What's the average length of a Best Picture?

by Nathaniel R

This is Lawrence of Arabia... not Dune

It's 136 days until the Oscars and 136 is a golden number. It's the average length, in minutes, of a Best Picture Oscar winner. When we first calculated this number over a decade ago 138 was the average but in the past 10 years or so, running times of actual winners have been shaved a bit. Here are the running times of all winnners from longest to shortest. You'll see that the majority of winners are over 2 hours long which has caused no end of padding in "serious" movies but alas, not enough padding for tender buttocks watching interminable movies.

Here are the running times of all winnners from longest to shortest as well as this year's contenders from longest to shortest...

               nearly 4 hours

1. Gone With the Wind (1939) 238 minutes
2. Lawrence of Arabia (1962) 216 minutes
3. Ben-Hur (1959) 212 minutes
   
          under 3½ hours
   
   TITANIC
   
   
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) 201 minutes
5. The Godfather Part 2 (1974) 200 minutes
6. Schindler's List (1993) 195 minutes
7. Titanic (1997) 194 minutes
8. Gandhi (1982) 191 minutes
9. The Deer Hunter (1979) 182 minutes
10. Dances With Wolves (1990) 181 minutes
    
         nearly 3 hours 
    
    THE SOUND OF MUSIC
    
    
11. Braveheart (1995) 177 minutes
12. The Great Ziegfeld (1936) 176 miutes
13. The Godfather (1972) 175 minutes
14. Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) 175 minutes
15. The Sound of Music (1965) 174 minutes
16. Patton (1970) 172 minutes
17. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) 172 minutes
18. My Fair Lady (1964) 170 minutes
19. The Last Emperor (1987) 163 minutes
20. The English Patient (1996) 162 minutes
21. Out of Africa (1985) 161 minutes
22. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) 161 minutes
23. Amadeus (1984) 160 minutes
24. Gladiator (2000) 155 minutes
25. Hamlet (1948) 155 minutes
26. Oliver! (1968) 153 minutes
27. West Side Story (1961) 152 minutes
28. The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) 152 minutes
29. The Departed (2006) 151 minutes
    
    
        under 2½ hours
    
    WINGS
    
30. Wings (1927) 144 minutes
31. Forrest Gump (1994) 142 minutes
32. All About Eve (1950) 138 minutes
33. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) 136 minutes
34. A Beautiful Mind (2001) 135 minutes
35. 12 Years a Slave (2013) 134 minutes
36. Mrs. Miniver (1942) 134 minutes
37. Rain Man (1988) 133 minutes
38. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) 133 minutes
39. Terms of Endearment (1983) 132 minutes
40. Million Dollar Baby (2004) 132 minutes
41. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) 132 minutes
42. Parasite (2019) 132 minutes
43. Unforgiven (1992) 131 minutes
44. The Hurt Locker (2008) 131 minutes
45. Rebecca (1940) 130 minutes
46. Green Book (2018) 130 minutes
47. The Sting (1973) 129 minutes
48. Spotlight (2015) 129 minutes
49. Tom Jones (1963) 128 minutes
50. You Can't Take It With You (1938) 126 minutes
51. Going My Way (1944) 126 minutes
52. The Apartment (1960) 125 minutes
53. Chariots of Fire (1981) 124 minutes
54. Ordinary People (1980) 124 minutes
55. Shakespeare in Love (1998) 123 minutes
56. Cimarron (1931) 123 minutes
57. The Shape of Water (2017) 123 minutes
58. No Country For Old Men (2007) 122 minutes
59. American Beauty (1999) 122 minutes
60. Slumdog Millionaire (2008) 120 minutes
61. Platoon (1986) 120 minutes
62. Argo (20120 120 minutes
63. A Man For All Seaons (1966) 120 minutes
    
    
             just under 2 hours
    
    MOONLIGHT
    
64. Rocky (1976) 119 minutes
65. Birdman (2014) 119 minutes
66. From Here To Eternity (1953) 118 minutes
67. The King's Speech (2010) 118 minutes
68. The Silence of the Lambs (1991) 118 minutes
69. How Green Was My Valley (1941) 118 minutes
70. Gentleman's Agreement (1947) 118 minutes
71. The Life of Emile Zola (1937) 116 minutes
72. Gigi (1958) 115 minutes
73. Midnight Cowboy (1969) 113 minutes
74. Chicago (2002) 113 minutes
75. An American in Paris (1951) 113 minutes
76. Crash (2005) 112 minutes
77. Grand Hotel (1932) 112 minutes
78. Cavalcade (1933) 112 minutes
79. Moonlight (2016) 111 minutes
80. All The King's Men (1949) 110 minutes
81. In the Heat of the Night (1967) 109 minutes
82. On the Waterfront (1954) 108 minutes
83. Nomadland (2020) 107 minutes
84. Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) 105 minutes
85. It Happened One Night (1934) 105 minutes
86. The French Connection (1971) 104 minutes
87. Casablanca (1943) 102 minutes
88. The Lost Weekend (1945) 101 minutes
    
    
    1½ hours or slightly more...
    
    MARTY
89. The Artist (2011) 100 minutes
90. The Broadway Melody (1929) 100 minutes
91. Driving Miss Daisy (1989) 99 minutes
    
    Sunrise (1927) 94 minutes *technically this is not a best picture winner but the winner of "Best Unique and Artistic Quality of Production" a category that was only given in Oscar's first year when they were figuring things out and had essentially two different Best Picture categories. But Wings is considered the actual winner in retrospect. They're both great movies!
    
    
92. Annie Hall (1977) 93 minutes
93. Marty (1955) 90 minutes

Annoying that 85-95 minutes, the perfect length for most motion pictures, since movies are dreams, is so underrepresented and that there are NO winners under 90 minutes to even things out a bit given that there are three winners approaching four hours in length.

"But how does this relate to this year, Nathaniel?"

Well thanks for asking, dear reader. Here are the running times of twenty-three films that are hoping to factor into this year's Oscar race from longest to shortest

1. House of Gucci (157 minutes)
2. West Side Story (156 minutes)
3. Dune Part One (155 minutes) NOT ALL THAT LONG IN RELATION TO OSCAR HISTORY THOUGH IT'S ONLY THE FIRST HALF OF A MOVIE SO IT WILL BE LONGER THAN LAWRENCE OF ARABIA or GONE WITH THE WIND
4. The Last Duel (152 minutes)
   under 2½ hours
5. Don't Look Up (145 minutes) AN INSANE LENGTH FOR A COMEDY!
6. In the Heights (143 minutes)
7. Nightmare Alley (139 minutes)
8. King Richard (138 minutes) CLOSEST TO THE AVERAGE FOR A BEST PICTURE WINNER
9. Licorice Pizza (133 minutes)
10. The Green Knight (130 minutes)
11. A Hero (127 minutes)
12. The Power of the Dog (126 minutes)
13. Being the Ricardos (125 minutes)
14. Cyrano (124 minutes)
15. Parallel Mothers (120 minutes)
    under 2 hours
16. tick, tick...Boom! (115 minutes)
17. Spencer (111 minutes)
18. CODA (111 minutes)
19. Mass (110 minutes)
20. C'mon C'mon (108 minutes)
21. Tragedy of Macbeth (105 minutes)
22. Belfast (98 minutes)  IF IT WINS IT WILL BE THE THIRD SHORTEST WINNER EVER
23. Passing (98 minutes)

Comments

[Cash]

I don't care how long a movie is as long as it meets one of two categories:
1. It's long, but it doesn't feel long.
2. It's long, but it's worth it.

Lawrence of Arabia and Gandhi are both long and you know/feel it, but they're worth it. The Great Ziegfeld is similarly long and you feel it to the point where you're 2+ hours in and you wonder if you can stick it out for the last 35 minutes. It doesn't feel worth it.

Dances with Wolves and Cimarron are both western winners. Cimarron is an hour shorter, but it actually feels longer.

[Dan H]

THE ARTIST should have been 15 minutes shorter. THE GODFATHER PART II should have been 15 minutes longer (if you've seen the deleted scenes on the Blu-ray, you know what's missing and you're sad.)

[Dave in Hollywood]

I want to know/ask about Intermissions. Gone With The Wind seems very lengthy except that it was planned to have an intermission and you can almost look at it as a double feature or early "miniseries" type movie.

I know that The Sound of Music has an intermission because I've seen it so many times. I suspect My Fair Lady had one, and maybe West Side Story.

Does anyone know about the rest? To me, a three or four hour movie with a planned intermission is less "punishing" than a three-ish hour movie without one.

[Peter]

12.5. The Lost Daughter (121 minutes)

Amazing to see how few are under 110... if Casablanca, French Connection, and On the Waterfront can pull it off, maybe PTA or GdT could do a little trimming!

[Frank Zappa]

1.1. West Side Story: 156 minutes
11.1. Being the Ricardos: 125 minutes

[Arkaan]

While I don't share Nathaniel's yen against long movies, I do agree that comedies that are over 100 minutes better be masterpieces. It's just hard to sustain comedy (pure comedy, I should state) for that long.

[Lucky]

I have nothing against long movies (when they work they really work and length has something to do with that), but looking at this list and remembering how much people complained about The Irishman a few years back, I just can't see us going for 3 hour long movies for Best Picture for a good while.

[Lucky]

I have nothing against long movies (when they work they really work and length has something to do with that), but looking at this list and remembering how much people complained about The Irishman a few years back, I just can't see us going for 3 hour long movies for Best Picture for a good while.

[brookesboy]

Ben-Hur is the longest best Best Picture.

Dan H.--it's hard to believe that The Godfather Part II could be any better, because I think it's perfection. So I'll have to check this version out. Thanks.

[SFOTroy]

@Dave: Lawrence of Arabia has an intermission- or at least it did when I saw it in the theater. I agree it's a great way to watch these super long epics.

I haven't seen it, but I'd suspect Ben-Hur has one. That era was more likely to have them, right?

[Frank Zappa]

@ Dave in Hollywood

West Side Story definitely had an intermission in its first run, as did My Fair Lady, Ben-Hur and Oliver!