When I was younger I remember going to drive-in movies with my cousins, getting there early and watching as the sun went down while we threw around a frisbee or played two-hand-touch to pass the time. When it finally got dark enough that someone got beamed in the head cause they couldn’t see the disc or the ball, we’d saunter over to my parents’ older-than-me minivan that banged and hissed the whole drive up and set down a blanket in the trunk, gazing at the huge screen like a castaway to a lighthouse and hearing the scramble of voices as my parents tuned the radio to the right station. The concept of two movies in succession, the aptly named ‘double feature,’ left a young me awestruck; I remember going for the first time when I was maybe 6 or 7 and getting up to go when movie #1 (one of the Madagascars I think) ended, only to be met with muffled laughter and a voice telling me to sit back down, the night wasn’t over. 

 

The best thing about these drive-in double features by far was the combinations. Sometimes they made sense (two animated kids movies back to back? sure, why not) but other times it seemed like they were smacking together whatever reels they could get their hands on (ever wanted to see The Exorcist immediately following a screening of The Goonies? No? Well too bad!). It warms my heart, therefore, to see a double feature practically destined to happen. On July 21st, 2023, two passion-project biopics (sort of) are set to release. The one: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, which has been in the works since 2009. The other: Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, detailing the life of the man sometimes called “the father of the atomic bomb.” Although Barbie’s runtime hasn’t been announced, with Oppenheimer sitting at 2 hours and 30 minutes, the showing—official or not—looks to be at least 4 hours long combined. In order to prepare, therefore, I’ve marked the day off on my calendar that I definitely have and set about putting together a team with which to brave this marathon. It certainly won’t be for the faint of heart, but anyone willing and able to brave this double feature is in for the moviegoing experience of a lifetime. Arguably, this is why cinema was invented.