How long would you rather a movie to be?

[Jackomon]

Something I have noticed is that a lot of movies are at least 2 hours long, and there are barely movies that last 1 hour & 45 minutes, and honestly, I do prefer movies that last less than 2 hours, nearly 3 hours long. Curious if anyone feels the same way or not

 

[Curse You Magic Beans]

Yeah same I prefer them a little lesser than 2 hours 1 Hour and 30-40 minutes is fine

 

[OldSchoolerSimpsons]

I'm fine with any length on a movie as long as it's justified. Sometimes I feel like it would've improved if it got trimmed down some, while other times I can't imagine any of the scenes being taken out despite it being over 3 hours or more.

I will say though that something like Sátantángó which is an arthouse film being over 7 hours does scare me away from watching it.

 

[stryke]

I prefer 90 minutes to 2 hours as the standard, though yeah if the film is longer than that and manages to make it work then I'm entirely fine with it. See the extended Lotr films which were 3 to 4 hours long each.

Saying that, if it does go over 2 hours I will judge a film a lot more critically as it's really going to need to justify that extra length.

 

[MaggotMagnet]

I'm a lightweight and I like shorter movies because I'm impatient. I want to get to the ending in case I hate it. And my post-USSR self is afraid of timewasting activities and not having fun efficiently enough because I need to get back to work.
Plus I grew up watching Disney.

I recently watched Marx Bro's hilarious The Cocoanuts (1929) which near-immediately became one of my favorite comedy movies ever, and I checked the length of it. It's 1 hour 37 minutes.

I remember Singin' in the Rain (1953?) always felt too long to me. That one's 1 hour 43 minutes. Huh. I guess they didn't use their time wisely.

The most visually memorable and stunning movie I've ever seen, The Silent Enemy (1930), is 1 hour 24 minutes.

My favorite story and most-watched movie of all time, The Truman Show (1998), is 1 hour 43 minutes.

For something more modern/normal, I recently enjoyed Enchanted (2007). For the most part, very good, excepting the weird ending. That one's 1 hour 47 minutes.

So yeah seems like 1 hour 35ish is my sweet spot.

 

[Freaky Phoebe]

100 minutes (1hr 40) feels most right to me

 

[stryke]

My favorite story and most-watched movie of all time, The Truman Show (1998), is 1 hour 43 minutes.

For something more modern/normal, I recently enjoyed Enchanted (2007). For the most part, very good, excepting the weird ending. That one's 1 hour 47 minutes.

That's some excellent taste. Truman Show is such an incredible film that was also incredibly prescient in how tv would go in the 00's.

I had to get my arm twisted hard to watch Enchanted while I was with my family one christmas, but to be fair, it really is pretty good.

 

[MaggotMagnet]

That's some excellent taste. Truman Show is such an incredible film that was also incredibly prescient in how tv would go in the 00's.

I had to get my arm twisted hard to watch Enchanted while I was with my family one christmas, but to be fair, it really is pretty good.

AAAHHH! Thanks! I read your kind message at work and it put a smile on my face. Yes I truly love The Truman Show; I appreciated the script especially. I really care about writing that's multifaceted (it was quite a meta movie).

Same with Enchanted; I found the writing really funny and it too was pretty meta, and seemingly a parody of the princess genre. However yeah, the ending was a little iffy.

Thanks again for your kind words!

And for the record, I'm a fan of both 10, 20 and longer-minute cartoons. I have much more patience with cartoons than live-action movies.

 

[kupomog]

Less than 2 hours if possible, but mostly I just really don’t want it to get close to 3 hours. I have only like, a couple of days or nights a week where I can freely sit and watch a movie without having to constantly get up and handle something. Makes it hard for me to get motivation to commit to watching movies. Anything longer than 2 hours is likely to get pushed to the side in favor of something shorter (usually television or video games), or paused enough times that I’d just end up getting tired and wanting to finish the next day. As much as possible, I do not want to pause and come back to a movie another day.

 

[ThrashtheTrash]

An hour and 45 minutes is just right for me. I’ll stomach a 3 hour film though if it’s something I really wanna see like Endgame or Oppenheimer or Killers of the Flower Moon

I ain’t watching 4 hours of Zach Snyder nonsense for a DC universe that doesn’t even exist anymore, fuck that

 

[I Love Lisa]

I voted for 1 hour-1 hour 30 minutes because I consider 90 minutes to be ideal for a film, but really anything up to 2 hours is good for me. Anything just over 2 hours is usually fine as well, but once you get over 2 hours 30 then it has to be really good to justify watching it for me. That's not to say that long runtimes can't work because there are definitely some very good long films out there, but there's so many movies of around 3 hours or more that I might have otherwised enjoyed that I've just been put off by the length and never ended up seeing.

 

[Snorky]

The movies I seem to prefer (bar animations) are usually in the 2hours - 2hours and 30 minutes ballpark and part of my satisfaction with these movies must be a perfect runtime, it can't be a coincidence

 

[Ryan]

depends: comedies should always be 90 to 95 minutes. no excuse to be longer at all. it's the perfect length for a laugher. can not tell you how many long comedies I've sat thru and wondered why the fuck this wasn't cut down.

most animated films also can apply around this benchmark, although I don't mind if they go to the 100 minute mark. the simpsons movie for example is a film that didn't use time very wisely and could've used maybe an extra five min, even still that would've pushed it to 92 minutes.

dramas and action films should clock in between 1hr 45min to 2 hours. star wars ep 4 is 121 minutes long and often studied for its perfect populist story structure. jaws is 124 min. shave off 4 min, sure but this is still at the sweet spot.

not saying that every 125+ min film is garbage, but too many movies especially popular movies feel the need to go beyond it and it's just like omg get an editor, tighten your script and stop pretending you need to epic enough. I can make exceptions but I can't begin to tell how many times I feel like an action scene is going on too long, or even a dialogue scene. we need to average shit out.