The average film length has increased by eight minutes

The average film runtime has increased from 106 to 114 minutes, according to an analysis of 36,431 films released between 1980 and 2025.

As the Associated Press reports, this comes as no surprise to regular cinemagoers. A film’s runtime has become one of the main talking points ahead of its release: How long is it?

Although longer runtimes might seem likely to deter audiences, there is little evidence to suggest they do, according to AP. For example, the 173-minute film The Odyssey is the second-highest-grossing film of the year, with $1.8 billion in box office revenue, and one of the Oscar favourites.

The director of the Venice Film Festival shares this view, noting that films lasting more than two hours have become the “new international standard”.

Two other Oscar favourites, La Bola Negra (159 minutes) and You Can See Everything (174 minutes), also run for more than two hours.

This trend has affected the wider film industry. Ahead of last year’s Venice Film Festival, festival director Alberto Barbera noted that films running for two hours and 15 minutes or two hours and 30 minutes had become “the new international standard”.

According to Barbera, longer runtimes can make screening schedules more difficult to manage and may even work against an otherwise good film. He noted that the festival’s selection committee often sees films that would benefit from being 10 to 20 minutes shorter.

Source: Associated Press