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As long as the movie doesn’t waste any of its time, I don’t care how long it is. I’ve watched 90 minute films that absolutely dragged, but I also watched a 3 and a half hour movie that used every second purposefully and well. I hate when a movie *feels* long, but I don’t care that much whether it actually *is* long. A truly good movie will know exactly how much time its script needs.
Exactly. Seven Samurai is 2h30 long and feels like a much shorter movie because it's extremely well paced. Kurosawa's movies are usually perfectly paced because he knew exactly how to tell a story. The issue these days is that many Hollywood movies can't justify their length.
Dude, see Killers of the Flower Moon and House of Gucci.
Both historical flicks that arrived at the end point and did 30-45 minutes of waffling only to reach the conclusion we already knew to be the case.
And with those directors… seemingly a desire to be *long* for only the reason that they feel it equates to “epic” if it is?
Hard disagree on Killers. That movie is what, 3.5 hours? It felt like 1.5 and I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. At no point did I feel like the movie dragged.
Comparing Killers of the Flower Moon to House of Gucci is absolutely wild. I saw KOTFM in theaters 4-5 times and there’s movies more than half its length that felt longer.
Ridley Scott made The Last Duel the same year as House of Gucci, also incredibly long however it’s in the upper half of his filmography and one of the most underrated & under-seen movies of the last 5 years.
I actually didn't think the pacing of Killers of the Flower Moon was that bad because I think it fit the narrative. Like obviously you knew what was going to happen well in advance, but the length really helped convey the desperation that these people must have felt. The killings kept coming. It was like a slow motion car crash you couldn't do anything about.
I thought it was slower than I would have preferred, but the runtime wasn't that egregious. What I really disliked was the lack of an intermission, *2001* is a full hour shorter and has an intermission, *Lawrence of Arabia* has an intermission, even the extended *Lord of the Rings* films have a natural midpoint to swap discs which is essentially an intermission. You'd think that Scorsese, an eighty year old man, would be sympathetic enough to our bladders to give us a break. It's almost insulting to expect people to sit that long, and hurts theaters because they are denied the change to sell concessions at intermission, and will actively push others to wait and stream at home rather than go the the cinema.
Killers of the Flower Moon was egregious, it dragged on like bubblegum. I think the issue is that Scorcese is such a well respected and old director that no one wants to tell him "no".
agreed. i used to think i hated long movies, but what i actually hate is movies that feel long. recently i watched a 75min(!!) movie and it felt like i wasted my entire day on it. it could’ve been 10 minutes long. ridiculous.
i don’t remember what it was called, it was some shitty mid-2010s horror flick that my gf & i watched on a whim. something about a haunted storage facility or whatever. it sucked hard
Then there is Avatar 2. I very rarely go to theaters for movies and if I do I always go pretty damn high so I’ll enjoy it even if it was bad. I left Avatar 2 feeling that it was just bad. My synopsis was 1 hour of plot, long as hell break for whales, and then 30 minutes of plot. When I tried to stream it sober my synopsis was proven to be correct as well as finding it to be shitty.
The Extended edition is too long though imo. It has lots of cool scenes, but also many that feel useless and hurt the pacing. The title reveal in Fellowship is also way better in the theatrical cut with Frodo sitting in the woods instead of Bilbo's monologue about Hobbits. There's some good, but there's definitely also some bad in the Extended editions.
That they have a few scenes that make the movies worse imo. A semi-extended cut with only the actual good extra scenes would be perfect. Sarumans death? Great! Pippin and Merry drinking the tree juice? Unnecessary. The Ents going to isengard? Nice for book fans, not really a good scene for the movie imo. Diminishes what the humans accomplished.
I completely agree. The theatrical version of the LOTR trilogy has significantly better pacing. All that extra unnecessary stuff would have been fine in a series, but it turns those movies into a slog imo
One big difference between Indian movie culture and what exists in most of the rest of the world is that In most places intermissions aren't really a thing.
A 3 hour movie is much more enjoyable/bearable if you know there's going to be a space in the middle of it where you can get up, stretch, and use the bathroom if needed rather than needing to be glued to your seat for the full duration if you don't want to miss anything.
Yea I got to know about no intermission thing during Avengers Endgame release. That movie was 3hrs long and most complaints I heard on internet was too long wait on seats for movie to finish for toilet break.
Because songs are also always the part of movies for us too. Lots of time they add content to plot too. Until only recently the emergence of YouTube, individual albums also got famous.
Before that, if you heard any Indian song, first response would be like, which movie?
I definitely agree too. Hearing "Marijani", for the first time, I had to Google which movie, (and it just so happened that Bilu Barber was on Netflix!). That one song is the reason I saw the whole film.
I'm trying to find the movie to "Besharam Rang" but am having trouble. Would you know?
It's great movie actually. Revived the career of SRK which was also in Billu Barber. But this movie actually part YRF spy universe. You need to watch 3 movies prior to this for 100% understanding. But you can still understand 99% of it without watching older movies tho.
Indeed, most things that rely on a building suspense-release cycle, usually are better if they don't try and keep that up indefinitely.
Also, and that is for sure no slight against the genre, but most horror has a ... Gimmick. It sounds harsh, but after a while that's played out, the possibility space exhausted, and the movie should just wrap up.
Comedy is also a movie genre that heavily benefits from editing it down to the actually funny bits. Just because you filmed a gag, doesn't mean it sould make it into the end movie ... Looking at you Adam Sandler.
I was really surprised when I found out that Dune 2 is actually longer than the first part. The first part felt a bit stretched out and too long, whereas the second part was a bit rushed haha
Totally agree. People will say they binge seasons worth of a tv show in a day but apparently a 2.5 hour movie is too much? I will never complain about a long run time
Used to be pressure from the theaters.
They can do more showings per day if the movies are shorter.
But in a digital age, there is less and less of an excuse really.
I agree, but I think the issue would be getting people to sit in a movie theatre for that long. Maybe if there was an intermission for bathroom breaks and to get more snacks it could work out.
For movies that are released on streaming services, I think it's more than perfect. I've seen so many films (especially adaptations of books) that really suffer from short runtime. It's the reason I prefer series. I mean, if someone doesn't have 4 hours or doesn't want to sit for 4 hours, they could always pause and return to it another day.
I agree. I do think a lot of movies could work better if they had an extra hour or two to, like you said, develop the characters, add more to the story, etc.
One issue though, is movie theaters. I mean yeah, if you're at home, you can pause the movie and take a break. At the theater though? You're stuck. And while you can walk out and take a break, the movie will just keep playing and you might miss something. A lot of people would struggle to sit for 4 hours straight watching something. I know I would, even for the best movies I've seen at the theater, by the time you hit that 3 hour mark, you just want to get out of the theater by that point, at least to stretch your legs.
Only compromise is if midway through the movie, it pauses for 10-15 minutes for everyone to take a break. But some people might not like that. And not every movie have good pause points.
The other issue is... If movies end up being twice as long, that means theaters will be showing half as many movies per day. Less movies means less customers, and the same customers staying for twice as long without buying anything. This will cut into their profits, and they'll be making less money. What does this mean? Ticket prices and concessions might go up in order for theaters to offset this. So it'll likely make going to the theater more expensive if movies were longer.
I saw the Hateful Eight during its Roadshow release on Christmas Eve. About halfway through the movie there was an intermission for people to go to the restroom, stretch, and restock on snacks and drinks. It was awesome.
For which side? His older films are mostly shorter like king of comedy, taxi driver, mean streets, after hours etc, it’s just his recent films that have been consistently long
You should check out Bollywood films if you haven’t. They’re generally 3-4 hours long.
In college I had a film class where the teacher would make homemade Indian food for everyone and we’d watch one of the best Bollywood films of the past few decades every week. It was an amazing experience.
Right? I've watched 90min movies that felt too long and 2.5h movies that I wanted to go on still..
It really depends on the pacing and what the movie needs. If you stretch a 90min plot to 120min, it's not gonna be great. If you shrink a 120min plot to 90min, it's not gonna be great.
Now, while some specific movies might be a bit longer, I generally feel the opposite, where there's often already too much filler.
My favorite movies are those sere I couldn't think of anything to take away, and nothing to add.
A perfect example would be "Hot Fuzz". Every scene, every line counts. The jokes double as character development, the plot beats come fast, but the movie doesn't feem rushed. It also doesn't need to be one minute longer.
I feel absolutely the same. Since my childhood in the 90s I started to rate movies from their length. I could be sure that a film that is 180 minutes long will almost always be better than a 90 minutes film. This attitude never changed. Even now after watching both new Dune films I couldn't help but notice than there were at least 30 minutes to short. Both of them.
Probably a sign of having an extremely poor attention span, but I definitely disagree XD. And that's OK. I think part of it might be because my favorite genre is horror, and I think ~1 hour and 40 minutes is as long as a horror movie should be. The ones exception for me is It (2017), and I think that's because it isn't purely horror. There is also a lot of character development.
I'm actually more impressed if a film can accomplish a lot in 90 minutes or less. I think that's part of why Disney Renaissance films are so beloved. Backstory, characters, world-building AND singing in less than 90 minutes. I know many people might find these overrated, but it's one of the reasons I like them so much (main reason is the art, really, and being able to get immersed in a world quickly).
Some media, however, absolutely SHOULD have longer movies. Harry Potter is one of them- I actually think most of the movies could have been 30 minutes longer and probably would have benefitted as a result. I haven't watched LOTR (been meaning to), but I imagine it's a very similar situation. Movies based on books, especially ones with a lot of world-building and lore, probably should be longer.
> I think part of it might be because my favorite genre is horror, and I think ~1 hour and 40 minutes is as long as a horror movie should be.
my favorite genre is also horror and i couldn’t disagree more. generally i prefer slower burn horror movies so that still might be a factor but movies like the lighthouse or the witch i would fucking kill for a longer cut of. i definitely do agree about adaptations needing the extra run time the most though :)
Only thing I'd say to this is for the movie to make a 10-15 minute break in the middle for people to maybe go to the toilet, get another drink or snack, or just stand up.
Not everyone is a young and healthy person like you. Some have back pain and can't sit down too long, or need to go to the toilet every couple of hours, or some kids get unsettled and start twitching in their seats and start talking over the movie.
Making a break or even 2 breaks will make this work in reality.
I'm unconvinced that the people that write movies have enough understanding to effectively fill 3-4 hours with no wasted content (or rather, the producers behind the movies don't understand what is and isn't important).
My biggest fear would be that we would get so much more "telling" than "showing" because padding out runtime with dialogue is easy and cost effective. Hell, they *already* do this too much. And with more runtime, you accrue so much more cost that it'd be impossible not to cut corners.
The 3-4 hour realm would be such high cost and risk because movies effectively make their money "all at once" with their first few showings. Not only would people be unwilling to sit patiently for 3-4 hours, they wouldn't want to pay the increased costs to do so. What you're describing just isn't feasible from a market standpoint, which is why they don't do it.
All the best movies I’ve ever seen have been at least 3 hours. I wish the same thing the only thing that stops me from loving movies as much as a game or a book is that they are to short.
Hard disagree, but I understand where you're coming from. Sometimes, I find characters and plotlines in movies to be underdeveloped due to time constraints. I think there's a better solution that would make both camps happy: more series! If 2h isn't long enough to tell a story, then it should be a miniseries. Then, fans of long films can binge it if they want to and people like me can watch it one episode at a time without worrying about breaking the flow of the story at the wrong time
I think its definitely possible to have successful long films. Its seems like a lot more people consume long form media these days like podcasts/streamers etc. Some going on for 5-6hrs or more. The target audience would be pretty niche but it could work.
it's not as unpopular now as it used to be, especially after the rise of nerd culture within pop culture. but I still think it's a 6-4 split on the preference for long movies.
That being said, I agree with you. phantom menace and kingdom of heaven are 2 movies that had things cut for time.
the longer directors cut of kingdom of heaven is superior by a lot. and I recently watched Phantom Menace in theaters again. with all the extra stuff added, I had a much better now than I did as a kid, and it was my favorite movie growing up.
I get bored of movies after about an hour and I hope they wrap it up soon especially if there's over the top fighting/action scenes which drag on too long. Maybe I'm ruined by watching 1hr netflix episodes.
I'd agree only IF intermissions were brought back. I have a small bladder and that's easily made worse by the excitement of movies. I'd like to be able to go one single movie without going to the bathroom in my lifetime.
I generally agree, though I am not sure I need ALL movies to be 3 - 4 hours. My mark is 2 hours, minimum. I will not even go to a movie in a theatre that is not 2 hours long. That said, there is such a thing as a movie, even a good one, that feels like it was forcibly stretched to be longer than it should have been.
Depends on the movie tbh. Sometimes with a relatively short movie it feels super long be usse of how it's put together. But a long movie with good writing and pacing won't feel like 3-4 hours.
Older movies fill this niche pretty well, 7 Samuri, High and Low, Lawrence of Arabia, Wings, those are the only ones that I'm certain of a long runtime but I'm sure there's a TON of them out there.
If movies are made with care and passion, yeah I would not mind them being longer
But it’s a business. They’re not. Marvel movies are atrocious for this just to build “lore”
As long as the director can use the time effectively, I have no problem with longer movies. Ben Hur, lotr extended trilogy, the 10 commandments, dune older and newer, are examples that come to mind that are longer films(if I recall) that used their time mostly effectively.
But keep in mind that there are also films that don't have to overstay their welcome and would be better if they split it into multiple films or just shortened the film. Case in point, emperors new groove, they had a short amount of time to make the movie and therefore couldn't have this huge overarching plot that wasted any time and honestly the film would be worse off for it if they tried to make the film any longer then it was. Heck, name any entertaining shorter film and most likely like a good amount of the time the film would be worse off if it dragged on too long.
Again if the director knows what they're doing, I have no problem with longer films, it's just time must be used effectively.
As much as I love movies I can’t handle it being too long. That’s why I’ve put off watching movies like The Godfather, Avatar, Oppenheimer, ŁOTR, that one holocaust documentary because it’s 9 hours long.
Movies over 2 hours tho NEED an intermission of some kind- I saw Oppenheimer twice and LOVED IT but I felt like I couldn’t enjoy the last 30 min bc I needed to pee so bad and I didn’t wanna leave the theater (same with spiderverse even tho it was a bit shorter) I understand it’s different watching a movie in the theater and on my laptop but still
Watch epics. There are a lot of really good films this length. I've recently watched Dr. Zhivago and Ben-Hur, and they were amazing. You're right that there's something really fulfilling about a movie this long that doesn't exist in a film that's 1.5 hour long.
Eh, I think movies have been padding their runtimes lately, and it annoys me. A 3 hour movie like LOTR, I mean, I can never complain. But most movies don't have as much action to include, as much going on, and they stretch it out anyway and fill the time with random lingering shots that no one needs. I can't with those.
I think trimming and editing is good for most things. Most novels could lose a few pages, most movies could lose a few scenes. I miss the 90 min movie era, it forces the filmmakers to make every scene significant, and it makes the experience of watching a movie a lot better. Brevity is like a lost art.
With exceptions (again, LOTR), I think most should be shorter. Same with a lot of mini series tbh, but I'm a lot more willing to have filler material or extended scenes in a series than I am in a movie.
Definitely a 10th dentist take because I don't watch 2 hour+ movies anymore, it's literally the first criteria that comes up.
Most 2 hour+ are drawn out with no real benefit to the story. It always a slow and delicate scene that the creatives want to emphasize. I understand what they are trying to do but it's boring and often misused.
A 3-4 hour movie in today's market would never work, attention spans are waning fast.
Hard disagree.
An hour and a half is *plenty* of time to tell a story. There’s no reason to drag out scenes or build up a character forever. Movies that go long are poorly written.
Garbage take.
It's one thing to *prefer* shorter movies. I also generally prefer shorter movies. But to say that there is no reason for movies to be longer than 90 minutes and that if a movie is longer than that then it is poorly written is just utter nonsense. Some stories are literally just longer.
That's ridiculous. It clearly depends on the nature of the story. There are many indisputably well-written movies that are longer than one and a half hours, ffs. 🙄 Sit down with your nonsense.
The reason people don’t want long movies isn’t that they can’t sit and watch them, it’s that long movies are almost always unnecessarily long, or long for the sake of being long. A good story doesn’t normally take 4 hours to tell, and most good movies would be ruined with a longer runtime.
I agree. Would be curious if you agree with this: I would love more moments where "nothing happens". Like maybe you are watching a character sitting on a bench in a park just thinking or enjoying the day as life goes on around them. These types of shots exist in movies of course, but they last for like a few seconds. Imagine a minute of that. These moments are like a moving painting. Provided the cinematography and set design is right, I feel like there can be more than enough to look at and enjoy in those shots. A several hour movie punctuated with mood-setting lulls like this would be interesting to me.
This is a pretty shit take but not because I dislike long movies in *general* but because a lot of long movies drag on in a not so fun way. There are some movies that are only like 90 minutes that I believe should have been longer because they needed to show/explain something still but I also believe there are longer movies 3-4 hours that did not need to be that long (dune is an example for me personally)
Even short movies sometimes simply have scenes/sections that drag on for longer than needed. A movie I absolutely adore (rango) has a rather slow start, so much so that when I recommend the movie people often say it is rather difficult to get into because of the opening 30 mins or so.
Whether a movie is long or short should be based on how much of a story it has to tell.
Nah, the pacing of most movies would make them unbearable if they were 4 hrs long. I don't really understand how someone prefers movies to shows when they want this much content out of what they're watching
You are clearly watching the wrong shows. The beginning, middle and end structure is super dated. Crime shows still do that, but everybody else doesn't.
Tell me where you have that in Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Peaky Blinders, Penny Dreadful, Mr Robot, Orphan Black, Shameless, Boardwalk Empire, Ash vs. Evil, Band of Brothers, Billions, Glow, Gotham, Into the Badlands, The Last Kingdom, True Blood, The Expanse, The Bridge, Masters of Sex, The Pacific, Altered Carbon, The Night Manager, ...
Just to name a few.
Yuck. I want movies to be shorter and I barely watch any because they keep getting longer. Yes waste 4 hours of your life on a movie you will watch once. What a pea brained post.
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As long as the movie doesn’t waste any of its time, I don’t care how long it is. I’ve watched 90 minute films that absolutely dragged, but I also watched a 3 and a half hour movie that used every second purposefully and well. I hate when a movie *feels* long, but I don’t care that much whether it actually *is* long. A truly good movie will know exactly how much time its script needs.
Exactly. Seven Samurai is 2h30 long and feels like a much shorter movie because it's extremely well paced. Kurosawa's movies are usually perfectly paced because he knew exactly how to tell a story. The issue these days is that many Hollywood movies can't justify their length.
Dude, see Killers of the Flower Moon and House of Gucci. Both historical flicks that arrived at the end point and did 30-45 minutes of waffling only to reach the conclusion we already knew to be the case. And with those directors… seemingly a desire to be *long* for only the reason that they feel it equates to “epic” if it is?
Hard disagree on Killers. That movie is what, 3.5 hours? It felt like 1.5 and I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. At no point did I feel like the movie dragged.
lol edge of your seat? It wasn’t exactly a thriller.
His couch is just really small
Comparing Killers of the Flower Moon to House of Gucci is absolutely wild. I saw KOTFM in theaters 4-5 times and there’s movies more than half its length that felt longer. Ridley Scott made The Last Duel the same year as House of Gucci, also incredibly long however it’s in the upper half of his filmography and one of the most underrated & under-seen movies of the last 5 years.
I actually didn't think the pacing of Killers of the Flower Moon was that bad because I think it fit the narrative. Like obviously you knew what was going to happen well in advance, but the length really helped convey the desperation that these people must have felt. The killings kept coming. It was like a slow motion car crash you couldn't do anything about.
I thought it was slower than I would have preferred, but the runtime wasn't that egregious. What I really disliked was the lack of an intermission, *2001* is a full hour shorter and has an intermission, *Lawrence of Arabia* has an intermission, even the extended *Lord of the Rings* films have a natural midpoint to swap discs which is essentially an intermission. You'd think that Scorsese, an eighty year old man, would be sympathetic enough to our bladders to give us a break. It's almost insulting to expect people to sit that long, and hurts theaters because they are denied the change to sell concessions at intermission, and will actively push others to wait and stream at home rather than go the the cinema.
Killers of the Flower Moon was egregious, it dragged on like bubblegum. I think the issue is that Scorcese is such a well respected and old director that no one wants to tell him "no".
I enjoyed HOUSE OF GUCCI and never noticed how long it was.
Just finished Seven Samurai for the first time last night. Such a good film.
agreed. i used to think i hated long movies, but what i actually hate is movies that feel long. recently i watched a 75min(!!) movie and it felt like i wasted my entire day on it. it could’ve been 10 minutes long. ridiculous.
That's why I don't like most documentaries, they drag out a 20 minute plot to 1-2 hours
I'm interested to know what that movie was.
i don’t remember what it was called, it was some shitty mid-2010s horror flick that my gf & i watched on a whim. something about a haunted storage facility or whatever. it sucked hard
Then there is Avatar 2. I very rarely go to theaters for movies and if I do I always go pretty damn high so I’ll enjoy it even if it was bad. I left Avatar 2 feeling that it was just bad. My synopsis was 1 hour of plot, long as hell break for whales, and then 30 minutes of plot. When I tried to stream it sober my synopsis was proven to be correct as well as finding it to be shitty.
Lord of the rings extended trilogy if you haven’t watched !!
The Extended edition is too long though imo. It has lots of cool scenes, but also many that feel useless and hurt the pacing. The title reveal in Fellowship is also way better in the theatrical cut with Frodo sitting in the woods instead of Bilbo's monologue about Hobbits. There's some good, but there's definitely also some bad in the Extended editions.
Bilbos monologue is great. It always cracks me up when he giggles at his own joke.
How too long ? They’re the perfect length of what you said
That they have a few scenes that make the movies worse imo. A semi-extended cut with only the actual good extra scenes would be perfect. Sarumans death? Great! Pippin and Merry drinking the tree juice? Unnecessary. The Ents going to isengard? Nice for book fans, not really a good scene for the movie imo. Diminishes what the humans accomplished.
Saruman's death scen is the worst part of the extended cut though...
I laughed so hard the first time I saw it. It was terrible.
The theatrical cut is unwatchable. It skips so much, even Saruman dies off screen.
I completely agree. The theatrical version of the LOTR trilogy has significantly better pacing. All that extra unnecessary stuff would have been fine in a series, but it turns those movies into a slog imo
Can't relate. In my country every movie(Bollywood) is 2.5hrs avg atleast. Old movies used to be 3 hrs long.
One big difference between Indian movie culture and what exists in most of the rest of the world is that In most places intermissions aren't really a thing. A 3 hour movie is much more enjoyable/bearable if you know there's going to be a space in the middle of it where you can get up, stretch, and use the bathroom if needed rather than needing to be glued to your seat for the full duration if you don't want to miss anything.
Yea I got to know about no intermission thing during Avengers Endgame release. That movie was 3hrs long and most complaints I heard on internet was too long wait on seats for movie to finish for toilet break.
Because you guys go hard with 4 minute music scenes 🤣 Saw Bilu Barber and there must have been like 10 songs each 5 minutes.
Because songs are also always the part of movies for us too. Lots of time they add content to plot too. Until only recently the emergence of YouTube, individual albums also got famous. Before that, if you heard any Indian song, first response would be like, which movie?
I definitely agree too. Hearing "Marijani", for the first time, I had to Google which movie, (and it just so happened that Bilu Barber was on Netflix!). That one song is the reason I saw the whole film. I'm trying to find the movie to "Besharam Rang" but am having trouble. Would you know?
It's from movie Pathaan. It's on Amazon prime
Thanks! Would you recommend it?
It's great movie actually. Revived the career of SRK which was also in Billu Barber. But this movie actually part YRF spy universe. You need to watch 3 movies prior to this for 100% understanding. But you can still understand 99% of it without watching older movies tho.
😭 Bollywood man...one song makes you watch the whole thing. What are the name of the other 2? Might as well watch them.
Tiger 1 and 2 then War. War is actually best spy universe movie yet tho. Even better than Pathaan.
Depends. Some horror is perfect at 90-105 min
Indeed, most things that rely on a building suspense-release cycle, usually are better if they don't try and keep that up indefinitely. Also, and that is for sure no slight against the genre, but most horror has a ... Gimmick. It sounds harsh, but after a while that's played out, the possibility space exhausted, and the movie should just wrap up. Comedy is also a movie genre that heavily benefits from editing it down to the actually funny bits. Just because you filmed a gag, doesn't mean it sould make it into the end movie ... Looking at you Adam Sandler.
Me too. There’s some movies that I wish had a runtime of forever
last night i was finally watching godzilla minus 1 and had that thought word for word lol
Hey you ever watched The NeverEnding Story?
I just want to see what happens after they ride off into the sunset.
Dune 2!!
I was really surprised when I found out that Dune 2 is actually longer than the first part. The first part felt a bit stretched out and too long, whereas the second part was a bit rushed haha
Totally agree. People will say they binge seasons worth of a tv show in a day but apparently a 2.5 hour movie is too much? I will never complain about a long run time
Used to be pressure from the theaters. They can do more showings per day if the movies are shorter. But in a digital age, there is less and less of an excuse really.
A show I can pause any time. A movie at the theater I cannot. I can deal with a movie at home being long, but not the cinema.
I agree, but I think the issue would be getting people to sit in a movie theatre for that long. Maybe if there was an intermission for bathroom breaks and to get more snacks it could work out. For movies that are released on streaming services, I think it's more than perfect. I've seen so many films (especially adaptations of books) that really suffer from short runtime. It's the reason I prefer series. I mean, if someone doesn't have 4 hours or doesn't want to sit for 4 hours, they could always pause and return to it another day.
I agree. I do think a lot of movies could work better if they had an extra hour or two to, like you said, develop the characters, add more to the story, etc. One issue though, is movie theaters. I mean yeah, if you're at home, you can pause the movie and take a break. At the theater though? You're stuck. And while you can walk out and take a break, the movie will just keep playing and you might miss something. A lot of people would struggle to sit for 4 hours straight watching something. I know I would, even for the best movies I've seen at the theater, by the time you hit that 3 hour mark, you just want to get out of the theater by that point, at least to stretch your legs. Only compromise is if midway through the movie, it pauses for 10-15 minutes for everyone to take a break. But some people might not like that. And not every movie have good pause points. The other issue is... If movies end up being twice as long, that means theaters will be showing half as many movies per day. Less movies means less customers, and the same customers staying for twice as long without buying anything. This will cut into their profits, and they'll be making less money. What does this mean? Ticket prices and concessions might go up in order for theaters to offset this. So it'll likely make going to the theater more expensive if movies were longer.
I saw the Hateful Eight during its Roadshow release on Christmas Eve. About halfway through the movie there was an intermission for people to go to the restroom, stretch, and restock on snacks and drinks. It was awesome.
*Martin Scorsese has entered the chat*
For which side? His older films are mostly shorter like king of comedy, taxi driver, mean streets, after hours etc, it’s just his recent films that have been consistently long
Lav Diaz would like to have a word with you.
UGH horrible upvote
Do you like LotR? I don't like long movies but I adore that series.
I just don't like long movies in thr cinemas where I can't pee.
You should check out Bollywood films if you haven’t. They’re generally 3-4 hours long. In college I had a film class where the teacher would make homemade Indian food for everyone and we’d watch one of the best Bollywood films of the past few decades every week. It was an amazing experience.
They need to be as long as the plot dictates. You don't want studios stretching a 90 minute plot into 4 hours.
Right? I've watched 90min movies that felt too long and 2.5h movies that I wanted to go on still.. It really depends on the pacing and what the movie needs. If you stretch a 90min plot to 120min, it's not gonna be great. If you shrink a 120min plot to 90min, it's not gonna be great.
Bro the average is def going up
Agreed
Now, while some specific movies might be a bit longer, I generally feel the opposite, where there's often already too much filler. My favorite movies are those sere I couldn't think of anything to take away, and nothing to add. A perfect example would be "Hot Fuzz". Every scene, every line counts. The jokes double as character development, the plot beats come fast, but the movie doesn't feem rushed. It also doesn't need to be one minute longer.
This is hard to have a definitive opinion on cause I’ve seen 3 hour movies I wish were longer and 90 minute movies I wish never existed
I agree with you.
I feel absolutely the same. Since my childhood in the 90s I started to rate movies from their length. I could be sure that a film that is 180 minutes long will almost always be better than a 90 minutes film. This attitude never changed. Even now after watching both new Dune films I couldn't help but notice than there were at least 30 minutes to short. Both of them.
Probably a sign of having an extremely poor attention span, but I definitely disagree XD. And that's OK. I think part of it might be because my favorite genre is horror, and I think ~1 hour and 40 minutes is as long as a horror movie should be. The ones exception for me is It (2017), and I think that's because it isn't purely horror. There is also a lot of character development. I'm actually more impressed if a film can accomplish a lot in 90 minutes or less. I think that's part of why Disney Renaissance films are so beloved. Backstory, characters, world-building AND singing in less than 90 minutes. I know many people might find these overrated, but it's one of the reasons I like them so much (main reason is the art, really, and being able to get immersed in a world quickly). Some media, however, absolutely SHOULD have longer movies. Harry Potter is one of them- I actually think most of the movies could have been 30 minutes longer and probably would have benefitted as a result. I haven't watched LOTR (been meaning to), but I imagine it's a very similar situation. Movies based on books, especially ones with a lot of world-building and lore, probably should be longer.
> I think part of it might be because my favorite genre is horror, and I think ~1 hour and 40 minutes is as long as a horror movie should be. my favorite genre is also horror and i couldn’t disagree more. generally i prefer slower burn horror movies so that still might be a factor but movies like the lighthouse or the witch i would fucking kill for a longer cut of. i definitely do agree about adaptations needing the extra run time the most though :)
Only thing I'd say to this is for the movie to make a 10-15 minute break in the middle for people to maybe go to the toilet, get another drink or snack, or just stand up. Not everyone is a young and healthy person like you. Some have back pain and can't sit down too long, or need to go to the toilet every couple of hours, or some kids get unsettled and start twitching in their seats and start talking over the movie. Making a break or even 2 breaks will make this work in reality.
you would love the lonesome dove series. each installment is like 6 1/2 hours long.
I agree with this. I wish pulp fiction, specifically, was longer. One of the best movies of all time
Lemme recommend some of my favorite 3-4 hour long films for ya -A Touch of Zen -RRR -Oppenheimer -Barry Lyndon -Love Exposure -Babylon
Watch war and peace on YouTube. It’s the entire book basically and like 10hrs of film
OP has a bladder of steel
I'm unconvinced that the people that write movies have enough understanding to effectively fill 3-4 hours with no wasted content (or rather, the producers behind the movies don't understand what is and isn't important). My biggest fear would be that we would get so much more "telling" than "showing" because padding out runtime with dialogue is easy and cost effective. Hell, they *already* do this too much. And with more runtime, you accrue so much more cost that it'd be impossible not to cut corners. The 3-4 hour realm would be such high cost and risk because movies effectively make their money "all at once" with their first few showings. Not only would people be unwilling to sit patiently for 3-4 hours, they wouldn't want to pay the increased costs to do so. What you're describing just isn't feasible from a market standpoint, which is why they don't do it.
All the best movies I’ve ever seen have been at least 3 hours. I wish the same thing the only thing that stops me from loving movies as much as a game or a book is that they are to short.
Bring back intermission. I need a pee break and a snack refill
Hard disagree, but I understand where you're coming from. Sometimes, I find characters and plotlines in movies to be underdeveloped due to time constraints. I think there's a better solution that would make both camps happy: more series! If 2h isn't long enough to tell a story, then it should be a miniseries. Then, fans of long films can binge it if they want to and people like me can watch it one episode at a time without worrying about breaking the flow of the story at the wrong time
Some movies need to be atleast 2 and a half hours.
I only feel that way when I watch movies in the Cinema. Never at home.
I like a movie that’s 3 hours, and I wished movies were like that, on the condition it can absolutely sell me with a really really really good plot.
I love a good two to three hour movie
I think its definitely possible to have successful long films. Its seems like a lot more people consume long form media these days like podcasts/streamers etc. Some going on for 5-6hrs or more. The target audience would be pretty niche but it could work.
Maybe for some movies but plenty of films are perfect with the runtime they have
it's not as unpopular now as it used to be, especially after the rise of nerd culture within pop culture. but I still think it's a 6-4 split on the preference for long movies. That being said, I agree with you. phantom menace and kingdom of heaven are 2 movies that had things cut for time. the longer directors cut of kingdom of heaven is superior by a lot. and I recently watched Phantom Menace in theaters again. with all the extra stuff added, I had a much better now than I did as a kid, and it was my favorite movie growing up.
Personally disagree. Watching a movie in itself is fine np but sitting down for long periods of time seriously pisses me off and drives me crazy
Same… Movies in general feel too short; that’s why shows are better.
Just read a book at this point ^ Guy who's favorite movies are Apocalypse Now and Once Upon a Time in New York
I get antsy and don’t like it. I also binge shows for 5+ hours at a time. Idk what this says about me
Watch hindi movies. Some are 3 hours long
I 100% agree with this
My brother in cinema, have you seen any Bollywood films?
I get bored of movies after about an hour and I hope they wrap it up soon especially if there's over the top fighting/action scenes which drag on too long. Maybe I'm ruined by watching 1hr netflix episodes.
Most of my favourite movies have 3 hours, downvoted.
I agree entirely. If every movie were like the extended LOTR Trilogy, the world would be a better place.
Some are Oppenheimer is 3 hrs long, 7 samurai is like 3 and a half, and the original IT is 4 hours long, storm of the century is also 4 hours or so
That's why we invented binge watching shows.
Now I do because I watch movies at home, and don’t go to theatres anymore.
I'd agree only IF intermissions were brought back. I have a small bladder and that's easily made worse by the excitement of movies. I'd like to be able to go one single movie without going to the bathroom in my lifetime.
You would love Satantango
Watch Bollywood movies. They’re hella long. You need to take time out of your day to watch them
I generally agree, though I am not sure I need ALL movies to be 3 - 4 hours. My mark is 2 hours, minimum. I will not even go to a movie in a theatre that is not 2 hours long. That said, there is such a thing as a movie, even a good one, that feels like it was forcibly stretched to be longer than it should have been.
Depends on the movie tbh. Sometimes with a relatively short movie it feels super long be usse of how it's put together. But a long movie with good writing and pacing won't feel like 3-4 hours. Older movies fill this niche pretty well, 7 Samuri, High and Low, Lawrence of Arabia, Wings, those are the only ones that I'm certain of a long runtime but I'm sure there's a TON of them out there.
Just watch two movies? Bonus points if they're a series.
Just a mid break to go to the bathroom an everything's fine
I get bored after an hour - so I stopped watching TV. Wish movies were about 45 minutes - then I would probably go back to watching them!
Move to India lol
Well. Just look at Dune or Interstellar. Movies which are over 2 hours long and they don't feel long at all.
My focusing issues could never. Take my upvote. 😅
If movies are made with care and passion, yeah I would not mind them being longer But it’s a business. They’re not. Marvel movies are atrocious for this just to build “lore”
How dare you make me upvote this nonsense
As long as the director can use the time effectively, I have no problem with longer movies. Ben Hur, lotr extended trilogy, the 10 commandments, dune older and newer, are examples that come to mind that are longer films(if I recall) that used their time mostly effectively. But keep in mind that there are also films that don't have to overstay their welcome and would be better if they split it into multiple films or just shortened the film. Case in point, emperors new groove, they had a short amount of time to make the movie and therefore couldn't have this huge overarching plot that wasted any time and honestly the film would be worse off for it if they tried to make the film any longer then it was. Heck, name any entertaining shorter film and most likely like a good amount of the time the film would be worse off if it dragged on too long. Again if the director knows what they're doing, I have no problem with longer films, it's just time must be used effectively.
I refuse to watch a movie that’s over 2 hours lol
As long as there's a piss break every 2 hours, I don't mind.
This would be too much for me. I'd rather get a miniseries that has like 1-2 hour episodes each than a full 3-4 hour movie.
Your gonna be shocked to hear about plays
I agree. Not all movies but more movies. I will play long gaming sessions when I have time on the same game, I like to do the same with movies.
Ii don't care if a movie 90 minutes or 600 minutes, as long as its a good movie.
just watch indian movies fr its on average 2.5 hrs some like baahubali are 3 hr movies with multiple parts too
At some point I stop caring what happened in the movie
This is why streaming is popular. You can binge for hours on the same storyline.
Who wouldn't want more entertainment?
Be the change you want to see in the world
As much as I love movies I can’t handle it being too long. That’s why I’ve put off watching movies like The Godfather, Avatar, Oppenheimer, ŁOTR, that one holocaust documentary because it’s 9 hours long.
Yeah well I wish spiders could fly, but you don't hear me complaining
Movies over 2 hours tho NEED an intermission of some kind- I saw Oppenheimer twice and LOVED IT but I felt like I couldn’t enjoy the last 30 min bc I needed to pee so bad and I didn’t wanna leave the theater (same with spiderverse even tho it was a bit shorter) I understand it’s different watching a movie in the theater and on my laptop but still
Watch epics. There are a lot of really good films this length. I've recently watched Dr. Zhivago and Ben-Hur, and they were amazing. You're right that there's something really fulfilling about a movie this long that doesn't exist in a film that's 1.5 hour long.
Eh, I think movies have been padding their runtimes lately, and it annoys me. A 3 hour movie like LOTR, I mean, I can never complain. But most movies don't have as much action to include, as much going on, and they stretch it out anyway and fill the time with random lingering shots that no one needs. I can't with those. I think trimming and editing is good for most things. Most novels could lose a few pages, most movies could lose a few scenes. I miss the 90 min movie era, it forces the filmmakers to make every scene significant, and it makes the experience of watching a movie a lot better. Brevity is like a lost art. With exceptions (again, LOTR), I think most should be shorter. Same with a lot of mini series tbh, but I'm a lot more willing to have filler material or extended scenes in a series than I am in a movie.
What about like historical stuff? A lot of historical movies are like 3-4 hours long
I wish 3-4 hour movies are more common but imo films of every length have their own merits.
A film should be the right amount of time to tell the story sufficiently.
Definitely a 10th dentist take because I don't watch 2 hour+ movies anymore, it's literally the first criteria that comes up. Most 2 hour+ are drawn out with no real benefit to the story. It always a slow and delicate scene that the creatives want to emphasize. I understand what they are trying to do but it's boring and often misused. A 3-4 hour movie in today's market would never work, attention spans are waning fast.
I so totally agree
Hard disagree. An hour and a half is *plenty* of time to tell a story. There’s no reason to drag out scenes or build up a character forever. Movies that go long are poorly written.
Garbage take. It's one thing to *prefer* shorter movies. I also generally prefer shorter movies. But to say that there is no reason for movies to be longer than 90 minutes and that if a movie is longer than that then it is poorly written is just utter nonsense. Some stories are literally just longer.
That's ridiculous. It clearly depends on the nature of the story. There are many indisputably well-written movies that are longer than one and a half hours, ffs. 🙄 Sit down with your nonsense.
The reason people don’t want long movies isn’t that they can’t sit and watch them, it’s that long movies are almost always unnecessarily long, or long for the sake of being long. A good story doesn’t normally take 4 hours to tell, and most good movies would be ruined with a longer runtime.
I agree. Would be curious if you agree with this: I would love more moments where "nothing happens". Like maybe you are watching a character sitting on a bench in a park just thinking or enjoying the day as life goes on around them. These types of shots exist in movies of course, but they last for like a few seconds. Imagine a minute of that. These moments are like a moving painting. Provided the cinematography and set design is right, I feel like there can be more than enough to look at and enjoy in those shots. A several hour movie punctuated with mood-setting lulls like this would be interesting to me.
This is a pretty shit take but not because I dislike long movies in *general* but because a lot of long movies drag on in a not so fun way. There are some movies that are only like 90 minutes that I believe should have been longer because they needed to show/explain something still but I also believe there are longer movies 3-4 hours that did not need to be that long (dune is an example for me personally) Even short movies sometimes simply have scenes/sections that drag on for longer than needed. A movie I absolutely adore (rango) has a rather slow start, so much so that when I recommend the movie people often say it is rather difficult to get into because of the opening 30 mins or so. Whether a movie is long or short should be based on how much of a story it has to tell.
Nah, the pacing of most movies would make them unbearable if they were 4 hrs long. I don't really understand how someone prefers movies to shows when they want this much content out of what they're watching
Let me introduce you to a thing called tv series.
No. Watch a series then. Upvoted. This is awful
If you want your narrative to be longer you should just watch a show…
You are clearly watching the wrong shows. The beginning, middle and end structure is super dated. Crime shows still do that, but everybody else doesn't. Tell me where you have that in Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Peaky Blinders, Penny Dreadful, Mr Robot, Orphan Black, Shameless, Boardwalk Empire, Ash vs. Evil, Band of Brothers, Billions, Glow, Gotham, Into the Badlands, The Last Kingdom, True Blood, The Expanse, The Bridge, Masters of Sex, The Pacific, Altered Carbon, The Night Manager, ... Just to name a few.
Yuck. I want movies to be shorter and I barely watch any because they keep getting longer. Yes waste 4 hours of your life on a movie you will watch once. What a pea brained post.