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Barbenheimer Day, in case you don’t know, is Friday 21st July – so called because it is the date when both Barbie and Oppenheimer are released in cinemas. Multiple films are of course released every weekend but this one has for some reason become quite the thing. I, and many other movie heads, have been aware that this has been coming for quite some time; both films are definitely ones to watch, but on this occasion large quarters of the media, and therefore significant numbers of the public, have picked up on it as well and so the amalgam of those two single word titles has become a word in its own right.

This isn’t even the first time two big films have come out on the same day; Ghostbusters and Gremlins were launched simultaneously, as were Elf and Love Actually. Those pairings would make reasonable double bills though, each couple having similar themes, but perhaps the thing here is the contrast. This being the case perhaps it’s more like Jumanji and Heat debuting together, or Die Hard and A Fish Called Wanda. None of these generated the same attention though, there was no Grembusters Day or Jumanjeat Friday.

It might be that none of those other movies carried quite the same anticipation. They’re all popular classics now but their real appeal has probably grown over time. Part of this is due to the kind of expectation and hope that exists around big films at the moment. It is only last year that audiences really returned to cinemas after Covid, I mean really returned with a handful of movies doing huge business. Sure, Spider-Man: No Way Home was 2021 but it was December 2021, and then we had Top Gun: Maverick last May and Avatar: The Way of Water at Christmas. Also, the advancement of streaming and small release windows between theatres and home viewing are things that came along with the pandemic and haven’t gone away, so a couple of high profile pictures going head to head on the big screen like this, two eggs in the same basket, is less common than it might once have been.

I guess what has surprised me is that everyone else thinks these films are a big deal for the same reason I do; their directors. Christopher Nolan is probably my favourite filmmaker but others have criticised his work for being overly stylised and unnecessarily confusing (two objections I ardently refute) and while I know Ladybird and Little Women were critically adored, I wasn’t aware Greta Gerwig had become quite the household name. Her film Barbie is being heavily marketed on its stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as well, but it is Gerwig that is the focus. Frankly I’m thrilled that they are both getting this much deserved recognition.

Of course the discussion around these two films and their multi Oscar nominated creators (five nods for Nolan and three for Gerwig) has turned this into a competition which is a bit of a shame. It is, or at least it was, only cinema enthusiasts that were ever going to want to see these with days of one another so each should have been happily able to coexist alongside the other with their generally different target demographics. Oppenheimer is probably actually up against the new Mission Impossible, which comes out the week before. The sadness in this being a battle is that there has to be a loser (Barbie is certain to take the highest box office with its seemingly more upbeat subject matter and it’s easier appeal but more on that later). What we should just be celebrating is audiences having such glorious choice. When I first got excited about this months ago it was because it was a day when two directors I greatly admire have a film out, so as far as I am concerned everyone wins.

So where, you might ask, are the people behind the films in all of this? There have been a few acknowledgments of the chatter from the Barbie camp who are out there hard on the publicity trail right now. When asked in interviews, they have given a standard answer saying how much they love Nolan’s films and how there is room for both with there not being any competition necessary, which is the line the marketing team would have advised them to take but is also totally the correct response. There is also this nice photo doing the rounds of Gerwig and Robbie having bought their tickets for the opening night of Oppenheimer.

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There has been nothing from the other side though. This is to be expected, it’s not that as a serious artist Christopher Nolan considers himself above all of this but based on everything we know about him he is all about what goes up on the screen and not what happens in front of it or before it. So far his extensive cast, including Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Kenneth Branagh and Gary Oldman – some of who are prone to playful red carpet sound bites, have all stayed similarly silent. It will be interesting to see if this remains the case when they themselves have to start properly promoting their movie in a week or so.

There is one Oppenheimer poster that I am sure has to be a reference to one of the Barbie ones though. Take a look at these and tell me that the second is not knowingly and brilliantly riffing on the first, it has to be right? I mean, it’s an oddly random image if it isn’t playing on the other very Barbie Barbie picture. Neither are the main one sheet, the latter isn’t even being used in the US or the UK, but I am convinced someone on the Oppenheimer team knows what they have done here.

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What is most interesting in all of this is that no one truly knows what to expect from either film. Maybe this is actually the point, it is a really smart way that both groups have collectively come up with to get people talking about their movies when no one knows what there is to actually say. Oppenheimer looks to be the most predictable; it is evidently a factual telling of the struggles scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer had before, during and after the creation of the atomic bomb. If we know anything about Nolan though it is that he is an utterly unpredictable writer/director. This set up doesn’t seem to lend itself to his normal temporal trickery and genius storytelling sophistication but let’s see. There is definitely going to be more to Oppenheimer than meets the blast shielded eye.

As for Barbie, what the hell is this movie? I have to say that nothing about what has come out so far makes it look very good, apart from that clever 2001 parody trailer. It all appears to be worryingly reminiscent of the 2002 Lindsay Lohan and Tyra Banks Disney TV movie Life Size in which a young girl wishes her fashion doll to life in the real world. There has to be more to it than that though. Greta Gerwig as a writer/director and Margot Robbie as a producer (she has that role here too) are both purposefully feminist filmmakers; these are the people behind Lady Bird and Promising Young Woman, they have to be doing something interesting with this. So far though, they’re not letting us know what. In terms of the order in which to see the films, especially if you are watching both on the same day, the general consensus is Oppenheimer first as it is going to be the most depressing and Barbie can then give you a lift. I wouldn’t take that as read though. Okay so I don’t think Barbie is going to be as sobering as a film about the events that have put humanity on the brink of self destruction for the last seventy eight years, but it might have some hard truths of its own about the depiction of women and patriarchal oppression.

Either way on 21st July we will know, but until then expect the furore to build. The whole thing might be a bit silly, and maybe/maybe not the focus Nolan might have wanted, but in two and a half weeks time lots of people are going to be thinking about, talking about and spending money on movies and that will definitely be a day to mark.

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Update, 14th July: Christopher Nolan comments