The New Barbenheimer is 'Mission Institchable'

Movies make it possible to see the world through many different lenses. This past Memorial Day marked the largest U.S. box office gross for the holiday weekend in history largely thanks to two wildly disparate new releases: Lilo & Stitch and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. The last time a pair of titles generated such box office heat was in 2023, when the unexpectedly potent combination of Barbie and Oppenheimer birthed the noun Barbenheimer, and we may as well keep that tradition alive here: Welcome to Mission: Institchable.

The history of the double feature goes back to the early 1930s, when the two-for-one concept appealed to audiences in the midst of the Great Depression. These would often feature a major new release and a low-budget B-movie from the same studio. In 1948, the Supreme Court outlawed the practice of “block booking” that enabled studios to force theaters to book multiple titles, which led to fewer double bills.

In subsequent years, the double bill became more of a curatorial strategy by the theaters themselves. “When I was growing up, I almost always saw movies paired as double features,” Martin Scorsese said in a 2019 statement ahead of a double bill series in New York. “Sometimes, the pairings made sense, sometimes you’d wonder why they were being shown together, but it was a great way to experience cinema—two films back-to-back start a dialogue, and they illuminate each other.”

The Barbenheimer phenomenon was the rare example of a double bill emerging from the culture itself. Greta Gerwig’s inventive look at a Barbie doll entering the real world met its moment with a refreshing look at evolving perspectives on femininity, while Christopher Nolan’s grim biopic served as a timely warning sign in the midst of continuing nuclear threats. Together, Barbie and Oppenheimer showcased the two extremes of a world in constant flux, hurtling toward change that could either yield progress or imminent destruction.

So what does Mission: Institchable have to say about today? Movies are windows into the aspirations and anxieties of the moment they’re made, and these two have more to say about 2025 than they may display on the surface.

In Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt undergoes a daring mission to stop an amorphous A.I. villain from destroying the planet. That’s a far cry from the 1996 movie directed by Brian De Palma, in which the IMF agent was on the lam after getting framed for murder. Though the real stars of The Final Reckoning are the action scenes, and the 62-year-old actor who somehow pulls them off without any stunt doubles, they unfold against a backdrop where the true villain exists beyond the constraints of a single bullet or bubblegum explosive. Despite some of the more exaggerated circumstances, this is a war against machines more credible than anything in the entire Terminator franchise, and that alone makes it timely in the age of generative A.I.

As for Lilo & Stitch, the remake of the 2002 Disney hit follows a young Hawaiian girl (Sydney Elizabeth Agudong) who befriends a devious alien refugee. Stitch is a giddy, gremlin-like troublemaker who thrives on chaos at every turn, at least until he bonds with Lilo and learns that at least some of his aggression comes from a lack of companionship. Two years after the U.S. Surgeon General declared an epidemic of loneliness across modern society, Stitch’s insular ways hit differently than they did 23 years ago.

That’s partly due to some incredibly convincing CGI, which makes the impish critter look as though he’s actually bounding through Hawaiian scenery and showing real emotion. It also speaks to the talent behind the camera. Director Dean Fleisher Camp’s previous outing, the charming Oscar nominee Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, followed an adorable talking critter content with his small world until he embarks on a journey to find his family. The achievement of that movie and Lilo & Stitch are one and the same: By injecting credible stakes into a ludicrous scenario, Fleisher Camp makes the case for inclusivity in the most unlikely of circumstances. (Check out our full interview with him on our YouTube channel.)

As a double bill, Mission: Institchable may not seem like the most complimentary viewing experience (of course, younger kids can only watch one half of the pair). However, its emergence at a moment of tremendous social change, as the internet transforms the way we communicate and injects new questions about the future of interpersonal connections, feels like a potent blend indeed.

When Mission: Impossible and Lilo & Stitch opened theatrically, I was wrapping up my time at the Cannes Film Festival. Talk about a study in contrasts: One day you can experience the charming father-daughter relationship at the root of Wes Anderson’s exquisite new romp The Phoenician Scheme, and the next, the bleak study attempted justice in Soviet-era Russia by an idealistic lawyer in Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa’s Two Prosecutors.

I saw both movies after my initial list of Cannes 2025 highlights, and I have to say, this was a strong year for diverse perspectives on the modern world.

The film that won the coveted Palme d’Or, the top prize of the festival, epitomized many global concerns of the moment. It Was Just an Accident marks the latest effort by the beleaguered Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who has continued making movies in his home country even after it banned him from directing for 20 years in 2010. Panahi made the brilliant diary movie This Is Not a Film in 2011 while living under house arrest, but that’s nothing compared to his latest gamble, which plays like a direct response to his seven months spent in prison two years ago.

A real-time thriller with flashes of black comedy, It Was Just an Accident follows formerly-incarcerated mechanic Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) as he comes across a peg-legged man (Ebrahim Azizi) who tortured him during his imprisonment. That discovery leads to a messy kidnapping scheme and frantic debates between Vahid and other ex-prisoners about how best to mete out justice. This is tense, immersive filmmaking, made all the more urgent and powerful by the covert circumstances under which it was made. The U.S. distributor NEON, which released last year’s Best Picture winner Anora, snapped up It Was Just an Accident and plans to release it later this year. Whatever the risks of Panahi’s filmmaking endeavors, they clearly were not in vain.

The wonderful thing about film culture is that such rich, socially-conscious filmmaking can receive a global platform at the same time that blockbusters make the rounds. Both ends of the spectrum provide access points for probing the world around us in all its complexities. Audiences can pick and choose the avenues that most appeal to them, or take risks on the unknown, which is often where great discoveries hide. Mission: Institchable may be the first unexpected double bill of the calendar year, but it certainly won’t be the last.