Polls say Americans’ ideal movie length is 92 minutes, but Hollywood is no longer in that business. In the 1980s, 13 percent of wide theatrical releases ran under 90 minutes; in the 2020s, it’s seven percent and most of those are animated kids’ films. Meanwhile, the share of wide releases running over two hours has more than doubled, from 14 to 32 percent, and the average action film has swelled by a full 25 minutes since the Reagan era, with “Oppenheimer,” “The Brutalist” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” all pushing past the three-hour mark in a single recent stretch. Budget is the strongest predictor: films made for under $10 million have barely changed in length over four decades, while productions over $100 million now average 130 minutes, because a studio spending that kind of money wants every set piece on the screen. And here is the quiet structural subsidy that nobody has corrected: in most cinemas worldwide, a three-hour film occupies 50 percent more screen time than a two-hour one, but the ticket costs the same.
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