There are countless remakes of movies, but what about movies about remakes? Bong Joon Ho’s new movie, Mickey 17, his first since Parasite won Best Picture, is an adaptation of an original idea that fits into an enduring subgenre of films exploring what it means to be “original” — it’s a clone movie.
Starring Robert Pattinson as a struggling laborer, the sci-fi flick based on the book Mickey7 follows Pattinson’s Mickey Barnes after he agrees to clone himself so that he can die over and over again doing dangerous jobs. Cloning is a rich trope, one that offers Bong plenty to play with as he explores what it’s like to live and die (and die and die and die) under capitalism. But that’s just one of the many thematic uses that movies have found for clones over the decades. Clones can allow moviegoers to think about confronting their pasts — and in many cases, let actors do so almost literally on the big screen. Clones can make us ask questions about our purpose on this Earth, or wonder if we’re even “real” to begin with. They prompt wonderings about mortality and immortality, and they’re a hornets’ nest of theoretical ethics issues.
Despite the thought-provoking potential of clones as a trope, many clone movies — most of them, in fact — are pretty dumb. Something is frequently lost when trying to bring clone stories to life, either because such a sci-fi premise invites schlocky genre takes or because the bigness of the ideas gets away from the filmmakers. The history of clone movies is not unlike a wall of pods from one of those movies; there are a lot of failed efforts. And yet, sometimes clone movies get it right. Here, then, is a ranking of clone movies from worst to best, featuring only movies that are actually about clones in some scientific sense rather than supernatural doppelgängers or robot doubles.
25.
Repli-Kate (2002)
This 2002 sex-comedy from National Lampoon has the maturity you’d expect from a 2002 sex comedy from National Lampoon. Max, a graduate student working on a cloning device, accidentally clones a copy of Kate, a beautiful and smart reporter working on a story about the invention. This double has the original Kate’s hots but is otherwise a blank slate, and Max and his buddies teach her how to be what they think every guy’s ideal of a woman is … until clone’s bro-ish tendencies and sex drive get to be a little too much for them, leading to a bunch of crude, obvious jokes. Forget the cloning machine; Repli-Kate is really a time machine that takes us to a not-too-distant past where gender politics are overtly regressive.
24.
Replicant (2001)
Jean-Claude Van Damme’s popularity had faded by the time of Replicant, a direct-to-DVD clone thriller that came out exactly one week after 9/11. He stars as a notorious serial killer who targets women, and the authorities reason that the only way to capture him is to create a clone that has his genetic memories and will be able to use his innate instincts and some kind of under-explained psychic link with the killer to find him. Not a bad premise if you’re in the mood for pulpy trash, but the execution is not nearly good enough to merit Van Damme’s clone acting like a dim-witted toddler that everybody treats like a dog for most of the movie. The Van Damme vs. Van Damme fight the movie builds up to isn’t worth the wait, although Michael Rooker’s pretty fun as the clone’s grumpy handler.
23.
Replicas (2018)
Replicas might claim the greatest gulf between “thought-provoking, deep, and unsettling premise” and “dumber-than-dog-shit execution.” Keanu Reeves plays a scientist who uses the cutting-edge cloning and robotics technology his company is working on to covertly recreate his family after they die in a car crash. There aren’t enough cloning pods to bring them all back, so he needs to make a sci-fi Sophie’s choice and erase the memory of his youngest daughter from his revived family’s memories. Replicas should be disturbing! Instead, it’s undermined at every turn by the script’s baffling misunderstanding of its own tone and laughable performances. The first scene of Replicas has a robot tearing itself apart in horror upon having a dead man’s consciousness uploaded into it; the second scene has Alice Eve, playing Reeves’s husband, casually tsk-tsking her husband in the kitchen for trying to bring all those people back to life.
22.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
All of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park are technically clones, though in most of the movies, cloning is merely a hubristic means to an end when it comes to bringing dinosaurs back to life. Fallen Kingdom, the middle installment of the Jurassic World trilogy, makes the ethics of cloning explicit, but only limply so. It turns out John Hammond had a falling out with his heretofore-unmentioned partner, Benjamin Lockwood, because Lockwood cloned his deceased daughter. The reveal that precocious little Maisie Lockwood is actually a clone gives a human face to the vague ethical quandary Fallen Kingdom feints at. If only any of the humans (or, heck, dinosaurs) in this sequel were worth caring about.
21.
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
It’s nature vs. nurture vs. nü metal in what’s widely regarded to be one of the worst Star Trek movies. Nemesis pits the Enterprise and Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard against a clone of Picard who has taken over the Romulan Empire in a coup d’état. The clone, Shinzon (who is played by a young Tom Hardy), was created as a plot to infiltrate Star Fleet, but he grew up as a slave once that plot was abandoned. Shinzon represents who Picard — the epitome of the noble captain — could have been had he grown up in the same miserable circumstances as his duplicate. Neither Shinzon nor Picard gets enough characterization to make you care about the contrast Nemesis is reaching for, so you’re left with some entry-level philosophizing, underwhelming action, and one of Trek’s uglier aesthetics.
20.
Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones (2002)
The spinoff Star Wars cartoons, like Clone Wars and especially The Bad Batch, do seriously examine the social and philosophical ramifications of having a millions-strong army of clones in the galaxy. Attack of the Clones, the film that introduces them … does not. Instead, as the title suggests, these clones are here to attack; little more than a disposable fighting force the Republic can smash up against the Separatist droids. Only Boba Fett, who is notable because he wasn’t artificially aged up and is therefore different from the countless other Jango Fett clones, gets any examination. That’s a much less challenging (and interesting) assignment than exploring what it means to be an individual member of a legion of identical clones created only to die in battle.
19.
The Other Me (1996)
Although it’s near the bottom of Vulture’s ranking of every Disney Channel Original Movie, The Other Me is hardly the worst clone movie. Andrew Lawrence plays Will, a kid who isn’t applying himself in school, and he risks getting sent to a military summer camp if he doesn’t turn things around. Thanks to a mishap involving some Sea Monkey–like critters, he accidentally creates a clone of himself, which he names Twoie and sends to school in his stead while he goofs off. Nothing that happens next is unexpected, but The Other Two has some passable high jinks and earnest emotion when Will realizes that everybody seems to like his clone better than him because Twoie’s putting in the work and trying. There’s a lesson here.
18.
Multiplicity
Michael Keaton does his best to carry this sci-fi comedy where he plays a classic ’90s stock character: the dad who lets his commitment to his job get in the way of his family. Keaton’s Doug, a construction worker, finds a solution thanks to cloning, and he makes a double that he has do all his work. He makes another one to help out around the home, and then those two clones make a third, imperfect copy of a copy. Multiplicity occasionally, almost accidentally, grasps at profundities about work-life balance that Severance would explore using a more innovative sci-fi premise decades later. Mostly, though, it’s just a chance to see Keaton volleying with himself. It’s not Keaton’s best work, but going off of pure numbers it is his most work, so that’s something.
17.
(tie) Parts: The Clonus Horror (1979)
Many ’70s sci-fi movies have a really interesting premise and a profoundly bleak, almost nihilistic worldview that’s undone by cheap, cheesy production value. Parts: The Clonus Horror, fits this mold to a T. A group of people lives a constrained but seemingly idyllic life at an isolated compound, and if they’re lucky they’ll get to go to “America.” One of them uncovers the truth: He and everybody else at the compound is a clone, created so that their organs can be harvested if the rich elite who commissioned them are ever sick. It’s a great pitch, and The Clonus Horror has an admirably grim ending, but the clear limitations of the budget and filmmaking talent make it hard to take seriously. There’s a reason why Mystery Science Theater 3000 riffed on this movie.
17.
(tie) The Island (2005)
The Michael Bay excess of The Island makes for a fascinating contrast with Parts: The Clonus Horror because it’s basically the same movie but with a blockbuster budget and blockbuster sensibilities. The Ewan McGregor–led movie has the same exact premise, to the point where the Parts filmmakers sued DreamWorks and reached a seven-figure settlement. Where Parts looks amateurish, The Island looks overly slick and glitzy, much more action-packed and, ultimately, watchable than the film it ripped off. And yet there’s a vapidness to The Island that makes you long for the lo-fi bleakness of ’70s sci-fi. How fitting that a copy of a movie about clones is better on its face but lacks some of the soul?
15.
Swan Song (2021)
Swan Song, an Apple TV+ movie is set in a near future where everything kind of looks like an Apple Store, follows Mahershala Ali’s Cameron Turner, a man with a terminal illness who is considering having a clone replace him — without his family’s knowledge — after he goes. Ali is subtly profound playing both Cameron and his clone as they grapple with their situations and the implications this choice will have on their loved ones, but Swan Song is a maudlin slog, even more than you’d think a quiet rumination on death would be.
14.
Oblivion (2013)
Cloning doesn’t factor into Joseph Kosinski’s postapocalyptic adventure until the big twist near the end, when it’s revealed that Tom Cruise’s repair technician is not actually monitoring some equipment on behalf of the rest of the now-evacuated Earth population; he’s one of many clones of an astronaut that Earth’s conqueror, a machine intelligence, has working on its behalf. This twist doesn’t fully work, and Oblivion is generally lacking in things like “developed characters” and “narrative coherency.” What it does have going for it, though, are gorgeous shots of Iceland’s natural beauty standing in for a ruined future Earth. Are these vibes enough to make for a good sci-fi movie? Honestly? Almost.
13.
Gemini Man (2019)
Will Smith plays an elite sniper whose retirement plans are foiled when he becomes the target of a killer just as deadly as he is; a younger clone of himself. Ang Lee’s movie bombed at the box office, perhaps in part because essentially nobody was able to see it in the director’s preferred, high-frame rate Imax format. Without the hyperreal presentation 120fps offers, Gemini Man is a much more generic sci-fi actioner — and if you’re less wowed by the motorcycle chases, firefights, and explosions, you’re more likely to spend time scrutinizing the digital de-aging that pits present-day Smith against his Bel-Air-era self. A shame that the good in Gemini Man is gate-kept behind a film format that audiences reject time and time again, because there’s killer action and an interesting (if not especially deep) meta resonance to seeing one of Hollywood’s biggest names face his past thanks to cloning/movie magic.
12.
The Boys From Brazil (1978)
Laurence Olivier and Gregory Peck star in this bizarre conspiracy thriller about Nazi expats who are trying to recreate Hitler with the help of cloning. Peck’s Josef Mengele placed 94 li’l Adolfs with unwitting adoptive parents who are similar to the original Hitler’s folks, and he orchestrated a series of murders to make sure his Hitler 2.0 candidates lose their fathers at the same age the original Hitler did. Olivier plays a kooky-but-good-at-his-job Nazi hunter who receives a tip about Nazi fugitives who are up to something in Paraguay. The Boys From Brazil is somehow both more and less insane than you’d expect a movie about cloning Hitler to be, but it’s fun to watch two screen legends go nuts on such a unique premise, one that applies Godwin’s law to the “nature or nurture?” debate.
11.
Infinity Pool (2023)
It can sometimes feel like you’re a different person when you’re on vacation. Infinity Pool uses an especially upsetting sort of cloning to literalize that sentiment, as Alexander Skarsgård’s character discovers when he has a brush with the law while visiting the fictional country Li Tolqa. For a fee, tourists who commit crimes can have themselves cloned and get away scot-free while their screaming, protesting duplicates are killed in their stead. The Brandon Cronenberg–directed film doesn’t have much more to say beyond some surface-level critiques about rich people behaving badly, but it executes (pun intended) those themes with gonzo gusto.
10.
Pokémon: The First Movie (1998)
Would you believe that Pokémon’s first feature-length film contains one of the saddest clone stories you’ll find in any movie, kids anime or otherwise? The American dub cut out a lot of the darker parts of Mewtwo’s backstory, but the legendary Pokémon wasn’t just a clone of Mew intended to be a living weapon for Team Rocket. His creator, Dr. Fuji, pursued cloning because he wanted to bring his deceased daughter, Amber, back to life. Little Mewtwo grows up in a tube, forming close psychic friendships with Ambertwo and clones of Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle — only to turn to villainy when his clone pals all degrade and die in an earnestly tragic sequence. (And, unlike Ash Ketchum, Ambertwo doesn’t get better.)
9.
They Cloned Tyrone (2023)
This stylish, smart, sci-fi thriller revival had the misfortune of getting released to Netflix on Barbenheimer weekend, so it got a little bit buried under the bombs and the blondes. Too bad, because They Cloned Tyrone is a hoot. John Boyega and Jamie Foxx star as a drug dealer and a retro-styled pimp, respectively, who uncover a shadowy conspiracy underneath their neighborhood. Together with a sassy sex worker played by Teyonah Parris, this trio of familiar blaxploitation stock characters discovers why they’re stereotypes; part of a complex plot involving cloning, mind control, and assimilation. The Cloned Tyrone does start to lose its own thread as the twists and turns pile up by the climax, but it’s a remarkably fun and promising debut from director Juel Taylor.
8.
Us (2019)
The Tethered in Jordan Peele’s sophomore film are just on the edge of being too supernatural to make this list of proper clone movies, though there is an explanation that they were created as part of a failed experiment by some sort of secret group. Us uses these doppelgängers to personify the dark underside of privilege. While Lupita Nyong’o and her family are on vacation, their Tethered are forced to live in the miserable depths — and the twist ending hammers home just how similar they are and just how arbitrary class is. Privilege and suffering are inexorably linked counterparts. Many movies about clones feature cloning as an ethically fraught luxury enjoyed by the superrich, but Us is much more sweeping in its implications.
7.
Moon (2009)
Sam Rockwell carries this acclaimed indie sci-fi movie, though when you’re watching it you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a two-hander. One of the many innate benefits of clone movies is the possibility of getting a great actor to play double duty (or more), and Moon’s small scope but ambitious ideas give Rockwell plenty to work with, playing a man who is nearing the end of a solo, three-year shift mining helium-3 on the moon. After an accident, he discovers that his existence is a lie; and he and a newly awakened clone must come to terms with their identities. Moon is in part a meditation on loneliness, using cloning to literalize the idea of being alone with only yourself for company.
6.
Never Let Me Go (2010)
There’s a level of quiet restraint to Never Let Me Go, which is admirable considering this weepy’s premise is overbearingly sad. Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, and Andrew Garfield play a trio of friends in an alternate, subtly dystopian Britain. The story of their eventual tragic love triangle comes with the gradual reveal that they’re clones who exist only so that their organs can be harvested until they eventually die — or “complete.” There are shades of Parts: The Clonus Horror or The Island to Never Let Me Go’s premise, but the film and the 2005 Kazuo Ishiguro novel it’s based on are less interested in conspiracy than emotion. We don’t question whether these characters have souls; we question the soulless society that would do this to them. Never Let Me Go inspires a sense of agonizing empathy and shameful complacency all at once.
5.
Mickey 17 (2025)
Despite what the premise and name Mickey 17 would suggest, Bong Joon Ho’s latest movie does not feature Robert Pattinson getting killed in brutal and/or darkly comedic ways 16 times. Although Pattinson’s Mickey Barnes is an “Expendable” — a man tasked with dangerous jobs or even just straight-up used as a lab rat for medical research — Mickey 17 is less interested in how these clones die than how the 17th one (and everybody, really), is supposed to live under capitalism.
4.
Logan (2017)
Clones are a dime a dozen in superhero comics and movies, but Logan, Hugh Jackman’s swan song as the iconic X-Men character (Deadpool and Wolverine doesn’t count), uses its two clones to give extra symbolic weight to Logan’s farewell. Dafne Keen’s X23 represents his future while the mindless clone of Logan in his prime, X24, represents his violent past. Pop-culture cloning frequently offers characters a chance to live on or confront their worst selves; Logan gives its thematically resonant clones adamantium skeletons to make the parallels literally and figuratively stronger.
3.
The Prestige (2006)
The cool, contrarian consensus pick for Christopher Nolan’s best film doesn’t feature cloning in any traditional scientific sense, and yet David Bowie–as–Nikola Tesla’s invention certainly creates perfect copies of Hugh Jackman’s Angier. He uses this invention to repeatedly drown himself so that the double can live on to take its place in the box for the next evening’s show. The Prestige, a twist-filled tale about dueling stage magicians, explores obsession and asks how much of yourself you’ll put into your art. Cloning allows Angier to take this to the extreme. As does his rival, Christian Bale’s Borden, who was already living half a life because he shared it with his all-natural clone of sorts, his identical twin.
2.
Dual (2022)
Guardians of the Galaxy’s Karen Gillan stars in this odd 2022 movie that feels very much in the spirit of high-concept, low-budget ’70s sci-fi, just with sleeker and cleaner production. Gillan’s Sarah is a depressed young woman who, upon being diagnosed with a terminal disease, opts to have herself cloned so that her double can carry on after she dies. When she makes a miraculous recovery, the law requires that she and her double must fight (or rather, duel) to the death in one year because, well, there can’t be two Sarahs running around, can there? Nothing in Dual feels futuristic — the fighting takes place in what looks like a high-school football field — and that unfancy world-building, combined with the deliberately stilted speech from writer-director Riley Stearns, makes Dual extremely uncanny. That’s a fitting vibe to have when dealing with clones.
1.
World of Tomorrow (2015, 2017, 2020)
It’s hard to describe the legendary indie animator Don Hertzfeldt’s trio of short films, World of Tomorrow. In strokes that are broader than the lines that make up the shockingly expressive stick-figure characters, the trilogy is a time-traveling saga where clones of a woman named Emily come from the far future to visit their originator in our present when she’s just a little girl. From there, the films explore the possibilities of the future, the complex inner workings of the mind, and the tantalizing, sometimes painful allure of the past. Both unfathomable and intimate in scale, World of Tomorrow uses clones, mental backups, and time travel to make a singularly profound case that the most important thing is the present. To quote just one of World of Tomorrow’s many breathtaking lines, “Now is the envy of all the dead.”