When Hollywood Has the Same Idea Twice: 6 Movies That Were Almost Identical
14 August, 2026In a filmic landscape where original ideas are being championed once again, great minds are coming together to create a movie that happens to be just like another movie. This happens more often than you think- great ideas have been thought of constantly over millennia, so it’s only natural that every so often, Hollywood produces two films that seem to have been cooked up in the same writers’ room.
They might feature different casts, directors and studios, but the basic premise can be remarkably similar- and sometimes they release not only in the same year, but within weeks of each other. So, whilst we love original ideas, it does make you question how “original” anything actually is.
Here then, are six pairs of films that had audiences doing a double take (and maybe a double-feature) when they arrived on screens.
The End of Oak Street (2026) and The Last House (2026)
Told you it happens often. This pair of movies are only one week apart, with The End of Oak Street hitting cinemas today, and The Last House releasing on Netflix last Friday, August 7. The latter follows a family of four who become trapped inside their home as a mysterious disaster unfolds outside. The End of Oak Street sees Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor in a supernatural thriller about a family living on a suburban street that is suddenly transported somewhere else by a mysterious cosmic event.
Whilst not identical, they both centre on families of four living in ordinary suburban surroundings that is turned upside down by a mysterious event. The coincidence has already been noticed by eagle-eyed film fans online, with comparisons between the two films appearing for months leading to their releases.
I thought that it was also worth mentioning that Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie also releases today too. Not quite as strong a parallel but it also has dinosaurs.
The First Omen (2024) and Immaculate (2024)
Rewinding back a couple of years, this one is quite uncanny. The First Omen and Immaculate are both horror films that centre on a young American woman who travels to Italy and becomes involved with a sinister religious institution, then they both get pregnant with an evil child that is part of some cultish conspiracy.
Of course, there are also some major differences. The First Omen is a prequel to the classic The Omen, while Immaculate is an original story starring Sydney Sweeney. They also take different approaches to their horror presentation but the similarities are undeniable.
Armageddon (1998) and Deep Impact (1998)
This is probably the one that you were waiting for. Armageddon and Deep Impact both arrived in 1998 and imagined humanity facing an extinction-level threat from a comet/asteroid. It was an unusually spectacular case of two studios spending enormous amounts of money on almost exactly the same nightmare scenario.
As ever though, they did approach it all a little differently. Michael Bay's Armageddon is exactly what you’d expect from something directed by Michael Bay and and starring Bruce Willis in 1998- lots of action, explosions and romantic sub-plots. Whilst Deep Impact opted more for a disaster-drama. But they both still essentially “giant space rock is going to hit Earth.”
Dante's Peak (1997) and Volcano (1997)
1997 was apparently the year of Titanic, Boogie Nights and L.A. Confidential. It’s also apparently the year that two people decided that audiences desperately needed to see volcanoes destroy things. Dante's Peak arrived in February, with Pierce Brosnan playing a volcanologist who realises that a dormant volcano is about to erupt. Then just two months later, Volcano brought a similar disaster to Los Angeles, where Tommy Lee Jones plays an emergency-management official dealing with a similarly unexpected volcanic eruption in the city.
Different settings sure but the basic selling point was identical: huge, seemingly dormant volcano suddenly springs back into action affecting the lives of ordinary people. Dante's Peak however focused on a small community threatened by a natural disaster while Volcano went for pure cinematic spectacle. Both remain fun examples of the golden age of disaster flicks.
Olympus Has Fallen (2013) and White House Down (2013)
2013 saw two action movies about terrorists taking over the White House. Olympus Has Fallen with Gerard Butler arrived in March, and then Roland Emmerich's White House Down starring Channing Tatum arrived in June. In both, the President becomes trapped inside the White House and a coincidentally highly trained and capable action hero happens to be there to fight his way through the building to save him.
In this case, the films are remarkably similar in many ways. Both films employ a Die Hard-esque style complete with hostage situations, heavily armed attackers and a lone protagonist. The main difference lies in their tones: Olympus Has Fallen goes for a more intense and serious action approach, while White House Down embraces more humour and blockbuster entertainment.
No Hard Feelings (2023) and Anyone But You (2023)
Not quite as uncanny as some of the other pairings on this list, but No Hard Feelings and Anyone But You are both glossy, star-driven romantic comedies built around young leads whose initial relationship is based on an arrangement rather than genuine romance. Over the course of the story, it inevitably starts to become something more.
No Hard Feelings, released in June 2023, stars Jennifer Lawrence as a desperate woman who is hired to date a wealthy couple's socially awkward teenage son (Andrew Barth Feldman). Anyone But You arrived later that year and puts Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell together as two people who pretend to be a couple in order to navigate an awkward wedding. Their plots aren't identical, but fake romance and escalating attraction, whilst hardly a new idea, is still weird that it happened twice in such close proximity.
The strange thing about these pairings is that there usually isn’t actually any copying involved. Film is a fast-paced industry, but ideas can circulate through it for years before they reach the screen. If two different writers and studios independently arrive at similar concepts, they can just coincidentally reach audiences within months, or even days, of each other.
Whilst some people might think that having two similar movies might lessen the impact of each other, it certainly makes for some fun social media chatter and inevitably some free extra marketing. So wins and losses and all that.
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