Dead Ringers is a 1988 psychological thriller film starring Jeremy Irons in a dual role as identical twin gynecologists. David Cronenberg directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Norman Snider. Their script was based on the lives of Stewart and Cyril Marcus and on the novel Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland, a "highly fictionalized" version of the Marcuses' story. The film won numerous honors, including for Irons' performance, and 10 Genie Awards, notably Best Motion Picture. Toronto International Film Festival critics have ranked it among the Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time. Plot Twins Elliot and Beverly Mantle are gynecologists who jointly operate a highly successful clinical practice in Toronto that specializes in treating fertility problems. Elliot, the more confident and cynical of the two, seduces women who come to the Mantle Clinic. When he tires of them, the women are passed on to the shy and passive Beverly while the women remain unaware of the substitution. Actress Claire Niveau comes to the clinic for her infertility where it turns out that she has a "trifurcated cervix", meaning she probably will be unable to have children. Elliot seduces Claire and then urges Beverly to sleep with her. Beverly becomes emotionally attached to Claire, and this upsets the equilibrium between the twins. Beverly also begins sharing Claire's abuse of prescription drugs which he abets through his doctor's authority. When Claire learns that Elliot has been taking sexual advantage of her by impersonating Beverly, she is angry and confronts them both in a restaurant but later decides to continue a relationship with Beverly exclusively. Eventually, Claire leaves town to work on another film, sending Beverly into clinical depression, more prescription drug abuse and paranoid delusions about "mutant women" with abnormal genitalia. Beverly seeks out metallurgical artist Anders Wolleck and commissions a set of bizarre "gynecological instruments" for operating on these mutant women. Beverly prepares to operate on a patient during surgery with one of Wolleck's tools, while his shocked surgical team exchanges horrified glances. Before he can proceed, the drug-addled doctor drops one of the tools on the ground and then collapses atop the patient, and begins to inhale from her gas mask. Both brothers are immediately suspended from practice and put on administrative leave by the hospital board. With their medical careers now ruined, Elliot locks Beverly inside the clinic and tries to clean him up, taking pills himself