Why are modern movies so long?

[Slava]

Remember when an average movie used to be 100 minutes long? You rarely see this kind of runtime anymore. It feels like 120 minutes is the starting point. You must've noticed as well.

 

From the last 5 years:

 

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - 2 hours 20 minutes

Everything Everywhere All at Once - 2 hours 20 minutes

Glass Onion - 2 hours 20 minutes

Spider-Man: No Way Home - 2 hours 28 minutes

Tenet - 2 hours 30 minutes

The Fabelmans - 2 hours 31 minutes 

Anatomy of a Fall - 2 hours 32 minutes

The Last Duel - 2 hours 33 minutes

Dune - 2 hours 35 minutes

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny - 2 hours 35 minutes

Elvis - 2 hours 39 minutes

Once Upon a Time ... In Hollywood - 2 hours 42 minutes

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - 2 hours 42 minutes

No Time to Die - 2 hours 43 minutes

John Wick: Chapter 4 - 2 hours 50 minutes

The Batman - 2 hours 57 minutes

Beau is Afraid - 2 hours 59 minutes

Avengers: Endgame - 3 hours 1 minute

Oppenheimer - 3 hours 1 minute

Babylon - 3 hours 9 minutes

Avatar: The Way of Water - 3 hours 12 minutes

Killers of the Flower Moon - 3 hours 26 minutes

The Irishman - 3 hours 29 minutes

 

... and more. Didn't include Zack Snyder's Justice League, which is 4 hours. It's kind of a special case, as it's a home-only release. You can pause it. (I'm pretty sure everything else made it to the big screen).

 

I'm fine with long movies. Make it as lengthy as you need it to be. I'll spend 3.5 hours inside Scorsese's story, no problem. I just wonder what happened, what causes the change.

 

[HuntingFever]

I'm was thinking about this last night. I like an epic as much as the next guy but I miss the days when most films were a breezy 80 to 100mins. Even the good modern epics feel flabby and like they could/should have been much shorter .

[DrBloodmoney]

I'm sure there are many factors, but one I can think of is the rise of streaming services funding films.

 

Traditionally, directors wanted their films to be longer (to tell their story best in their eyes), but the studios would be the opposing force, pressuring them to keep them shorter (since shorter run time = more screenings per day = bigger box office). Hence why "Director's Cuts" of movies are virtually never shorter than the Theatrical versions.

 

However, in an age where streaming giants like Netflix are funding movies, and don't impose those kind of restrictions, it will be harder for the old studios to justify imposing the same - since directors (particularly established ones, who have some clout) will just go to the Streaming services instead.

 

 

Edited October 23, 2023 by DrBloodmoney

[Redgrave]

I haven't seen most of those listed there but I think for something like Oppenheimer it's because Christopher Nolan likes to make his movies long. I remember when seeing The Dark Knight in theaters for the first time I thought it was going to end at the part where the Joker escapes but it kept going. Not that I had a problem with it since I liked the movie anyway but I think Nolan likes to keep his audience captive as long as he can.

 

In Dune's defense it's adapting a novel that's 896 pages so I imagine they want to include as much as they can. I don't know much about the novel so I don't know what they could be leaving out but I assume it's similar to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy where they had to change or cut some stuff, such as the great merry fellow Tom Bombadil with his bright blue jacket and his boots that are yellow, and if he were in the movie it could have sold billions more.

 

But yeah, I think a large part of it is budgets and giving people a reason to go see it in theaters. Maybe it's just me but I don't really see a point in spending almost $15 (I think that's about what I spent for Oppenheimer) on tickets for a movie that's over an hour knowing it will go on blu-ray or some other streaming service in a month or so especially with ticket prices the way they are. It used to be you would wait months for big and even okay-ish movies to go on DVD but now they leave theaters a lot quicker because of streaming services. Like I remember Revenge of the Sith took 6 months to go on DVD and in that time I saw it at least three times in theaters in three different months. I feel like it's really rare for a movie to be in theaters that long now.

 

I guess to be fair though, there were plenty of movies that were over at least three hours long in the 60's and 70's with The Godfather coming to mind. At the same time though there weren't streaming services back then and I guess not much in the way of home video services until the VCR became more common. It also seemed like people could afford to spend that much time in a theater since there wasn't much else to really do back then. That's just how I see it though.

[majob]

They're honestly still roughly the same length depending on the genre. People just have shorter attention spans now. I think I recall seeing someone saying they marathoned The Godfather at one point. Just the first movie mind you, not the trilogy

Edited October 23, 2023 by majob

[the1andonly654]

Don't forget Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning being 2 hours 43 minutes long. Part 1 of it.

The whole movie's gonna be over 5 hours long. 

 

 

 

 

[dieselmanchild]

Most of these movies you listed would be considered epics and have a pretty standard run time for that kind of film. I watch a lot of movies and I still find the average film these days to fall within that 90-120 minute mark. 🤷‍♂️

 

I also think streaming changed the game in a big way too. TV series have become incredibly popular in recent years and people have become accustomed to binge watching entire series in a short period of time. There’s probably more people nowadays that don’t find longer films as off putting as they used to, especially when they’re released on streaming services.

Edited October 23, 2023 by dieselmanchild

[RadiantFlamberge]

I can see why theater operators would want a movie to be shorter (i.e. around 90-100 minutes but not below, lest audiences feel ripped off). Every new group of customers means more possible (IMO overpriced) concession sales, also. So $15 for a ticket, then $5 for a box of candy, $8 for popcorn, $4 for a drink for example. $32. The shorter run would buy them another 1-3 showings on that screen.

 

Stephen King's It is 5 hours 4 minutes (135 + 169 mins) when you add both chapters. I bet the complete MI: DR saga will be close to 6 hours.

[TheDarkKratos]

Nice topic. Here's one for you...

 

Ridley Scott's upcoming historical epic Napoleon has an extended cut of 4 hours, 30 minutes.

The regular theatrical version will be 157 minutes long, which is still very long. But click below...

 

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/napoleon-ridley-scott-directors-cut-four-hours-1235706910/

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_films

 

I guess when it comes big stories, you need big running times. Lol

Also note that your list as some of the longest running end credits as well

 

But the grand daddy of them all is The Cure for Insomnia" (1987)

It's 85 hours long.

Edited October 25, 2023 by TheDarkKratos

[Slava]

- Enough movies, you got stuff to do!

- One more and I'll begin

- Okay, but only one

- 

5 hours ago, TheDarkKratos said:

The Cure for Insomnia 

 (1987)

 

[Eraezr]

I'm fine with longer movies if they can merit their duration.

[NullRay85]

 I don't mind longer movies as long as I'm invested. It's the urge to hold a pee that gets annoying lol.

[Don_Chipotle]

Im surprised many of those films actually go really fast, like the spiderman films and Tenet, but yeah i guess its from a creative point of view, and make a cinema film different from a netflix one, and motivate people to actually spend cash on cinema

[majob]

On 10/25/2023 at 1:56 AM, TheDarkKratos said:

 

 

But the grand daddy of them all is The Cure for Insomnia" (1987)

It's 85 hours long.

On my Watchlist as we speak

[Jordan_On_Tinder]

Lmao.

[kenseizenkai]

This is nothing new. There are alot of older movies that are long. Like:

 

The Ten Commandments (1956) - 3 hrs. & 40 mins.

Ben-Hur (1959) - 3 hrs. & 32 mins.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962) - 3 hrs. & 47 mins.

The Longest Day (1962) - 2 hrs. & 58 mins.

Cleopatra (1963) - 4 hrs. & 11 mins.

Doctor Zhivago (1965) - 3 hrs. & 20 mins.

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly (1966) - 2 hrs. & 57 mins.

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) - 2 hrs. & 46 mins.

Nicholas & Alexandra (1971) - 3 hrs. & 8 mins.

The Godfather (1972) - 2 hrs. & 55 mins.

The Godfather Part II (1974) - 3 hrs. & 22 mins.

Barry Lyndon (1975) - 3 hrs. & 5 mins.

A Bridge too Far (1977) - 2 hrs. & 56 mins. 

The Deer Hunter (1978) - 3 hrs. & 4 mins.

Apocalypse Now: Redux (1979/2001) - 3 hrs. & 22 mins.

Heaven's Gate: Director's Cut (1980) - 3 hrs. & 36 mins. 

Scarface (1983) - 2 hrs. & 50 mins.

Once Upon a Time in America (1984) - 3 hrs. & 49 mins.

Dances with Wolves (1990) - 3 hrs. & 1 min.

The Godfather Part III (1990) - 2 hrs. & 42 mins. 

Schindler's List (1993) - 3 hrs. & 15 mins.

Braveheart (1995) - 2 hrs. & 58 mins.

Casino (1995) - 2 hrs. & 58 mins.

Heat (1995) - 2 hrs. & 50 mins.

Waterworld: Director's Cut (1995) - 2 hrs & 57 mins.

Postman (1997) - 2 hrs. & 57 mins.

Titanic (1997) - 3 hrs. & 20 mins.

Saving Private Ryan (1998) - 2 hrs. & 50 mins.

The Thin Red Line (1998) - 2 hrs & 51 mins.

The Green Mile (1999) - 3 hrs. & 9 mins.

The Patriot: Extended Cut (2000) - 2 hrs. & 55 mins.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) - 2 hrs. & 58 mins.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) - 2 hrs. & 59 mins.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) -  3 hrs. & 21 mins.

King Kong (2005) - 3 hrs. & 8 mins.

Kingdom of Heaven: Director's Cut (2005) - 3 hrs. & 14 mins.

Watchman: Ultimate Cut (2009) - 3 hrs. & 35 mins.

 

EDIT: Added a few more titles & fixed typos.

Edited October 27, 2023 by kenseizenkai

[ChiefMichigan]

The number one reason they probably seem so long is because they can be with technology. 

It's much more feasible in cost to film countless hours of a movie on digital in the year 2023 than it would've been in the late 1990s to early 2000s. And even productions that still shoot on film are far easier to have a long script and a lot of footage to assemble and then edit. 

The Wizard of Oz is 1 hr 42 mins, and its near-final pre-release cut was about 2 hours. The film was then cut down to its theatrical length likely so the reels shipped to theaters would be shorter (and lighter) and the 1939 audiences wouldn't get so antsy in their seats. 

[da-Noob123]

What I want to know is, where is the intermission for me to go to the bathroom?! My bladder was ready to burst when I saw Avengers Endgame. I don't necessarily mind longer movies, though some could do with a good chunk cut out, but at least give me a break in the middle so I am not focusing on how badly I need to go versus focusing on the movie.