The Era of the Epic: Why Modern Blockbusters Are Stretching Beyond Three Hours

POLICY WIRE — London, UK — Moviegoers are not imagining the shift; feature films are steadily growing longer. From massive studio blockbusters to nuanced art house projects, cinematic runtimes are expanding across the board.

Empirical research confirms this trend is a concrete reality. An analysis of 36,431 theatrical releases between 1980 and 2025 by researcher Stephen Follows revealed that the average duration of a wide-release movie has climbed from 106 minutes to 114 minutes.

For frequent cinema patrons, this evolution is a familiar talking point. When the official length of The Odyssey was confirmed at 173 minutes, it felt to many as if director Christopher Nolan had issued a monumental challenge. Yet, there is little evidence that extended durations deter ticket buyers; in fact, they may serve as an attraction. The Odyssey has accumulated $1.8 billion in box office receipts, ranking as the second-highest-grossing film of the year.

This shift has reshaped the broader film landscape. Speaking ahead of last year’s Venice Film Festival, festival boss Alberto Barbera observed that productions lasting 2 hours and 15 minutes or 2 hours and 30 minutes have become the new international standard. Barbera warned that this evolution poses logistical difficulties for festival programmers and can hamper otherwise strong cinema, noting that selection committees frequently review works that would have benefited from trimming 10 to 20 minutes.

This year’s leading award contenders reflect the trend, with The Odyssey, La Bola Negra (159 minutes), and You Can See Everything (174 minutes) all extending past two and a half hours. The pattern is equally visible in mainstream entertainment, as the upcoming Hunger Games entry, Sunrise on the Reaping, reaches a franchise record of 158 minutes.

The growth of home streaming services has pressured theatrical releases to emphasize scale. Confronted by comfortable home viewing options, theaters aim to present films as grand, essential events to justify the outing, operating under the assumption that bigger translates to better.

Filmmakers Joe and Anthony Russo, who oversee the Avengers series including the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, understand this dynamic well. The moviegoing experience is evolving, Joe Russo said in a recent interview. Eventized cinema seems to be the draw to get people out of their homes. That can be premium storytelling, premium moviegoing experience, and length can certainly contribute to the feeling of an experience. In a lot of ways, it’s the feeling of getting your money’s worth.

Although Doomsday has not yet received an official runtime, the Russo brothers expect the feature to settle around two and a half hours. For Russo, expanded length offers benefits, though it is not a requirement for quality. It doesn’t mean that you can’t pack a punch in a shorter runtime, Russo said. It’s whatever the story requires. It’s about squeezing the story into a diamond, and if that diamond ends up three-and-a-half hours, sure. If it ends up two-and-a-half hours, sure.

Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi creates intimate stories that stand apart from blockbusters, yet his releases often match their substantial runtimes. His 2021 drama Drive My Car, which made history as the first Japanese film nominated for best picture, ran just under three hours. Hamaguchi offered remarks following the Cannes Film Festival debut of his newest project, All of a Sudden. Despite its title, the film spans 197 minutes, offering a quiet, thoughtful exploration of time that Neon will bring to theaters Nov. 25.

Hamaguchi sees a direct connection between his artistic process and the themes of his work. My own values and thoughts around filmmaking come into the film, he said. I first learned about Humanitude in a different context and I decided to work within the field of caregiving. But when I started to research about it, I realized there were so many shared issues in common with the film industry.

Not all directors share the inclination toward three-hour running times. Polish filmmaker Paweł Pawlikowski has created three consecutive acclaimed features that each run under 90 minutes, aiming to distill his stories down to their purest elements. I love Lawrence of Arabia. It felt proportionate to the film and the landscape, says Pawlikowski of David Lean’s 327-minute 1962 epic. But nowadays there are films where it’s just too much. There are five endings and it’s just showing off.

Pawlikowski’s latest work, Fatherland, comes in at a concise 82 minutes. The story stars Hanns Zischler as German Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann alongside Sandra Hüller as his daughter Erika during a road trip across post-World War II Germany. Pawlikowski remains fully conscious that his concise approach departs from current industry habits. It feels a bit controversial what I’m doing, Pawlikowski says, chuckling. I’m quite aware that it’s provocative to be so stripped down. I’m all into simplifying life, anyways. Stick to your friends. Like what you like. Try to be honest. If you can do that in film, or any kind of art form, it helps.

Reporting by Policy-Wire (PW)