In films

Early use of split screen can be seen in Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley’s Suspense (1913), where it is used to portray simultaneous actions, and in Yakov Protazanov’s The Queen of Spades (1916), where one screen depicts reality and the other a character's inner desires.^[6] This technique has been used to portray twins in such films as Wonder Man (1945), The Dark Mirror (1946), The Parent Trap (both the 1961 original and the 1998 remake), and Adaptation (2002). In the 1961 version of The Parent Trap, conversations between the twins were simulated by filming the actress (Hayley Mills) as she stood at the left of the frame facing right, then filming her again, standing at the right and facing left. The negative of the first action was placed into a printer and copied onto another negative, the composite, but this other negative was masked so that only the right part of the original picture is copied. Then the composite was rewound and the negative of the second action was copied onto the right side of each frame. On this second pass, the left side was masked to prevent double exposure. This technique is then carefully hidden by background lines, such as windows, doors, etc. to disguise the split.

In Indiscreet (1958), the technique was famously used to bypass the censors and allow Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman to be in bed together, and even to appear to pat her on the bottom.^[7]

Several studio-made films in the 1960s popularized the use of split screen. They include John Frankenheimer's Grand Prix (1966), Richard Fleischer's The Boston Strangler (1968), and Norman Jewison's The Thomas Crown Affair (1968). In the 1970s, usage continued in films like Airport (1970), Woodstock (1970), The Andromeda Strain (1971), Sisters (1972), Carrie (1976) and More American Graffiti (1979).

Title sequence designer Saul Bass lamented the popularity of split screen in the 1960s. Although he used it extensively in his work for Grand Prix, he later claimed that it had been artistically exhausted from excessive use. According to Bass:

"The point is, it’s a device, and as far as I’m concerned I’ll never use it again — if it actually cries out for it, I’ll use it but as a device it’s lost its currency, because, later on, it was, unfortunately, used meaninglessly. It’s the kind of thing that grows up without ever having a youth and there’s no opportunity to explore it. On Grand Prix I took the multiple image... and carried it down the line quite a way. I think it is terrific at expressing muchness, but I suspect it’s not capable of expressing deep feeling or contemplative..."^[8]

Hans Canosa's 2005 film Conversations with Other Women made extensive use of split screens. Conversations juxtaposed shot and reverse shot of two actors in the same take, captured with two cameras, for the entire movie. The film was designed to enlist the audience as perceptual editors, as they can choose to watch either character act and react in real time. While the shot/reverse shot function of split screen comprises most of the running time of the film, the filmmakers also used split screen for other spatial, temporal and emotional effects. Conversations' split screen sometimes showed flashbacks of the recent or distant past juxtaposed with the present; moments imagined or hoped by the characters juxtaposed with present reality; present experience fractured into more than one emotion for a given line or action, showing an actor performing the same moment in different ways; and present and near future actions juxtaposed to accelerate the narrative in temporal overlap.

By filmmakers

The visionary French director, Abel Gance, used the term "Polyvision" to describe his three-camera, three-projector technique for both widening and dividing the screen in his 1927 silent epic, Napoléon. The filmmaker Brian De Palma has incorporated split screens into many of his films, most notably in Sisters (1973) and they have since become synonymous with his filmmaking style (Specifically 1981's Blow Out and 1998's Snake Eyes).

In technology

The "Interactive Olaf" bonus feature from the DVD release of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events shows Jim Carrey's makeup tests from the movie in a four-way split-screen. Viewers can split the audio by selecting which one to listen to, then pressing "ENTER" on their DVD remote. The split screen has also been simulated in video games, most notably Fahrenheit where it is used to allow a player to keep track of multiple simultaneous elements relevant to the gameplay.

In music video

A number of music videos have made creative use of split screen presentations. In Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" video a number of freeze frames are shown in split screen. Video and film director Michel Gondry has made extensive use of split screen techniques in his videos. One notable example is "Sugar Water" - Cibo Matto (1996), where one side of the screen shows the video played normally, and the other side shows the same video played backwards. Through careful and creative staging the two sides appear to interact directly - passing objects from side to side and visually referencing each other. The music video for "Doo Wop (That Thing)" by Lauryn Hill was filmed using a split screen technique, the video features Lauryn, performing the song at block parties in two different eras: the mid-1960s (The year 1967 is shown on the left of the video) and the late-1990s (The year 1998 is shown on the right).

In television

The split screen has also been used extensively in television programs. Newscasts often show two reporters in a split screen frame. The sitcom That '70s Show, Nickelodeon teen sitcom Drake & Josh, Disney Channel teen sitcom Lizzie McGuire, USA Network's Burn Notice and Fox's 24 made extensive use of split screens. It is sometimes used in game shows to show two contestants simultaneously, and on cable news shows, when participants in a discussion are in different locations.

Split screens are frequently used in motor racing, especially during safety car pit stops in the IndyCar Series and NASCAR, where four way splits are used, most often with three leading cars or trucks' pit stops shown on the left and a shot of the pit exit (where restart order is determined after pit stops) on the right, with some featuring just four different cars or trucks making pit stops. Often these pit stops can change the entire outcome of a race. In sports, an instant replay, highlights package, or featurette on a specific subject relating to the play may be shown in a corner while the main play is happening.

Split screens showcasing individual character reactions are a common device of Japanese anime, where they imitate the panel layouts of manga. These sometimes feature more than two characters at once, and may be split at oblique angles.^[9]

In 2019, Snapchat's original content arm, Snap Originals, released a series called 'Two Sides', which followed a young couple as they navigated a breakup, told from both perspectives at the same time.^[10] Season Two and Season Three will be released in 2021.

Split screens are sometimes used during commercial breaks, as in ESPN's "Side-By-Side" coverage of racing, where one side of the screen shows race footage and the other shows advertising. This allows commercial to be shown while not interrupting coverage of race action.

Split screens are also common in advertising, often to show comparison.