Movies today seem to have longer and longer playing times. a trend? Nobody wants to shoot a 90-minute anymore? And if so, why is that?
The length of feature films seems to have been increasing for years – and this at a time when streaming that can be interrupted at any time and short content from Tiktok or Instagram are revolutionizing the moving image industry. A total of six hours of streaming service series is a pleasure for many people because of its different narrative rhythm – keyword cliffhanger. The prospect of being asked to watch a three-hour film, on the other hand, frightens many. When going to the cinema or streaming, it is usually said today: nothing “crime scene” length. Instead: take more than two hours.
This year alone, epic films seem to be on the rise. Think of “Oppenheimer” (3 hours) or “Indiana Jones and the Wheel of Destiny” (2 hours and 34 minutes). Even the live-action remake of Little Mermaid was almost an hour longer than the 1989 Disney animated feature. Martin Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour epic Killers of the Flower Moon has been announced for October.
“Babylon – Rush of Ecstasy” was released in cinemas in January: When Brad Pitt first read Damien Chazelle’s script for it, it comprised 180 pages – one page corresponds to about one minute of film. The Hollywood star told W magazine: “I said, ‘This is a masterpiece. But what is cut out?” And he said, “Nothing”.
Box office gift “Intoxication of Ecstasy”
That was probably a mistake, because “Ecstasy” was a flop at the box office, despite starring Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie (“Barbie”). Worldwide, he only achieved about 63 million US dollars. In Germany, only about 220,000 cinema-goers were counted. Everything writer-director Chazelle (38) dreamed up seemed to have made it into the final version, including the explosive guts of an elephant.
Filmmaker Chazelle obviously has less desire to limit himself from film to film. His music film drama “Whiplash” (2014) lasted 106 minutes, the film musical “La La Land” (2016) 128 minutes, his Neil Armstrong biopic “Aufbruch zum Mond” (2018) 142 minutes and his “Babylon” now 181.
A trend can also be seen with Steven Spielberg, who has always had a weakness for particularly long films. In the 80s, his eight cinema films had an average length of 123 minutes, in the 1990s (2011 to 2018) his seven films were already 131 minutes long on average. In the 2020s, however, his two films (“West Side Story” and “The Fabelmans”) each lasted over two and a half hours (157 and 151 minutes).
20 years ago (2003), when the more than three-hour epic “The Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King” became the most visited cinema film in Germany, the average length of the ten most successful cinema films in Germany (based on tickets sold) was 126 minutes. Last year (2022), moviegoers spent an average of six more minutes watching the top ten films.
After bleak pandemic years
Sure, the animated film “Minions – In Search of the Mini Boss” (second place) only lasted 87 minutes, but it was the only one in the top ten with less than 100 minutes.
But you can’t say that all films are basically longer. At least that’s how the data scientist Przemysław Jarząbek evaluated almost 30,000 films from the IMDb database according to their runtime around five years ago and gave a clear answer: they don’t always get longer. “The differences in length are too small to be noticed. We can say that, on average, films have been the same length over the last 60 years. No matter what criteria you apply, the result is always the same”.
However, the thesis of longer films seems to apply to films by well-known directors, serial cinema and a number of commercial hits in recent years. The magazine “Vanity Fair” recently researched behind the scenes of Hollywood and compiled reasons why films could currently be so long.
After a few gloomy pandemic years, the industry needs enough people to go to the cinema again. A long film gives the feeling that a director has something to say, that the film has artistic merit (many Oscar winners are too long).
managers under pressure
In addition, there are now less powerful and strict producers who call filmmakers to order. As the list of film buyers — with Netflix, Amazon, Apple and other new players in the film business — growing longer, there is some pressure on studios not to disagree with a director’s vision for an extra 15 or 30 minutes. “Who wants to be the manager who says no to Scorsese and loses him to Netflix?” summarized Vanity Fair.
And: An unnamed (longtime) producer suspects that there were fewer test screenings during the pandemic and thus less social control: “There is actually nothing better to tell you that your film is too long than towards a sea of people look who are shifting in their seats.”
The desire for length does not seem to be limited to Hollywood and its trend towards inflated action cinema. The phenomenon can also be observed in this country. The winners of the German Film Awards of the past ten years lasted an average of 136 minutes. In the previous ten years, the works awarded the Golden Lola were around 20 minutes shorter on average.
Now, of course, not everything is as clear as it sometimes seems: ever since “Gone with the Wind” there have been repeated complaints that films are too long. “Ben Hur” in the late 50s was almost four hours long, “The Godfather” by Francis Ford Coppola in the early 70s was almost three hours, “Titanic” by James Cameron in the 90s was over three hours.
Television competed with cinema
From the 1950s onwards, the cinema industry was confronted with competition from television and hoped that longer films or the film format Cinemascope would create an experience that the small screen at home could not offer. Today, with streaming services, the argument is similar: if people are going to leave their house and go to the cinema, you have to offer them something bombastic, more emotion and a bigger experience.
It was only between 1970 and around 1985 that many blockbusters were said to have gotten shorter on average, as data scientist Randal Olsen noted nearly a decade ago, speculating that this was due to the time limit on videocassettes on which films could be re-released.
With the advent of DVDs, running time wasn’t that important anymore. For people who were young in the 80s, the impression that films used to be shorter could have reasons.