Barbenheimer: Barbie meets Oppenheimer - the release of the year’s two biggest films is a meme dream

It should have been an utter disaster. Two of the year’s biggest films, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, are set to be released on the same day.

Although not exactly gunning for the same audience – one being a bright pink fizzy meditation on life and womanhood in Barbieland, and the other, a sombre tale of the complicated and brilliant characters behind the creation of the atomic bomb – cinefiles will be lining up to see both.

There must have been a moment when Oppenheimer’s team were scratching their heads. It’s difficult to compete with the happy buzz whipped up by the idea of Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling running around a life-size Barbieland with half of the biggest names in Hollywood, to a backing track that includes numbers from Ice Spice and Dua Lipa. Particularly when the film you’re trying to sell is about the first nuclear bomb.

But the internet has found the juxtaposition between the two films to be a perfect balance. Barbie is ying, Oppenheimer is yang. Barbie is you on payday, Oppenheimer is you one week later. Barbie is how you feel in the morning before work, Oppenheimer is how you feel after a day at work. And so on.

The colours – Barbie’s bright pink and Oppenheimer’s many greys – make the comparisons all the more stark, and hilarious.

A series of brilliant memes have poured online. The terms “Barbenheimer” and “Boppenheimer” have been adopted to describe the important debates around the films – such as, which should be seen first on July 21? T-shirts have even been designed, with fans working on finding the perfect shades of grey and pink.

Suddenly, the decision to release both films on the same day seems utterly inspired.

Here’s our pick of some of the internet’s best memes.

Barbie and Oppenheimer both open in cinemas on July 21