Inflation at the Movies: Runtimes Are Longer, From ‘The Odyssey’ to ‘You Can See Everything’
An analysis of 36,431 films found the average wide-release runtime rose to 114 minutes as streaming pushes studios toward event movies.
- Researcher Stephen Follows analyzed 36,431 movies released from 1980 to 2025 and found that average wide-release film length grew from 106 to 114 minutes, confirming runtime inflation is real.
- The advent of streaming pushed theaters to seek longer runtimes and create what director Joe Russo calls "eventized" cinema, designed to draw audiences from their homes.
- Three top Oscar contenders this year—The Odyssey, La Bola Negra , and You Can See Everything —all easily run more than 2 1/2 hours, with The Odyssey earning $1.8 billion.
- Venice Film Festival boss Alberto Barbera noted that the 2 hours and 15 minutes to 2 hours and 30 minutes range has become the "new international standard," creating programming annoyances for selection committees.
- Polish filmmaker PaweB Pawlikowski creates shorter works like the 82-minute Fatherland, while Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi rejects conventional plotting to focus on human-scaled stories that move with life's rhythm.
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The Seattle TimesInflation at the movies: Runtimes are longer, from ‘The Odyssey’ to ‘You Can See Everything’
NEW YORK (AP) — Your bladder isn’t lying. Movies are getting longer. All kinds of films, from big-budget spectacles to art house dramas, are stretching their runtimes. It’s an old saying that a short movie can feel long and a long movie can feel short. But data, not just bathroom runs, shows that runtime inflation...
Inflation at the movies: Runtimes are longer, from ‘The Odyssey’ to ‘You Can See Everything’ – WTOP News
NEW YORK (AP) — Your bladder isn’t lying. Movies are getting longer. All kinds of films, from big-budget spectacles to art house dramas, are stretching their runtimes. It’s an old saying that a short movie can feel long and a long movie can feel short. But data, not just bathroom runs, shows that runtime inflation...
Inflation at the movies: Runtimes are longer, from 'The Odyssey&#
NEW YORK (AP) — Your bladder isn’t lying. Movies are getting longer. All kinds of films, from big-budget spectacles to art house dramas, are stretching their runtimes. It’s an old saying that a short movie can feel
Inflation at the movies: Runtimes are longer, from 'The Odyssey' to 'You Can See Everything'
Your bladder isn’t lying. Movies are getting longer. Films from big-budget spectacles to art house dramas are stretching their runtimes. It’s an old saying that a short movie can feel long and a long movie can feel short. But data, not just bathroom runs, show us that inflation is real at the movies. A study shows that the average length of a wide-release movie has grown from 106 to 114 minutes over the last 45 years. For most who regularly go t…
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