{"id":402584,"date":"2026-02-01T17:05:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T17:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/402584\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T17:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T17:05:12","slug":"film-students-are-struggling-with-runtimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/402584\/","title":{"rendered":"Film Students Are Struggling With Runtimes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>20th Century Studios<\/p>\n

Film length has long been debated among cinephiles, filmmakers and the general public.<\/p>\n

Last year, an online market research poll with around 2,000 Americans found that 92 minutes was the preferred runtime for a film, while only 15% said films over two hours were acceptable.<\/p>\n

The survey results came as commercially successful films now average nearly two and a half hours, compared to just under two hours a few decades ago.<\/p>\n

Today, The Atlantic<\/a> published a feature piece that surveyed twenty film-studies professors with many of them sharing stories of students who struggle to sit through films in class without checking their phones.<\/p>\n

It seems several professors have resorted to asking students to watch only portions of films, while a number of these students also couldn\u2019t answer basic questions about the films after watching them.<\/p>\n

One story on X<\/a> had a professor showing students Fran\u00e7ois Truffaut\u2019s \u201cJules and Jim\u201d (which is just 105 minutes), and more than half the class got a post-screening multiple choice option quiz wrong \u2013 saying characters drunk with Ernest Hemingway (who isn\u2019t in the movie) and\/or hide with the Nazis (it\u2019s set during WW1). <\/p>\n

Of course, plenty of students have found old movies to be slow for many years but these professors have noticed a change in the past decade, and especially since the pandemic. They indicate many students are resisting the idea of in-person screenings altogether.<\/p>\n

When students watched films on the campus internal streaming platform, less than 50% started the films and only 20% made it to the end \u2013 and these are film students with motivation to watch. Watching at two-times speed or watching while doing other tasks is also widely acceptable.<\/p>\n

Several professors have students who\u2019ve struggled to name any film they watched recently, and others are struggling to find a movie that everyone in the class has seen as a shared reference point. One damning line says: \u201cEven students who are interested in going into filmmaking don\u2019t necessarily love watching films.\u201d<\/p>\n

One professor thankfully adds that \u201cthe ones who are really dedicated to learning film always were into it, and they still are\u201d. <\/p>\n

Recent films with long running times include \u201cAvatar: Fire and Ash\u201d (197 minutes), \u201cKillers of the Flower Moon\u201d (202 minutes) and \u201cThe Brutalist\u201d (215 minutes).<\/p>\n

Source: THR<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"20th Century Studios Film length has long been debated among cinephiles, filmmakers and the general public. Last year,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[94966,96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-402584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-bigslider","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}