10 Best Movie Duologies of All Time, Ranked (original) (raw)
Published Mar 1, 2024, 4:01 PM EST
Jeremy has more than 2500 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows.
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Everyone knows what a trilogy is, and it follows that if you understand that term, it's not too difficult to work out what a quadrilogy (sometimes called a tetralogy) would be. But defining a duology can feel a little more complex. Rather than telling a story in three or four distinct parts, or within a single film, duologies explicitly split one story into two halves. Unlike the more common occurrence of a successful movie getting a sequel greenlit, though, a duology needs both installments to make sense or feel complete, and as such, these films are envisioned as two-parters right from the start.
The following pairs of movies make up some of the best duologies to be found throughout movie history, with these examples being defined by how connected each of the two parts are. In all cases, the same filmmakers were behind directing each pair of movies, and most of them were conceived or produced as one huge movie split into two. Those looking for something longer than a normal movie that's also not as much of a commitment as a trilogy have come to the right place.
10 'It' (2017) and 'It Chapter Two' (2019)
Director: Andy Muschietti
Image via Warner Bros
Within the pantheon of creepy movie clowns, few can claim to have the same sort of notoriety as Pennywise from It and its (or It’s) follow-up, It Chapter Two. Maybe Pennywise is cheating a little, considering the character is an ancient evil entity that simply takes on the appearance of Pennywise the Dancing Clown for much of the story, but still, a creepy clown’s a creepy clown, so he or it (or It) counts.
Stephen King’s mammoth novel of the same name needed two movies for the adaptation to be mostly accurate, and it’s pretty neatly divided up by the fact that It follows the main characters when they’re children, and It Chapter Two jumps forward 27 years to follow them when they’re adults. In both cases, they’re dealing with the titular villain, and though the first movie is more effective (with repetition setting in a little in Chapter Two, and things not being as scary when the characters are grown up), it’s still relatively satisfying to watch both these horror movies back-to-back.
9 'Nymphomaniac: Vol. I' (2013) and 'Nymphomaniac: Vol. II' (2013)
Director: Lars von Trier
Mrs. H, H, and Joe sitting next to each other and looking awkward in the film Nymphomaniac
Image via Nordisk Film
Most Lars von Trier movies can be defined by their shocking or controversial qualities, and Nymphomaniac goes above and beyond in that regard (if you couldn’t already guess from the title alone). Vol. I and Vol. II of this intense psychological drama were both released in 2013, with the story as a whole focusing on a woman who identifies as a sex addict recounting various events from her life.
Nymphomaniac Vol. I is mostly concerned with the woman’s experiences when she was a teenager/young adult, while Vol. II follows her as she gets older, leading up to the point at which the first volume started: with a man – who’s been listening to her stories – finding her in an alley and taking her home. It goes to some extremely explicit places throughout both volumes, with Vol. II getting especially dark and provocative, meaning that while Nymphomaniac is bold and hard to forget, it’s certainly not going to be for everyone.
Release Date
December 25, 2013
Runtime
118
Director
Lars von Trier
Writers
Lars von Trier
8 'Die Nibelungen: Siegfried' (1924) and 'Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild’s Revenge' (1924)
Director: Fritz Lang
A warrior on horseback approaches a dwarf king through a misty gulch in the woods.
Image via UFA
Fritz Lang was a filmmaker who was beloved for his various science fiction and thriller films (including Metropolis and M), but he also proved himself to be more than capable of making remarkable and groundbreaking fantasy with Die Nibelungen. This epic is divided into two parts, with Siegfried running for about two and a half hours and the second half of the story, Kriemhild’s Revenge, going for a bit over two hours.
Watching both halves together can make for an exhausting experience that lasts close to five hours, but doing so also drives home how ambitious this story of destiny, royalty, and revenge is. Die Nibelungen is easily up there with the most impressive achievements of the silent era, and though both volumes of this epic are now each a century old, they still retain a great deal of power and frequently prove awe-inspiring.
7 'Flags of Our Fathers' (2006) and 'Letters from Iwo Jima' (2006)
Director: Clint Eastwood
Image via Warner Bros.
World War II was a conflict like no other, being a war on a truly global scale and thereby inspiring countless films in subsequent decades. One of the more interesting cinematic endeavors to cover World War II in recent decades was the duology directed by Clint Eastwood in 2006, comprising both Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima.
The former is a solid war movie about the battle of Iwo Jima told from the American perspective, and principally telling the story behind the iconic photograph known as “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima.” Letters from Iwo Jima, on the other hand, revolves around the same battle, but shows things from the Japanese perspective, feeling arguably more intense and tragic because the point of view is from the side who lost the battle. Both films complement each other very well, and make for an interesting and worthwhile duology.
6 'The Emigrants' (1971) and 'The New Land' (1972)
Director: Jan Troell
Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann in 'The Emigrants' (1)
Image via SF-Produktion
Both The Emigrants and The New Land run for more than three hours each, so by the time you get to the end of the second film, it feels more like having watched three or four movies, rather than two. Both movies in this duology have fairly simple premises that are summed up neatly by each title: The Emigrants follows a Swedish family as they depart their home country, while The New Land depicts how they try to adapt to life in the U.S.
The two films that make up this impressively huge and harrowing epic are both intense for different reasons; The Emigrants because it pulls no punches in showing travel by sea back in the 1800s, and The New Land because it’s uncompromising in presenting the harshness of rural life in America around the same time. It’s certainly a commitment to get through both halves of such a story, but an ultimately worthwhile one.
5 'Dune' (2021) and 'Dune: Part Two' (2024)
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Timothée Chalamet walking through the desert in Dune: Part Two
Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
Alejandro Jodorowsky's attempts to adapt the first novel in the Dune series back in the 1970s may have never come to fruition, but at least Denis Villeneuve pulled it off decades later. 2021’s Dune covered roughly the first half of the 1965 novel of the same name, while 2024’s Dune: Part Two covers the remaining material from the book in question, with it now standing as a complete adaptation that runs for over five hours.
Granted, Dune is unlikely to remain a duology in the strictest of senses, because Villeneuve has spoken of his intentions to direct a third movie based on the second Dune novel, Dune: Messiah. Still, Dune and Dune: Part Two will remain a two-parter in the sense that both movies worked to adapt the one epic science fiction novel… and did so quite successfully at that.
Release Date
September 15, 2021
Runtime
155 minutes
Director
Denis Villeneuve
4 'Avengers: Infinity War' (2018) and 'Avengers: Endgame' (2019)
Directors: Anthony and Joe Russo
Chris Hemsworth as Thor, holding stormbreaker alongside Groot and Rocket in Avengers: Infinity War
Image via Marvel Studios
An interesting example of a duology, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame technically form part of the Avengers series, which totals four films, though both Infinity War and Endgame distinctly tell the same story. Both work in tandem to conclude the first three phases of the MCU on a high, with Infinity War revolving around Thanos finally enacting his plan to eradicate half of all life in the universe, and Endgame dealing with the fallout of such events.
It's very easy to watch both films back-to-back and have them feel like one coherent epic, and it’s also hard not to, given the shocking way Infinity War concluded (the wait between the 2018 and 2019 releases was not an easy one). Both these Avengers movies were also directed by the Russo Brothers, and thereby maintain a certain level of consistency stylistically and tonally.
3 'Jean de Florette' (1986) and 'Manon of the Spring' (1986)
Director: Claude Berri
Image via Orion Pictures
In contrast to more epic duologies like Dune and The Avengers: Infinity War + Endgame, Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring are both dramas that are more small-scale films, though prove ambitious thematically and narratively. The first film is a slow-burn with a surprising ending, and then the second film jumps forward numerous years, and showcases one character’s quest for justice and revenge.
Both Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring are about two hours each, and were released in the same year, meaning that even though the story ends up being a fairly lengthy one, they’re worth watching pretty much one after the other. The duology is one of the most iconic and well-known French movies of its era, and the saga as a whole is a moving, tragic, and overall quite powerful one.
2 'Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 1' (2012) and 'Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 2' (2012)
Director: Anurag Kashyap
Image via Viacom 18 Motion Pictures
As far as epic crime movies go, few are as great as Gangs of Wasseypur, which was released in two parts in 2012. Both halves of this sweeping and decades-spanning narrative effectively feel like they are the same movie, with things being split up because if they weren’t, Gangs of Wasseypur would’ve been released as a single 5.5-hour-long movie, and it feels harder to commit to that than two movies just over 2.5 hours each.
Effectively, Gangs of Wasseypur follows two crime families who are in constant conflict with each other, overall following both throughout three distinct generations. It’s a movie where the number of characters and wide range of genres covered makes everything always feel unpredictable, with this two-parter being admirable for its ambition, dark comedy, action, and constantly tense storytelling.
1 'Kill Bill Vol. 1' (2003) and 'Kill Bill Vol. 2' (2004)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Uma Thurman as the Bride, training with Pai Mei in shadow amidst a red background.
Image via Miramax Films
While Kill Bill may have been envisioned and filmed as one huge and lengthy film, it was ultimately released in two volumes, with Vol. 1 coming out in 2003 and Vol. 2 being released in 2004. Both deal with one woman’s quest for vengeance against her former associates who ruined her chances at escaping from her violent lifestyle, upending her attempts at a new life and leaving her for dead.
Kill Bill feels like the ultimate duology because both volumes are so different in so many ways, yet feel inextricably tied narratively and stylistically. The first is far more action-packed and takes inspiration from classic martial arts movies, while the second focuses more on dialogue and feels more linked to the Western genre, in some ways. Yet it’s hard to imagine anyone watching Vol. 1 without immediately wanting to finish the story in Vol. 2, and watching them close together does make both feel like one continual epic, even with their differences when it comes to pacing and genre.