Denis Villeneuve, Ridley Scott, Brady Corbet, and more defend long movie runtimes

A lengthy runtime can be enough of a turn-off for people to straight-up skip a movie. Of course, they have no problem binge-watching a show for eight hours, but that’s another argument. But for some, the length itself might be the draw, a reason to shell out the money to go to the movie theater. Of course, that director better keep things interesting, lest they a “bum ache”, as Ridley Scott calls it. Scott took part in The Hollywood Reporter’s annual Director’s Roundtable session to discuss this topic, with most defending long movies.

Even though a study from last year found that a brisk 92 minutes is the ideal runtime for a movie, those participating in the roundtable – including Scott, Denis Villeneuve, Edward Berger, and Brady Corbet (the reigning king of epics this year) – agreed that the filmmaker is responsible for justifying any time that might be deemed excessive on the surface. As Scott – who hasn’t made a movie under two hours since 2013’s The Counselor – put it, “Whether it’s four hours or two hours, you better have it in that engine the reason to want to go to the next step. That’s called drama…Even though it is seen as designed to be long, it better be interesting…That’s the fundamentals of theater and film. You ain’t got a movie.” So what do we call it when Netflix purposely dumbs down their content for those who can’t sit still?

Meanwhile, Edward Berger – whose Conclave hits the so-called industry runtime of two hours – added that such an epic runtime could be part of the allure for a lot of moviegoers. “If [the audience hears], ‘There’s this guy, Brady Corbet, he made a movie that’s almost four hours. It’s got an intermission. It’s 70 mm.’ It somehow becomes, ‘I gotta go see it!’ It’s a spectacle. I don’t get that on television…If the emotionality is right, it can be two and a half hours or four, it doesn’t really matter. I think part of the selling point…of getting people to the theater will be its length.” Corbet’s possible Best Picture winner The Brutalist clocks in at 215 minutes.

Speaking of movies with long runtimes, Dune: Part Two – which is just shy of three hours – remains one of the highest-grossing movies of 2024. Adding to the conversation, its director, Denis Villeneuve, said, “There’s the physical time and the mental time of a movie,” adding that we’ve all seen scenes that felt like an eternity and epics that went by in a flash.

Do you share these directors’ sentiments about movie runtimes? What makes you think a film is too long?