While attention spans shrink, news is condensed into clips, and songs are reduced to 15-second TikTok videos, the big screen tells a different story: movies are getting longer.
In 2010, the first year 10 films were nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, half of them ran for less than 1 hour and 50 minutes. By 2024, most nominated films exceeded two hours in length, according to an article in The Hollywood Reporter (THR).
Five years ago, The Irishman had a runtime of 3.5 hours. This year, The Brutalist was released with a runtime of 3 hours and 35 minutes.
Most films in THR’s Feinberg Forecast for the year’s top 10 are at least 2 hours and 10 minutes long, with three (Dune: Part Two, Wicked, and The Brutalist) clocking in at over 2 hours and 40 minutes.
The trend toward longer movies is linked to the rising number of independently produced films, which are less influenced by market-driven production decisions.
It’s also attributed to the impact of streaming. Runtime is less of a concern when viewers can pause and resume at their convenience, as many did with Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman five years ago and may do again with the 2-hour, 10-minute film Emilia Pérez, noted in the article.
Oscar-favored categories often correlate with longer runtimes. Historical and war epics, as well as biographical films about complex characters—typically considered “Oscar bait”—frequently demand extended viewer attention.
At the 2024 Oscars, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, with a 3-hour runtime, won Best Picture. In 1998, the award went to James Cameron’s Titanic, which exceeded Oppenheimer by 14 minutes.
As the saying goes, no bad movie is short enough, but any great movie must justify its length, the article concludes.
Also read: Six awards for “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve story” at the Critics Choice
Source: CNA/ANA-MPA
