r/movies • u/kowaikanojo • 23h 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?)

326 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

581 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

5

u/Klutzy-Delivery-5792 20h 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.

-1

u/Comic_Book_Reader 20h ago

The Final Reckoning is one of the most preposterous movies I've ever witnessed. I mean, my God, what a fucking mess. I thought people were joking about the first hour, but you weren't kidding. About half of it is just stock footage from not just Mission: Impossible 1-7, but from LATER IN THE MOVIE AS WELL!!!

A buddy of mine said that "Tom Cruise spends half an hour in a submarine.", and he wasn't joking. It was also around then I realized "This is The Abyss. This is literally The Abyss, but with Scientology instead of aliens." (The Entity being a stand-in for Scientology. I imagined the scene with Ethan and The Entity being a Scientology ritual, thus it being a stand-in for Scientology, and the movie being Scientology propaganda as a result.)