Oh, the long-windedness of Best Pictures!
Sunday, February 2, 2025 at 10:11AM by Nathaniel R
If THE BRUTALIST wins it will become the third longest Best Picture winner of all time.
Each Oscar chart is now up though details are not yet ironed out on some of them. We've talked about Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor as the charts went up, so now let's talk Best Picture. On the chart you can vote on your favourite daily and you can see the films ranked by all sorts of silly criteria (you're welcome to suggest other criteria) such as MPAA ratings, death count, horniness, release dates, the Bechdel Test, reviews, box office, my personal preference, and of course their running times.
Oh the longwindedness of our current times! The average length of the Best Picture nominees this year is an astonishing 149 (2 hours and 29 minutes) which is not quite a record but close to it...
Yes, yes, Oscar voters like long movies and always have; there’s usually at least one movie nominated that has 3 hours in its sights. But 2024 was different in that there was little variation in Best Picture longwindedness; not a single nominee this year is under two hours! From our guesstimates, that's only the 10th time that's happened in Oscar history [1946, 1956, 1961, 1962, 1975, 1990, 2001, 2008, 2018, 2024].
What's more the four films that were arguably closest to the Best Picture list this year (based on punditry / precursors / critical enthusiam) that DIDN'T land the nomination (A Real Pain, September 5, Sing Sing, and maybe All That We Imagine As Light) are all under two hours. Oscar voters really said, "If it isn't long, WE DON'T WANT IT!" en masse.
Just to be sure of how unusual this length is, we looked back at some years we knew to be butt-numbing to compare it and here's what we found...
THE DOZEN LENGTHIEST (ON AVERAGE) BEST PICTURE LINEUPS
*this list is not definitive. We did not have time to research all 96 years but a guesstimate based on lineups we knew to be butt-numbing. If you know of a year that beats these ten, do correct us in the comments*
In the 1950s and 1960s movies got bigger and bigger to compete with rising television. Hence nominees like THE TEN COMMANDMENTS which is approaching four hours in length
- [TIE] 1962, 1956 - 171 minutes
1962: Lawrence of Arabia, The Longest Day, The Music Man, Mutiny on the Bounty, To Kill a Mockingbird.
1956: Around the World in 80 Days, Friendly Persuasion, Giant, The King and I, The Ten Commandments.
These two years are definitely the longest --none of the nominees are under two hours -- but the exact running times are confusing given all the intermissions and overtures and what not so this average (171) is questionable as exact numbers vary depending on the source. - 1959 - 164 minutes
Ben-Hur, Anatomy of a Murder, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Nun's Story, Room at the Top. - 1963 - 160 minutes
Tom Jones, America America, Cleopatra, How the West Was Won, Lilies of the Field. All very long except the blessedly concise Lilies... which clocks in at a heavenly 94 minutes and is entertaining for each and every one of them. - 1961 - 153 minutes
West Side Story, Fanny, Guns of Navarone, The Hustler, Judgment at Nuremberg. None of the nominees were under two hours. - 1965 - 152 minutes
The Sound of Music, Darling, Doctor Zhivago, Ship of Fools, A Thousand Clowns. The Singing Von Trapps and the Russian doctor are pulling up this average.
THE SUBSTANCE © MUBI - 2024 - 149 minutes
None of this year's nominees are under two hours. - 1990 - 147 minutes
Dances With Wolves, Awakenings, Ghost, The Godfather Part III, Goodfellas. None of the nominees are under two hours. - [TIE] 2003 / 1975 - 146 minutes
2003: LOTR: Return of the King, Lost in Translation, Master and Commander, Mystic River, Seabiscuit
1975: One Flew Over..., Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, Nashville. None of the nominees are under two hours. - 1971 - 145 minutes
The French Connection, A Clockwork Orange, Fiddler on the Roof, The Last Picture Show, Nicholas and Alexandra - [TIE] 1974 / 2002 / 2022 - 144 minutes
1974: The Godfather Part II, Chinatown, The Conversation, Lenny, The Towering Inferno.
2002: Chicago, Gangs of New York, The Hours, LOTR: The Two Towers, The Pianist.
2022: Everything All At Once, AQOTWF, Avatar 2, Banshees..., Elvis, Fabelmans, Tár, Top Gun Maverick, Triangle of Sadness, Women Talking
(We tested around 40 years we knew were lengthy)
For a little context in how running times are growing in the 21st century consider that the AVERAGE length of 2024's nominated slate is almost fifteen minutes longer than the average length of Best Picture Winners throughout the first 96 years of the Academy Awards. I’m Still Here is the only movie nominated which is exactly the average length of winners (136 minutes)... with Anora slightly over and Emilia Perez slightly under respectively. Here's the weird part -- were it not for Conclave (which is 2 hours exactly), they'd be the shortest movies nominated this year! In brief, it's not just our imagination; movies really are getting longer across the board. We're back in the 1960s somehow!
Enough trivia, go vote on the chart. Hope you enjoy the trivia.
Reader Comments (11)
Not sure when you wrote this, but I think the Gascon tweet scandal has really tanked the film's chances in most categories. No one is going to want to deal with acceptance speeches or recognition for a film or actress that toxic. Starting to wonder if Saldana might be on the ropes (although her competition is generally weak.. all of the others don't quite have the oomph to surpass her, unlike the Best Supporting Actor actegory).
As of now I think this is Brutalist's to lose, maybe an outside shot for Conclave as a safe consensus. People aren't taking Wicked seriously and Anora keeps getting nominated but not winning. I shudder to think if A Complete Unknown were to come out on top by default.
After seeing your list of which BP nominees will be a Broadway musical next, I am now absolutely obsessed with writing "Conclave!" for the stage. Bless you.
Still haven't seen it and I'm not the busiest person. Also, it has this THIS IS CINEMA energy that really does not sit well with me.
“People”…
Not that I don't trust you, but I had to go doublecheck the runtime of The Substance myself. I did not realize that film was over 2 hours long. Another bizarre feat of our surprise body horror nominee. 2:20 is a LONG run time for modern horror, especially body horror. It certainly didn't feel that long, either. I saw 90 minute horror films last year that felt twice as long...
I agree with Paranoid Android that Emilia Perez’s chances in pretty much every category save for supporting actress are sunk, and if Zoe does start to slip at all, I think Monica Barbaro stands to benefit most from her defectors.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why movies are becoming increasingly longer at a time in history when attention spans are shorter than ever. I'm not saying that should be a reason to make them shorter, but most movies I see nowadays feel unjustifiably long. Anora, for instance, needed to be cut down a LOT.
Meanwhile, The Substance was so fun, engaging, and original the entire time that I had no clue it was that long (and didn't mind at all).
Philip H and RObert G -- i wish I had had that reaction to THE SUBSTANCE. I recognize its genius and it's fairly high up in my rankings of the 100+ movies seen this year given my qualms about it, BUT I really really felt the length. Every scene is twice as long as it needs to be to make it's point since the points are so sledgehammer (not a diss -- points for that. big swing. big impact) and twice as long as they need to be for atmosphere and visual storytelling since the film's crafts are so strong across the board. So though I loved most things about it, I found the pacing to be languid and the storytelling to be repetitive.
It definitely feels like we're at a moment where producers are adding more to their films to make it feel like more of an experience. I just don't understand the trend.
At the same time, I think there were a few films this year that were long, but they worked well:
Dune (epic, a lot of characters and story)
The Nickel Boys (so much story and getting you into this world)
Anora (the lengthy acts help to create vibes that make the emotions land)
I'm Still Here (like Anora, he vibes for the first 30-40 minutes are essential to the emotional journey)
A Complete Unknown (recreates a world you want to drink in)
Wicked (gives us fun cameos and extra dancing)
Of those, I'd say Wicked is the one that feels like it's the studio justifying the ticket price to families. But, that's fine. I think Anora is a film that could have been 90 minutes, especially earlier in Baker's career when he worked on a much smaller scale. But, it actually works so well because of its length. It allows him to create moods for long periods of time, making the abrupt mood shifts all the more striking.
I'm more bothered by some of the films that were long and where I felt like that dulled their impact. The Brutalist is bold and has ideas, but I'm not sure it makes a good argument for going with the director's cut. By keeping so much in, the film shows you everything, making it overly blunt and far too novelistic. It started to feel like an HBO miniseries.
Nathaniel -- totally agree with you on The Substance. On a rewatch, the scene (SPOILERS SPOILERS) near the end where Sue kills Elisabeth and then tries to revive her went on FOREVER. It was well done from a craft perspective, but there were so many long takes, pauses, reaction shots, repetitions of action, etc. -- it could've been 4 minutes instead of 15. There were a handful of sequences like that in the film that kept it at B+ instead of A- for me.
Nathaniel, I totally get that critique too. Coralie Fargeat likes to indulge in moments. There's a linger to her work, very French New Wave, which is especially off putting since she makes extreme horror films. I buy it, but I get the pacing being a rough go.