accents of the costuming by Ruth E. Carter give away how Smoke and Stack fit this reality. We see this best expressed in their romantic relationships: the former having his history with his estranged wife, Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), the tragic loss of their child permitting Jordan to add extra layers of emotional depth; and the latter carrying on a fiery affair with the once-spurned Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), which ultimately leads to his monstrous transformation.

Sinners presents an atypical version of the dual performance, and while I love what Christian Convery and Theo James do in The Monkey and how Robert Pattinson plays the various clones Mickey 17, Michael B. Jordan pulls off something special. And all of them are leagues better than what was attempted by all of the legendary talent behind the gangster film Alto Knights.

Only One Word Explains Why Robert De Niro Plays Both Frank Costello and Vito Genovese In Alto Knights, And That Word Is “Gimmick”

To be blunt, there is no real reason why Robert De Niro plays both Frank Costello and Vito Genovese in Alto Nights, and that does nothing to help the performance’s standing in this conversation. Unlike with The Monkey or Mickey 17 or Sinners, the characters are neither twins nor clones, and the real people on whom they are based have some shared features but are hardly identical. The filmmakers could have easily paired De Niro with another renowned actor from the gangster movie genre to amplify marketability, but they went with De Niro in a dual role as a hook. Or to use a more loaded, (very) purposefully negative term, a gimmick.

Without a natural justification for the double duty part, there is an onus put on the characterization and performance to make it make sense, and that test is failed. The personalities come down to “equanimity” versus “anger management issues,” and neither possesses any particular charisma or dynamism to remind audiences of what made De Niro a legend in the genre. This particularly becomes clear in scenes where Frank and Vito sit down in scenes together, which never feel like anything more than a cinematic trick with the actor in costume and makeup talking to himself.

It’s been strange to see high-profile dual performances at a rate of one per month in 2025 so far, but it has successfully showcased fascinating utility for storytelling and has exemplified the best and worst way to do things. I’m not sure how many more of these movies we’ll get in the rest of the year 2025, but I’ll certainly be hopeful that they will all be more Sinners than Alto Knights.