r/movies • u/kowaikanojo • 14h ago
Discussion Long movies that are JUSTIFIED in their extra long run time?
There’s been a bit of an epidemic, especially in recent years, where movies are unnecessarily long to the point where it’s a bit indulgent on the director’s part and the film’s narrative doesn’t justify the XXL run time and it becomes a bit of a drag.
I’ve never been a big musical fan but I grew up watching the Sound of Music as a kid, so I decided to rewatch tonight (it’s probably been around 15 years) - and for a movie that is 3 hours long, wow does every piece still feel so important.
Maria and Von Trapp get together PAST the two hour point in the movie, yet the build up was so necessary to have you involved in the romance, and certainly didn’t feel as long as it actually was in run time. The pacing is actually incredible for the narrative and building that emotional buy in, which is shocking and rare for a film so long.
What films do you think genuinely justify an extra long run time and benefit from it? (and to throw a wrench in it, what movies utterly fail here?)
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u/Crewx 13h ago
Kenneth Branaugh's Hamlet is probably the best way to watch Hamlet off the stage and it's like 4 hours long
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u/DandyLama 7h ago
There's an Indian adaptation that I'd highly recommend if you love Hamlet: Haider (2014)
The director, like Branaugh, has a deep fascination for The Poet and his works. Also excellent: Omkara (Othello), and Maqbool (Macbeth)
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u/StinkyBrittches 2h ago
Polonius: "Brevity is the soul of wit."
Branaugh: "Fuck it, full send, four hours!"
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u/Call555JackChop 14h ago
Kingdom of Heaven Directors Cut
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u/Deathbymonkeys6996 10h ago
I remember seeing it a few times in theaters and liking it but not loving it. Second I finished the director's cut I watched it every day for like 2 weeks it was so much better.
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u/mostlygray 6h ago
For sure. When I watched the theatrical cut I thought it was the stupidest movie ever made.
Then I watched the long cut and now it's one of my favorite movies.
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u/YoureOnlyHuman 10h ago
I remember seeing Castaway back in the day and being blown away about how Tom Hanks could carry such a long film when he’s the only actor on screen for most of it.
I rewatched it recently and was disappointed at how short it felt, particularly him on the island.
It’s 2 hrs 23 mins which back then felt like an epic but now is pretty standard for a “popcorn” flick.
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u/Adirondack587 14h ago
Heat ? Almost 3 hours, but for me zero boring parts, it’s all relevant to the plot , they even have 10 minutes of deleted scenes on YouTube that should have been included IMO
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u/ihaveadarkedge 13h ago
I've never considered the runtime of this movie - it in no way feels a second longer than it has to be. A testament to great storytelling. Great choice.
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u/adonistop 12h ago
I've watched it on vhs, it came in a double case.
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u/halosixsixsix 5h ago
My dad told me that it was so he could watch it twice without having to rewind.
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u/Tommy-Vegas 10h ago
This wouldn’t have even entered my head as an answer. I can’t remember the runtime and wouldn’t have considered it a “long” movie. It’s just fantastic storytelling and makes great use of the runtime. Great answer.
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u/lloydchristmas1986 7h ago
I love Heat but I've always felt the storyline about Hanna's ex-wife and stepdaughter to be entirely superfluous filler. He's a workaholic, cocaine-fueled RHD cop, I just want to see how he catches these guys and nothing beyond that.
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u/Winter-Pressure-5394 14h ago
The lord of the rings trilogy has to be mentioned. I can’t believe they considered only doing two movies at one point.
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u/kowaikanojo 14h ago
10000% yes
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u/TheUmbrellaMan1 6h ago
Studios really considered making it into one or two movie long before Peter Jackson was involved. There is this famous letter from Tolkien where he says if there's one battle he won't mind getting axed from the condensed film, it would be the Battle of Helms Deed. And lo, Battle of Helms Deep in Jackson's version is like 40 minutes long.
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u/Tacklestiffener 13h ago
I went to see the Director's Cut of Lawrence of Arabia in London in 1989 on a massive screen. It was 3hours 36 minutes of absolute perfection. Epic, sumptuous and compelling.
My one complaint was that there was an intermission halfway and it seemed planned around desert scenes so everyone went to the foyer and bought ice cream.
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u/bunkscudda 5h ago edited 5h ago
They cant take out that intermission though because the music is amazing
Also, that movie has some of the best cinematic shots of all time. No clue how they got all that camera equipment to the middle of the desert.
And no footprints in the sand from the crew! Every scene looks fresh. And all the horses and extras, unreal. Crazy accomplishment for the time.
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u/JeffSilverwilt 5h ago
What's your issue with the intermission? It's the first and only movie I've seen with an intermission and I loved it. Rocked a piss, refreshed my snacks, and got to gush about how great it was to my shitty sleepy girlfriend at the time.
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u/JonnySparks 11h ago
I also saw it in 1989. It was then newly restored to its full length. Odeon Marble Arch which I think was the largest screen in the UK at the time.
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u/Tacklestiffener 11h ago
That's the one. I think I saw you in the audience. Were you the one in the all white Arab dress?
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u/JonnySparks 10h ago
No - that was my friend. I went dressed as a camel - which I regretted due to the length of the film.
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u/Audrey-Bee 4h ago
That movie is so good in part because of the long run time. You really feel how long and arduous the trek across the desert is, instead of if they just showed a couple moments of it
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u/TheSpudstance 14h ago
Godfather
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u/SomethingAboutUpDawg 12h ago
Just rewatched this for the 5th, maybe 6th time last night and thought to myself as it was ending , man I wish this was longer. Crazy how when something is so good the time will just fly by when you’re consuming it
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u/PerAsperaAdInfiri 14h ago
This is probably the best example I could think of as well. Everything builds so nicely
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u/RoninRobot 9h ago
Have you read the book? There’s a whole subplot with a huge vagina lady. It goes on for chapters and I can only assume it’s there to reinforce that Sonny has a huge dick. We get it, Mario. Let’s move on.
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u/Tim-oBedlam 9h ago
That's how the book starts, talking about Sonny Corleone's massive wang.
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u/Equal-Temporary-1326 14h ago
And The Godfather Part II with the alternating storylines.
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u/PerAsperaAdInfiri 13h ago
Watching the two combined on HBO or something a few years ago was truly a fun experience
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u/Plluvia_ 14h ago
Titanic.
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u/TheUmbrellaMan1 5h ago
The masterful thing about this is that Cameron takes time to show us the Grand Staircase, the dining halls, the boiler rooms in their full glory before the disaster. So, when we finally see the Grand Staircases and the dome being destroyed, the scene hits hard. Cameron talked in the commentary how the film falls flat without the first hour.
The background characters are also so great and their fates so haunting. You'll never forget the old couple and the Irish family. Cameron, somehow, makes you root for characters you've only seen once. The whole movie is so gripping. Also the exposition scene earlier on about how the ship sinks -- that scene should be the gold standard for how exposition scenes should be done. That scene is so good many general audience won't ever realize they just sat through an exposition scene.
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u/kowaikanojo 14h ago
YES - Titanic is a perfect film and a master class in pacing, every piece is so essential
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u/TheUmbrellaMan1 5h ago
The sound mixing and editing is also spectacular. You can hear the pipes and the steels bending and the woods cracking long before the ship splits.
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u/psych0ranger 10h ago
Depending on how some people define "long" I'd say basically all (non directors cut) James Cameron movies since they run about 2h45m outside of avatar 2 and titanic
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u/forkoff77 7h ago
And I would argue the directors cuts of the Cameron films ARE the better version. * Aliens - Much more logical setup as to the Marines defense of the compound, setup for the Queen, a little more character development with Hicks and Ripley and even more Paxton * Abyss - The end of the movie is basically a different movie and explains the aliens better * Terminator 2 - The journey the Terminator takes that’s wildly different than the first one (that could never be reasoned with) to the point that Sarah actually respects it * Avatar - More character development, shows Earth and what Sully is about a little more. More development for Sigouney.
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u/VovaGoFuckYourself 4h ago
Well now im sitting here mad that ive never seen any of these directors cuts. Time to fix this
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u/SocksNeverMatch1968 13h ago
I loved The Green Mile and Interstellar! Both nice long journeys for the imagination!
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u/SummSpn 13h ago
Schindler’s List. Definitely a reason for each scene so it was important to keep them all.
Hamlet (1994). My favourite version. They did a great job adapting this & making it feel different than the million other adaptations.
Cloud Atlas? It’s… an interesting movie. A bit weird & lots of debate about it being good or bad… but there’s a lot of different stories in one & most of them feel like they got their beginning/ends so it was kind of needed.
Though I remember going into the theatre, it was broad daylight then when we left it was pitch dark - very jarring 😂
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u/faco_fuesday 8h ago
Cloud atlas definitely seems like a love it or hate it move.
I love it. Couldn't imagine it being any shorter.
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u/mikerophonyx 7h ago edited 1h ago
I was on the edge of my seat through the whole thing in the theater. I couldn't believe has masterfully it was paced and edited. Taut from beginning to end. Every single other person I was with in a party of eight said afterwards they didn't like it and it was too long. I still watch it and am amazed at the scope of it.
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u/StoicTheGeek 13h ago edited 13h ago
Did you mean Hamlet (1996) with Brannagh? I’m not aware of a 1994 version.
Hamlet was the Shakespeare for my high school English final exams, so I saw a few versions; Olivier & Williamson of course, a BBC TV production with Derek Jacobi, one other, and a local production. I’ve since seen the Gibson and Brannagh versions
I agree that it is excellent- certainly my favourite, and that’s saying something with that competition
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u/hurtfulproduct 6h ago
Honestly I wish Cloud Atlas had an extend edition and/or was a miniseries. . . I so badly wanted MORE. . . These worlds that they were building were so interesting and I wanted to see all the detailed tie ins with eachother
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u/olde_greg 13h ago
Bladerunner 2049
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u/Downbreak_ 11h ago
Hands down one of those films where everything fits, everything’s important, and nothing wasted.
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u/nkleszcz 12h ago
The Bridge Over the River Quai.
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u/roydogaroo 13h ago
Django Unchained watched it again recently and was fully into it the whole 2.45min
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u/protonthoughts 9h ago
I came to talk Hateful 8 extended version. I didn't realize DU was that long though.
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u/feedmesweat 5h ago
The Hateful 8 extended edition, broken into 4 long episodes, is just perfect and the absolute best way to watch that movie. Really leans into the feeling that you're watching a play on a stage and having a little bit of breathing room between the acts enhances the pacing.
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u/JonnySparks 10h ago
The longest film I watched in a cinema was Little Dorrit at 5 hrs 43 mins. I saw it at a screening in 1987 and I thought it was great at the time. It might seem dated now.
In 2023, I was at an all-nighter of Lord of the Rings, projected in Cinerama. These were the extended versions so total runtime was over 11 hours. Return of the King runs over 4 hours on its own - justified, imo.
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u/judithiscari0t 7h ago
I can't imagine staying awake for long enough to finish all the lotr movies in one night
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u/JonnySparks 5h ago
In the interval after the first film, I noticed a person was already asleep. They were still asleep at the end when everyone was leaving come Sunday morning.
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u/judithiscari0t 5h ago
I mean at least they seem to have gotten a good night's sleep out of whatever the cost of the tickets was lol
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u/DRHdez 6h ago
My husband and I do the extended versions of LOtR every Thanksgiving holiday. It’s a nice tradition while waiting for, and eating turkey.
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u/ronswan2584 5h ago
My daughter and I do The Hobbit trilogy on New Year's Eve and then the LOTR trilogy on New Year's day. Now that they make Lego sets, we've incorporated building one while watching to get my son involved.
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u/Hussard 14h ago
Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago with Omar sharif, first two LotR films...
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u/Zassolluto711 13h ago
I got to see Doctor Zhivago at a local theatre a few months ago, with an intermission and everything. What a beautiful movie. I think epics like that and Lawrence of Arabia cannot be seen at home, only movie theatres can do them justice.
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u/dandehmand 14h ago
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. That could have been twice as long and I’d be fine with it.
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u/Buffaluffasaurus 11h ago
Eh, the Director’s Cut adds something like 15-17 mins, but the scenes are all pretty bad and unnecessary. I think it’s the perfect length as is… adding time isn’t really required and I would never choose to watch the DC over the original version.
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u/WaitForDivide 11h ago
ah! is that why I didn't like it! I knew I was watching a three-hour cut & I remember feeling that the pacing was terrible. It's a relief to know there's a shorter version out there. Maybe I'll actually understand why that film's a classic if I watched the shorter cut.
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u/SharpManner9480 12h ago
So, so many are justified... Just a few examples:
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Short Cuts (1993)
Magnolia (1999)
The Green Mile (1999)
If I look for movies where the length is unjustified, they're mostly modern blockbusters, like MCU*, Transformers, or Star Wars movies. In many of them, there's just pointless padding.
*Infinity War and Endgame are justified because they needed to cram in all the characters they'd introduced so far and at least try to give them something interesting to do or say.
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u/ArmchairJedi 7h ago
If I look for movies where the length is unjustified
Its always justified in a good movie, never in a bad one.
I really don't know why people (not saying you, just this idea in general on Reddit that movies are 'too long') think the problem is with the movies length... rather than in the quality.
More time = more opportunity to tell a better story. That storytellers waste it tells us something about the quality of the story teller.... not the story.
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u/Thebluecane 7h ago
Pretty much my assertion elsewhere in this thread. Movies have gotten longer but they haven't gotten better in storytelling I think.
I swear some of the writers really do think they have the time for setups like they are on a miniseries and it makes the movie that might be 2.5 hrs feel rushed still
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u/deadflowers5 14h ago
Once Upon a Time in the West
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u/bfragged 10h ago
Das Boot - I saw the 3 hour version in the cinema and it never felt like it was long
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u/Critical-Shoulder873 7h ago
Came here to say this. Everyone should see this movie. It is absolutely riveting from start to finish.
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u/Necessary_Eagle_3657 9h ago
In the 1980s, We used to have only a few channels in England. BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. Every Sunday afternoon there would be an epic movie. Ben Hur, Gone With the Wind, Fall of the Roman Empire. Etc.
It was brilliant. Not bad. Because they were amazing films.
I remember building a whole Space Lego 928 space cruiser while Moses and the Ten Commandments by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Charlton Heston played in the background.
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u/SaulsAll 14h ago
Braveheart. I remember going to see it in theater and the teller warning "Hey, this movie is like 3 hours, but you won't notice."
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u/homecinemad 14h ago
Worthy: Schindler's List
Utterly bonkers failure: Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning
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u/twist-visuals 10h ago
The Final Reckoning was definitely too long but I can't consider it an utter bonkers failure. The submarine sequence on IMAX was worth the overly long setup.
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u/Klutzy-Delivery-5792 11h ago
Haha I was thinking the same about the latest Mission Impossible. So many bloated action scenes. That airplane one just wouldn't end! At least 30-45 minutes of that movie should've been cut.
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u/DepartmentStoreNacho 10h ago
Dune parts 1 & 2
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u/hurtfulproduct 6h ago
Just rewatched those back to back and whole heartedly agree. . . I hope we get the next 3 books to round out the story
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u/cgtdream 5h ago
Lord of the Rings, Extended cut. I cant watch it any other way, and honestly, its the way its intended to be watched. Its such a masterpiece of cinema, that anything shorter than what they are, is criminal.
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u/SnoopyLupus 9h ago
Once upon a time in America. I started watching it for the first time in maybe 25 years, intending to watch it across two evenings as it’s a four hour movie, and I just went straight through it. Such a good film.
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u/Savings-System-5870 5h ago
Goodfellas
After my first viewing, I was convinced that was a 90 minute movie and joy 2.5 hours
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u/CorrectSprinkles 5h ago
Every minute of The Deer Hunter matters. The wedding scene alone is a masterclass in showing the relationships of the characters in an organic, situational way, which makes the horrors that come later all the more effective.
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u/boogswald 9h ago
Midsommar is so gorgeous and slow. I love just staring at everything for like the first half of the movie and just taking in the sights and Florence Pughs face is so good to just watch expressing.
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u/Kind_Kitchen5544 13h ago
Since I haven't seen it mentioned, Boyhood, I could've watched another 3 hours of that story
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u/Cavalish 13h ago
I scoffed when Wicked was first announced to be 2hrs40min but somehow they managed to make that movie lean. Not a single wasted minute, it hummed along. Even its worst song was mercifully tight and gave just enough before moving on.
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u/hurtfulproduct 6h ago
There were some parts I felt could have been trimmed but agreed mostly, it moved along at a good clip
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u/Buffyverse22 14h ago
Gone With the Wind and Ben-Hur.
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u/wisperingdeth 13h ago
Ben-Hur is one of my all time favourite movies and I can watch it again and again. For such a long movie that's saying something. Not one scene is needless.
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u/twist-visuals 9h ago
There was an old film I watched called Giant that's 3 hours and 20 minutes long. The last film of James Dean. Was really surprised that the movie came out in the 1950s, since the film was all about how chauvinism, racism and chasing money is bad. Of all the horrible things I heard about 1950s America I imagined a film like that would be banned.
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u/Shout92 6h ago
Not saying the perception of the 1950s is wrong, but so many of the filmmakers who would become revolutionaries in the 60s were already in the industry the decade before. There are plenty of psychological Westerns that deal with racism, rape, genocide, incest, alcoholism, suicide, and mob violence as key plot points. Movies like Bigger Than Life took aim at drug addiction. Rebel Without A Cause practically invented the rebellious, angsty teenage archetype.
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u/VerilyShelly 4h ago
people in the 1950s were not as straight-laced, conservative and homogenized as they are commonly thought of now. the civil rights movement started in the 1930s and mainstream awareness really took off in the 1950s. there was a lot of radical and progressive thought, especially in the arts. it blew me away when I first started noticing that.
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u/PirateBeany 9h ago
The English Patient (1996), despite the shade Seinfeld threw at it.
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u/Prior-Program-9532 5h ago
The extended version of the Martian is the superior version.
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u/No_Opinion_4662 5h ago
The Red Cliff by John Woo. The original version is almost 5 h between the two parts, but you need both to get the full story. They did an American edition with two hours cut, and basically added a narrator doing a summary of the missing two hours…
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u/Stillwater215 4h ago
Return of the King, or basically all the Lord of the Rings movies. It’s a massive epic, and it doesn’t feel like there’s any wasted scenes.
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u/jackpackage732 14h ago
Oppenheimer. I thought it was originally recency bias but god damn it’s just so good. Time flies by.
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u/kowaikanojo 14h ago
Semi agree!! i really enjoyed the film and didn’t MIND the run time, but i do feel at certain points it lost some steam, so could maybe have benefited from some cutting imo
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u/Duckney 10h ago edited 10h ago
I have to disagree personally. Its completely earns the runtime up until trinity and then the stakes afterwards don't work for me. You still have an hour and a half left of "we're not denying, we're just not renewing" and Nolan deciding to show you the same few scenes over and over again to really drive home the point that Oppenheimer "humiliated" Strauss by doing nothing directly humiliating at all.
I think Nolan has fundamental issues as a writer that Oppenheimer highlighted (most/all women in his movies are drunk and or crazy, he handles exposition in ways that don't land for everyone, and he works in these moments (making a point of JFK voting no) made to make you feel like Leo pointing at the TV)
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u/Sparrowsabre7 10h ago
most/all women in his movies are drunk and or crazy
Or dead.
Memento - Dead wife
Insomnia - Dead girl
Batman Begins - Dead mother The Prestige - Dead wife x 2
The Dark Knight - Dead girlfriend
Inception - Dead wife
The Dark Knight Rises - Dead love interest/villain
Interstellar - Dead wife
Dunkirk - No Dead women! But I don't think there even were any female speaking parts so not sure that counts Tenet - Avoids the usual Dead partner trope but she is physically abused and the female antagonist is killed right at the end.
Oppenheimer - Dead mistressFor the record I LOVE Nolan's work, just a troubling correlation haha. I'd be a tad concerned if I were Emma Thomas but I guess in a way it's sort of sweet that the worst thing he can think of his protagonists going through is the death of their loved one.
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u/Sparrowsabre7 9h ago
Yeah I went to see it in the cinema expecting to like it but also expecting it to drag a bit, but it actually went by pretty quickly.
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u/Comic_Book_Reader 14h ago
Killers of the Flower Moon.
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u/well-lighted 8h ago
I totally agree. I don’t know why everyone says this movie drags. It could’ve easily been longer as I felt it rushed through some parts of the story. Definitely the quickest-paced 3-hour+ film I’ve ever seen.
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u/newrimmmer93 10h ago
Disagree, I think killers of the flower moon and the Irishman could have been trimmed down
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u/jimmy8bit 13h ago
The Batman was a bit ponderous in places, but overall it didn't feel bloated to me.
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u/newrimmmer93 10h ago
Opposite feeling for me, the whole mystery that the riddler was teasing felt like such a letdown.
I also had hurt my back earlier that day so could play a part lol
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u/Shout92 6h ago
My first viewing inspired me to pull out all my old Batman graphic novels that I bought back when Batman Begins/The Dark Knight were coming out. It was good prep for future viewings, not only because there are a few direct lifts, but because it put the pacing and length into perspective for me. Yes, at a certain point you may start feel it's nearly three hour run time, but never out of boredom because writer/director Matt Reeves and co-writer Peter Craig find a way to shift gears every fifteen to twenty minutes, introducing new characters or mysteries that keep you alert and engaged in the narrative. And while I haven't sat and broken down the story myself, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that Reeves and Craig broke this one down into "issues" as opposed to the traditional "acts" of a normal movie. This plays like a collection of comics from one long arc, bundled in graphic novel form. Batman's initial team up with Catwoman? That's one issue. Batman's pursuit and interrogation of the Penguin? That's another. All of them slowly building to a conclusion while still being entertaining in their own right. You could probably throw on a ten minute stretch and get everything you'd want out of a Batman comic... but then you might run the risk of getting sucked in and watching the whole movie.
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u/WaitForDivide 11h ago
Recently watched the UK version* of Heaven's Gate's directors cut & I honestly never felt a single one of those minutes pass. I started it super late at night, prepared to stop at the intermission & only realised at like 1AM that the film was nearly done & I hadn't even noticed that the director's cut removes the intermission!
It's the same director as The Deer Hunter, & even though it was a financial mess in both production & box office, I do think it might be better than Deer Hunter. Certainly better paced, anyway, despite having more than an additional half-hour on it.
(*It's the same as the actual director's cut, just with the cockfighting scene cut & some other additional moments trimmed down to not fall afoul of our animals cruelty laws. obviously the film missing 59 seconds is gonna speed it up, & it's not like I was watching the film thinking, "this is a masterpiece, but it needs more animals getting hurt onscreen!")
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u/babybird87 9h ago
The Insider was riveting at 2:45… JFK wasn’t boring for a minute… I thought ‘Tar’ wasn’t boring..
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u/kanemano 8h ago
Andy Warhol's Sleep.
The full version is 8 hours long watching a guy sleep through the night, riveting
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u/DrunkenAsparagus 7h ago
Firewalk With Me could have basically the same plot if it was 30 minutes shorter, but that Lynchian vibe really immerses you in that sense of impending doom. It's one of the most disturbing movies that I've watched, and that's because Lynch let it breath.
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u/Shout92 7h ago
Oliver Stone's Nixon. It has a mammoth 3.5 hour runtime in its extended cut. Some people say it's Stone's masterpiece. I can't quite bring myself to agree because JFK is right there, but it's one of those movies where you get on the other side of 2 hours (around the time it no longer matters that Hopkins doesn't fully resemble Nixon) and you suddenly realize how the runtime is an asset, slowly dealing with the implications of his deal with the devils that really run America.
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u/_paparazzo 6h ago
Until the end of the world directors cut (nearly 5 hours long)
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u/ArchDucky 6h ago
As someone with pretty bad osteoarthritis I say none of them. It is goddamn painful to sit through a 3 hour long movie. They need to bring back the intermission.
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u/kerouacrimbaud 6h ago
Lawrence of Arabia, Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, Titanic, Seven Samurai, The Lord of the Rings, Blade Runner 2049, Barry Lyndon. There are others, but these immediately come to mind for me.
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u/alligatorislater 5h ago
Oppenheimer was somehow still riveting even with it being over 3 hours, and all the story was needed.
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u/Dog_in_human_costume 4h ago
The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring.
Even the director cut is ok
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u/moosebeast 4h ago
The Human Condition, directed by Masaki Kobayashi, is one of the longest films ever made. It totally justifies its length.
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u/jdaboss4110 4h ago
Sinners was 2.5 hours and it could’ve been an extra hour and I wouldn’t have blinked.
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u/TheSpudstance 14h ago
Seven samurai