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Your bladder isn\u2019t lying. Movies are getting longer.<\/p>\n
All kinds of films, from big-budget spectacles to art house dramas, are stretching their run times. It\u2019s an old saying that a short movie can feel long and a long movie can feel short. But data, not just bathroom runs, shows that run time inflation is real at the movies.<\/p>\n
![\"Matt](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/19b67693c538c531e985d36f10f83bb7f3629969.jpeg\")
Matt Damon as Odysseus in Christopher Nolan\u2019s The Odyssey.Melinda Sue Gordon<\/p>\n
After analysing 36,431 movies released theatrically from 1980 to 2025, researcher Stephen Follows found that the average length of a wide-release movie has grown from 106 to 114 minutes.<\/p>\n
For most who frequent the movie theatre, this isn\u2019t surprising. It\u2019s become a regular feature of the prerelease anticipation of a movie: How long is it? When the official run time of The Odyssey was released (173 minutes), for some it was as if Christopher Nolan had laid down a challenge as intimidating as the Cyclops.<\/p>\n
Related Article But there\u2019s little evidence that long run times are dissuading moviegoers. They may even be a draw. The Odyssey is the second-highest grossing movie of the year, with $US1.8 billion ($2.6 billion) in ticket sales, and the front-runner for best picture at the Oscars.<\/p>\n Still, the shift has changed the whole ecosystem around movies. Ahead of last year\u2019s Venice Film Festival, festival boss Alberto Barbera noted that movies running 2\u00bc hours or 2\u00bd hours had become \u201cthe new international standard\u201d.<\/p>\n This, Barbera said, could be a programming annoyance as well as a knock on an otherwise good film. The festival selection committee, he said, often saw films that would have benefited from being 10 to 20 minutes shorter.<\/p>\n This year, three films viewed as top Oscar contenders \u2013 The Odyssey, La Bola Negra (159 minutes) and You Can See Everything (174 minutes) \u2013 all easily run more than 2\u00bd hours. It\u2019s far from just the awards movies, though. The upcoming Hunger Games movie, Sunrise on the Reaping, is 158 minutes long, a new high for the franchise. Any way you cut it, that\u2019s a lot of reaping.<\/p>\n The advent of streaming has led the movies to seek larger screens and longer run times. When the flat-screen enticements at home are so great, the movies strive to be bona fide events to get people to come out. Bigger is better, or so the thinking goes.<\/p>\n No one knows this better than Joe and Anthony Russo, stewards of the Avengers movies including the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday.<\/p>\n \u201cThe movie going experience is evolving,\u201d Joe Russo said in a recent interview. \u201cEventised cinema seems to be the draw to get people out of their homes. That can be premium storytelling, premium movie going experience, and length can certainly contribute to the feeling of an experience. In a lot of ways, it\u2019s the feeling of getting your money\u2019s worth.\u201d<\/p>\n Doomsday doesn\u2019t yet have an announced run time, though that hasn\u2019t stopped a sizable cottage industry of coverage committed to pinning down its length. The Russos expect it to be closer to 2\u00bd hours, slimmed down from the three-hour-long Endgame and relatively slender given that it contains a sizable portion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.<\/p>\n For Russo, bigger is good, but not automatically better.<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean that you can\u2019t pack a punch in a shorter run time,\u201d Russo said. \u201cIt\u2019s whatever the story requires. It\u2019s about squeezing the story into a diamond, and if that diamond ends up 3\u00bd hours, sure. If it ends up 2\u00bd hours, sure.\u201d<\/p>\n For some filmmakers, slowing down is important<\/p>\n The Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi makes movies that are almost the diametric opposite of a superhero film, yet he has arrived at similar run times.<\/p>\n Hamaguchi\u2019s films are resolutely human-scaled; they move with the rhythm of life. His Drive My Car (2021), the first Japanese film nominated for best picture, ran just under three hours. His movies are patient powerhouses that reject conventional movie plotting.<\/p>\n \u201cStorytelling as an action, you\u2019re sort of forcing certain things to happen to make an interesting film,\u201d Hamaguchi said. \u201cOftentimes, when I watch other films, they say this is how it is and continue to push the plot forward. I find that to be uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n Hamaguchi was speaking in an interview shortly after the Cannes Film Festival premiere of his latest film, All of a Sudden. Contrary to its title, it runs 197 minutes. But the film, which Neon will release in the US on November 25 and in Australia in February, is one of the gentlest and most enlightening movies of the year. Fittingly, it\u2019s about time.<\/p>\n Virginie Efira stars as the director of a Paris nursing home where she\u2019s introducing a more humane but time-consuming care technique called Humanitude. She encounters resistance from some staff but finds life improves for both the facility\u2019s patients and its employees.<\/p>\n For Hamaguchi, that message applies as much to movies as it does elder care.<\/p>\n \u201cMy own values and thoughts around filmmaking come into the film,\u201d he said. \u201cI first learned about Humanitude in a different context and I decided to work within the field of caregiving. But when I started to research about it, I realised there were so many shared issues in common with the film industry.\u201d<\/p>\n Not everyone shares the feeling that movies need to push closer to the three-hour mark. Polish filmmaker Pawe\u0142 Pawlikowski has made three acclaimed films in a row, all 90 minutes or less. He\u2019s not necessarily against longer-running movies, but he sets out to distil his films down to their most potent elements.<\/p>\n \u201cI love Lawrence of Arabia. It felt proportionate to the film and the landscape,\u201d says Pawlikowski of David Lean\u2019s 327-minute 1962 epic. \u201cBut nowadays there are films where it\u2019s just too much. There are five endings and it\u2019s just showing off. I won\u2019t mention names but there are some really great directors doing it, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Pawlikowski\u2019s latest, Fatherland, is a neat 82 minutes. Yet despite, or possibly because of its concision, Fatherland is an uncommonly rich experience, starring Hanns Zischler as the German Nobel laureate novelist Thomas Mann and Sandra H\u00fcller his daughter, Erika. They\u2019re on a road trip through Germany in the aftermath of World War II.<\/p>\n Pawlikowski is keenly aware that he\u2019s swimming against the long-movie current.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels a bit controversial what I\u2019m doing,\u201d Pawlikowski says, chuckling. \u201cI\u2019m quite aware that it\u2019s provocative to be so stripped down. I\u2019m all into simplifying life, anyways. Stick to your friends. Like what you like. Try to be honest. If you can do that in film, or any kind of art form, it helps.\u201d<\/p>\n AP<\/p>\n Must-see movies, interviews and all the latest from the world of film delivered to your inbox. Sign up for our Screening Room newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n![\"Miguel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/c8d1ea5a841a0f987ec25a32543a9bc2166d2637.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Whitney](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/22cae03d3e980a2f0a62f66dbae0b75ae2ec9eef.jpeg\")
Whitney Peak (left) and Joseph Zada in a scene from The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.Lionsgate via AP<\/p>\n![\"This](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/0bedc2b9b23afb5be41fa37e1908699b1f1154c7.jpeg\")
This image released by Marvel shows Doctor Doom in a scene from the upcoming film Avengers: Doomsday.Marvel via AP<\/p>\n![\"Drive](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/08f9ea3cef9b108894c3c86dbfba9105dce39308.jpeg\")
Drive My Car, the 2021 film by Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi.<\/p>\n![\"Peter](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/7ce957dc34fa9100a89d5e728063f2117c47989d.jpeg\")
Peter O\u2019Toole in the 327-minute 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia.<\/p>\n![\"Pawlikowski\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/4fd7abbf78c3e6a4d181711ff4aad5dac76a3294.jpeg\")
Pawlikowski\u2019s Fatherland, starring Sandra H\u00fcller and Hanns Zischler, comes in at an economical 82 minutes.<\/p>\n