Last year, Alberto Barbera, the director of the Venice Film Festival, commented, a few times, on long movies, and his general view that long runtimes are becoming more normal in modern cinema.
He explained that cinema is going through a major shift and that the traditional “90–120 minute movie” is no longer the standard, with filmmakers increasingly working in much longer formats—adding that films between 2 hours and 15 minutes and 2 hours and 30 minutes are becoming the “new international standard,” creating major scheduling headaches for programmers. He attributed this shift to the influence of streaming and television storytelling styles.
This brings me to the runtimes of the films competing for the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival—well over half of which run two hours or longer. In fact, at least four films currently clock in at over 2½ hours. The longest is Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “All of a Sudden,” at 3 hours and 16 minutes.
Here are the runtimes for 19 of the 22 films in competition this year. I’ll update the three remaining when I get their runtimes officially confirmed.
All of a Sudden (Ryusuke Hamaguchi) — 196 minutes
Dreamed Adventure (Valeska Grisebach) — 162 minutes
The Black Ball (Ambrossi/Calvo) — 157 minutes
A Man of His Time (Emmanuel Marre) — 153 minutes
Fjord (CristianMungiu) — 146 minutes
Minotaur (Andrey Zvyagingsev) — 140 minutes
The Unknown (Arthur Harari) —140 minutes
Parallel Tales (Asghar Farhadi) — 139 minutes
The Beloved (Rodrigo Sorogoyen) —135 minutes
Moulin (Laszlo Nemes) — 128 minutes
Sheep in the Box (Hirokazu Koreeda) — 127 minutes
Coward (Lukas Dhont) — 120 minutes
Bitter Christmas (Pedro Almodovar) — 111 minutes
Nagi Notes (Koji Fukada) — 110 minutes
Gentle Monster (Marie Kreutzer) —-110 minutes
Garance (Jeanne Herry) —105 minutes
A Woman’s Life (Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet) — 98 minutes
The Man I love (Ira Sachs) — 96 minutes
Fatherland (Pawel Pawlikowski) — 82 minutes
The Birthday Party (Lea Mysius) — 114 minutes
Hope (Na Hong-jin) —
Paper Tiger (James Gray) —
Out of competition, Tiago Guedes’ “Aqui,” screening in the Cannes Premiere sidebar, runs 3 hours and 20 minutes. Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “The Samurai and the Prisoner” is 2 hours and 27 minutes, while “De Gaulle” runs 2 hours and 40 minutes (and that’s only “Part One”).
Of course, it’s not just arthouse cinema. 130–180 minute blockbusters are increasingly becoming the norm. Once upon a time, the sweet spot was considered 90 to 120 minutes—shorter felt like a rip-off, longer risked testing patience. But in the past few years, that unspoken rule has loosened.
Even Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” dared audiences to sit through its 3 hours and 26 minutes. Ditto Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” and its three-hour runtime, which still went on to gross nearly $1 billion worldwide. “One Battle After Another,” 162 minutes, was marketed as an action blockbuster, and dared audiences with its runtime.
Some of the most financially successful films of recent years have also been lengthy experiences: “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” ran 2 hours and 29 minutes, “Oppenheimer” came in at 3 hours, and “Avatar: The Way of Water” at 192 minutes. “Wicked” ran 160 minutes, “John Wick: Chapter 4” 169 minutes, “Dune: Part Two” 166 minutes, “F1” 156 minutes, and the most recent “Mission: Impossible” film 163 minutes.
When considering a single movie that breaks the sacred 120-minute barrier, there’s hope that it will use its runtime to take its time and build a world that absorbs you, takes you out of your current reality. If the film accomplishes what it sets out to do, there’s no reason to complain. It’s the bad movies that result in excruciating viewing experiences.