‘What’s the right Barbenheimer viewing order?’ is the wrong question

Barbenheimer is an explainable cultural phenomenon. The tongue-in-cheek social media name assigned to Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer when people first noticed they released on the same day, it has spread to a kind of participatory cultural ritual, with pranksters who fake posters and actual merchandise for the release, not to mention endless memes.

Tens of thousands of people have already arguably purchased back-to-back tickets for themselves Barbie/Oppenheimer double properties. But there’s been a strange kind of anxiety about the duplication online, with people asking social media outlets — or, according to Google Trends, asking search engines — what the proper Barbenheimer wait order is. Which should come first, the father of the atomic bomb or the mother of all fashion doll trends?

Many people respond to the question “In what order should I watch Barbenheimer?” ask be online annoyed that it’s even a question, but their “obvious answers” depend on their personal taste. Your mileage may also vary. Fortunately, there is an easy way to navigate through this. The most important thing about Barbenheimer is not the guard order. It gives both films plenty of room to breathe, and gives yourself a break in between.

Look, anyone can do basic math. Oppenheimer is a heavy, complicated historical film about scientific progress, mass destruction and the inevitability that someone is ready to weaponize every new step we take to understand the universe we live in. Barbie is a cheeky satire that explores the conflicting cultural feelings we have about the world’s most famous doll brand and what it stands for. They go surprisingly well together, it turns out – they both explore guilt, whether one person can make a difference, and the grievous inability to fight back against a manipulated system. (They also both have a pretty clear line of “Wow, men suck.”)

With that in mind, you can decide for yourself whether you want to end your Barbenheimer on a down note or an upbeat note, whether you want to end your doubles on a perky note or a weighty note. Some people will want to close with the happy ending and the note of hope. Others will want to end with the more “serious” movie. Also, Oppenheimer is three hours long – some people may not want to do that first, because of the risk of not wanting Barbie afterwards. This double feature is a butt-numbing stake.

So there is no “final” wait command. But there’s every reason to give yourself a pretty significant break between movies. Go eat. Sit down and discuss the movie you saw first with whoever you went with, or let the first movie seep into your head if you went alone.

Because despite the impression that Oppenheimer is a serious adult film and Barbie is a cheerful comedy, both movies are many movies. They are both intentionally packed with discussion topics and come from filmmakers who clearly want viewers to think about and absorb their ideas. Oppenheimer asks big questions about humanity’s capacity for self-destruction, and the ways in which the drive to create, to understand, and to destroy are all interrelated. Barbie asks surprisingly similar big questions about how societies are structured and why humanity is so determined to make them all dysfunctional and dystopian. These are both discussion-worthy movies that weren’t made with the idea that people would run out and go straight to another movie.

And they both need some digestion for reasons unrelated to their big moral questions. They are each designed to stun audiences, again in surprisingly similar ways. Gerwig’s film is a gag-per-second roller coaster, an incredibly compact and fast-moving story peppered with multitasking-in-mind banter layered over visual gags layered over key plot moves.

Nolan’s film, meanwhile, jumps back and forth in time, merging eras to find a path through a story where the past, present, and future all influence each other. His cast is huge and their identities are important. Introductions fade, and a guy who gets one quick scene in the first half hour can resurface two hours later, with significant impact and minimal explanation. Both films are a lot to take in in the best way – and they both benefit from a little breathing room afterwards.

So ignore the pundits and social media swear words and craft your own adventure through Barbenheimer. There’s no right or wrong answer here, there’s just what will give you the most movie enjoyment. But make sure part of that curation is giving yourself a break between movies. That way they’re both better, and so is the greater Barbenheimer experience.