Maybe it's middle age, but tolerance for epic feature films has taken a noticeable plunge since my bladder took over. Alas, intermissions, which a were a common recess in the past, are no longer common in these modern times, which is baffling, since today's films are usually around two hours minimum as standard and a welcome break is probably more necessary now than it ever was.
The real problem is the unnecessary scene filler to pad out a film when it really doesn't need to be. Dune, Terrifier 2, and Top Gun: Maverick were relatively recent films I thoroughly enjoyed, but even they felt too long to me.
Of course, there are exceptions where a film's epic length isn't a soul-crushing experience. Thus, here is a list of films, 150 minutes minimum (not including director/extended cuts or special editions) which miraculously managed to maintain the interest of your host:
All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, 1930)
Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957)
The Longest Day (Ken Annakin, 1957)
The Guns of Navarone (J. Lee Thompson, 1961)
The Great Escape (John Sturges, 1963)
Kwaidan (Masaki Kobayashi, 1965)
The Dirty Dozen (Robert Aldrich, 1967)
Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968)
Where Eagles Dare (Brian G. Hutton, 1968)
The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
The Towering Inferno (John Guillermin, 1975)
Kagemusha (Akira Kurosawa, 1980)
Fitzcarraldo (Werner Herzog, 1982)
Scarface (Brian De Palma, 1983)
Amadeus (Milos Forman, 1985)
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
Casino (Martin Scorsese, 1996)
Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997)
Armageddon (Michael Bay, 1998)
Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1998)
The Green Mile (Frank Darabont, 2000)
Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004)
The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006)
Grindhouse (Quentin Tarantino & Robert Rodriguez, 2007)
Love Exposure (Sion Sono, 2008)
Watchmen (Zac Snyder, 2009)
Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (Daniel Farrands & Andrew Kasch, 2010)
Hard to be a God (Aleksei German, 2013)
The Raid 2 (Gareth Evans, 2014)
The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2014)
The House that Jack Built (Lars Von Trier, 2018)
The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)
The Last Duel (Ridley Scott, 2021)
Elvis (Baz Luhrmann, 2022)
R.R.R. (S.S. Rajamouli, 2022)
Honourable mentions omitted for being a couple of minutes shy:
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966); Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979); Das Boot (Wolfgang Peterson, 1981); and All Quiet on the Western Front (Edward Berger, 2022).
Dada Debaser Bonus:
Less a film and more of a form of masochism, imagine the poor sap opting to waste over a month of their life watching the art-house film Logistics. Clocking in at a whopping 51,420 minutes (35 days and 17 hours), it chronicles the reverse journey of a pedometer from retail to manufacture. Chances are it would be more stimulating than anything on QVC, though.
5 comments:
A lot of these I agree with. Seeing Casino, Boogie Nights and The Raid 2 at the flicks and getting totally swept away with them are three of my favourite cinema experiences ever.
But Armageggon did my head in at the cinema. It was going on and on and on and pissed me off so much that I got up and told my mates I'd meet them in the pub across the street. First movie I ever walked out on and I haven't watched a Ben Affleck movie since.
😄 I first watched Armageddon while flying to Sydney. There was so much turbulence over the South China Sea, I honestly thought we were all going to die at one point. The only thing that kept me from freaking out was focusing on the Armageddon's complete absurdness, and it worked.
😂 Holy shit. Context really is everything.
Doubt any of Michael Bay’s awful Transformers movies would have had the same effect.
Added Bazza’s Elvis (2022) to my list. Thought it was under 150 mins.
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