Spoiler Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Batman (2022).
The newly released The Batman has been universally praised to no end, but its excessive runtime has been called into question on more than a few occasions. The superhero movie clocks in at just short of three hours, but it isn’t the only blockbuster movie to reach that mark.
While most movies that hit three hours could almost certainly be trimmed down by a more cutthroat editor, other movies earn every single minute of their runtimes. Between a quiet sci-fi flick, the biggest disaster movie of all time, and even the new superhero film, Reddit thinks these movies’ long runtimes were handled well, despite being slow-paced or emotionally exhausting.
The Batman (2022)
The Batman is the longest movie about the caped crusader to date, even longer than The Dark Knight Rises, which told a huge, sprawling story and had the task of wrapping up an entire trilogy. But the 2022 movie makes great use of its runtime, and though Tylex123 admits that he felt the length towards the very end, they explain that the new movie “had me in suspense pretty much the entire time.”
The movie uses its three hours to pull audiences into the world of Gotham, as its rainy, gothic style is such an alluring aesthetic. It feels so lived in even despite being the first movie of a new series, and not a single minute of the film is wasted, as it’s all building and working towards the epic finale.
The Wolf Of Wall Street (2013)
The Wolf of Wall Street is exactly 180 minutes long, but the movie is over before audiences even know it. There’s such frenetic energy to it that the film just doesn’t slow down. UncleCarnage puts it best by explaining that the movie “just starts and then ends. It’s such a wild rollercoaster, you don’t even notice how long it is.”
The audience gets so involved in the lifestyle that the characters lead that they live vicariously through Jordan Belfort, that’s until they realize the consequences of Belfort’s actions. The movie blurs the line between satirizing these people’s lives and glamorizing them, but that’s what makes the runtime fly by. Even at three hours, Wolf was massively trimmed down, as the original cut of the movie reached the four-hour mark, making it one of the many director’s cuts fans want to see.
Titanic (1997)
Movies with long runtimes don’t usually tend to be huge moneymakers, and certainly not record breakers. The longer the movie is, the fewer times it can be shown per day in movie theatres, which significantly trims down the box office intake. However, that didn’t stop the epic three-hour and 14-minute Titanic from becoming the highest-grossing movie of all time, a record it held on to for 12 years.
Winningelephant champions the movie and its length, explaining that the film “justifies almost every single second of its runtime.” Between cutting back and forth in time, being a compelling period drama, and then turning into the most thrilling disaster movie ever, every minute of the 1997 movie is earned.
No Time To Die (2021)
Ironically, considering “no time” is literally in the title of the movie, No Time To Die takes its sweet time in telling the final chapter of Daniel Craig’s James Bond. However, the previous four 007 movies all set up No Time To Die in many different ways, so there was a lot of ground to cover.
Hexlandus thinks that director Cary Joji Fukunaga paced the two-hour, 45-minute movie perfectly, and he was “riveted the whole time – didn’t even notice the time pass.” For every slow and emotional scene, there’s a high-octane action sequence that follows right after, and it was the best finale to this version of Bond that any fan could have hoped for.
Magnolia (1999)
According to director Paul Thomas Anderson, Magnolia was intended to be a small, intimate movie. But during the writing process, the film grew and grew until it became what it is today, an epic, three-hour, eight-minute melodrama with an ensemble cast and fascinating characters whose paths cross in weird ways.
Karma_the_sequel posits that “what’s amazing is that this movie is three solid hours of sheer misery, yet it’s utterly captivating. I refer to it as the best worst three hours you’ll ever spend.” The movie is completely emotionally exhausting, but it’s also beautiful with both its narrative and its cinematography. However, that four-minute scene where the characters spontaneously break into song could easily have been left out.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021)
Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a movie of epic proportions, being a monolithic release that sits at over four hours. It’s the longest superhero movie ever, but it’s also broken into bite-size 40-minute chapters for those who would rather watch it in a more episodic nature.
But Specialist-Study doesn’t think that’s necessary, claiming that the film is perfectly digestible as it is. The Redditor explains that they “didn’t feel Zack Snyder’s Justice League lasts 4 hours. I enjoyed it so much that it felt much shorter, at least in my experience.” It just goes to show that a movie doesn’t need to be full of goofy one-liners (like the 2017 theatrical version of the movie was) for it to be massively entertaining.
Zodiac (2007)
Pradatoricus cites Zodiac as the movie that best handled its extra-long runtime. The movie is about the hunt for the real-life serial killer who went by the name of the Zodiac killer and was never caught. The Redditor mentions that “there’s never a point in that movie where I’m like omg is it over yet? Like when the credits roll and hurdy-gurdy man plays I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s been three hours already.'”
The movie doesn’t quite come close to three hours, as it clocks in at two hours and 37 minutes, it but still flies by, especially for an exhausting thriller movie. The true-crime flick is so gripping that the time goes by faster than a 90-minute comedy.
The Godfather (1972)
Intrepid_Credit_9885 refers to the 1972 gangster classic as having the best handling of its almost three-hour runtime. The Reddit user claims that “the pacing is excellent and the editing never makes you feel like the scenes are too long, and it helps that really good actors carried scenes together.”
The Godfather is considered by many to be the greatest movie of all time, and though it’s slow-paced, it’s almost impossible for anybody to get bored by it. Even when the Corleone family is simply sitting around, the mise-en-scene of the movie is stunning and will keep viewers’ eyes glued to the screen the whole time.
Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
Blade Runner 2049 was one of the most anticipated sequels of all time, as it arrived 35 years after its predecessor, but when it finally did arrive, there was a lot of it. The movie is 163 minutes long, and S_rene_JG loves that they can essentially live in the world.
The Redditor explains that the 2017 release is “a very slow movie, but it’s also just very entertaining. The way it looks, the characters, the world, the plot.” However, there are a few pointless moments where characters are aimlessly looking at burning embers or nature, which sometimes feels like minutes at a time. But that’s all part of building the unique aesthetic that director Denis Villeneuve set out to create.
The Hateful Eight (2015)
For a movie that essentially takes place in one room for most of its runtime, two hours and 50 minutes is exhaustingly long. When The Hateful Eight had a limited “Roadshow” release, as there were limited screenings across the US before its major theatrical release, it even had a 19-minute intermission.
But SPQR_Maximus didn’t mind the movie’s length and certainly didn’t think an intermission was necessary, as they were entertained by the “snappy dialog the whole time. It worked.” Even despite being so long, The Hateful Eight was significantly cut down, but the cut scenes were added back in when it was re-edited into a four-episode Netflix miniseries.
