The Longest Movies Ever

After watching Lawrence of Arabia, a 4-hour event, including the 30-minute intermission with a 3.5 minute overture, we began talking about how long a movie should be.  It’s difficult to say, but looking at the list below, there seems to be a pattern of gluttony with certain directors.  Popular directors whose movies err on the long side include Martin Scorsese with 7 movies over 2.5 hours, Peter Jackson with 6 movies, and Michael Bay (5 over 2.5 with only 1 over 3 hrs).  Then there’s David Lean (2 at well over 3 hrs), Stanley Kubrick (2 over 3 hrs and 2 more above ~2.5), Francis Ford Coppola (with 2 over 3 hrs, and 1 more over 2.5 hrs), and Oliver Stone (with two over 3 hrs, and writer of Scarface, very close to 3 hrs).  Just my observations.  There may be some more modern directors who push close to 3 hours, but I can’t think of them off the top of my head.

What surprised me was that Avatar wasn’t that long, at 2 hrs 42 min.  In fact, Titanic was about 30 minutes longer than Avatar.  And Transformers 4 was 3 minutes longer!  I also found it funny (gluttonous?) how all the movies in Michael Bay’s Transformers series are longer than 2 hours 20 minutes!

It’s also tough to compare different generations of movies, since run times include credits which nowadays can run up to 9 minutes long!  Compare that to movies before 1970’s that only had like 3 credit slides and then “The End”.  That’s like no more than maybe 60 seconds of credits.

Title Year Tot. Minutes Hours Minutes Director
Hamlet 1996 242 4 2
The Iceman Cometh 1973 239 3 59
Gods and Generals 2003 231 3 51
Once Upon a Time in America 1984 229 3 49 Sergio Leone
Lawrence of Arabia 1962 227 3 47 David Lean
Gone With the Wind 1939 226 3 46 Victor Fleming
Heaven’s Gate 1980 220 3 40
Ben-Hur 1959 212 3 32
Exodus 1960 208 3 28
War and Peace 1956 208 3 28
Apocalypse Now Redux 2001 202 3 22 Francis Ford Coppola
The Alamo 1960 202 3 22
Malcolm X 1992 202 3 22
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King 2003 201 3 21 Peter Jackson
Giant 1956 201 3 21
The Godfather Part II 1974 200 3 20 Francis Ford Coppola
Dr. Zhivago 1965 197 3 17 David Lean
Intolerance 1916 197 3 17
Pepe 1960 195 3 15
Ryan’s Daughter 1970 195 3 15
Schindler’s List 1993 195 3 15 Steven Speilberg
Titanic 1997 194 3 14 James Cameron
Reds 1981 194 3 14
The Right Stuff 1983 193 3 13
It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World 1963 192 3 12
Nixon 1995 192 3 12 Oliver Stone
Tess 1979 190 3 10
At Play in the Fields of the Lord 1991 189 3 9
Hawaii 1966 189 3 9
JFK 1991 189 3 9 Oliver Stone
Nicholas and Alexandra 1971 189 3 9
Gandhi 1982 188 3 8
The Fall of the Roman Empire 1964 188 3 8
The Green Mile 1999 188 3 8
King Kong 2005 187 3 7 Peter Jackson
The Birth of a Nation 1915 187 3 7
Short Cuts 1993 187 3 7
Judgement at Nuremberg 1961 186 3 6
The Deer Hunter 1978 185 3 5
Barry Lyndon 1975 184 3 4 Stanley Kubrick
Spartacus 1960 184 3 4 Stanley Kubrick
Woodstock 1970 184 3 4
Around the World in 80 Days 1956 183 3 3
O Lucky Man! 1973 183 3 3
Pearl Harbor 2001 183 3 3 Michael Bay
El Cid 1961 182 3 2
Fiddler on the Roof 1971 181 3 1
Dances with Wolves 1990 180 3 0
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers 2002 179 2 59 Peter Jackson
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring 2001 178 2 58 Peter Jackson
Above are the top 50 according to AMC run times as of 2007.
http://www.amc.com/talk/2007/11/the-longest-ame-1
http://www.listchallenges.com/50-longest-american-movies-of-all-time
Below are more misc. movies, according to IMDB run times as of 2017.
Wolf of Wall Street 2013 180 3 0 Martin Scorsese
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly 1966 178 2 58 Sergio Leone
Casino 1995 178 2 58 Martin Scorsese
Godfather 1972 175 2 55 Francis Ford Coppola
Scarface 1983 170 2 50 Martin Scorsese
The Aviator 2004 170 2 50 Martin Scorsese
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 2012 169 2 49 Peter Jackson
Gangs of New York 2002 167 2 47 Martin Scorsese
Transformers: Age of Extinction 2014 165 2 45 Michael Bay
Once Upon a Time in the West 1968 164 2 44 Sergio Leone
The Last Temptation of Christ 1988 164 2 44 Martin Scorsese
Avatar 2009 162 2 42 James Cameron
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug 2013 161 2 41 Peter Jackson
Eyes Wide Shut 1999 159 2 39 Stanley Kubrick
Transformers: Dark of the Moon 2011 157 2 37 Michael Bay
Aliens 1986 154 2 34 James Cameron
The Departed 2006 151 2 31 Martin Scorsese
Armageddon 1998 151 2 31 Michael Bay
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen 2009 150 2 30 Michael Bay
Transformers: The Last Knight 2017 149 2 29 Michael Bay
2001: A Space Odyssey 1968 149 2 29 Stanley Kubrick
Apocalypse Now 1979 147 2 27 Francis Ford Coppola
Bad Boys II 2003 147 2 27 Michael Bay
Goodfellas 1990 146 2 26 Martin Scorsese
The Shining 1980 146 2 26 Stanley Kubrick
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies 2014 144 2 24 Peter Jackson
Transformers 2007 143 2 23 Michael Bay
True Lies 1994 141 2 21 James Cameron
Terminator 2: Judgment Day 1991 137 2 17 James Cameron
The Rock 1996 136 2 16 Michael Bay

 

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