This year’s roster of Cannes Film Festival has revealed (or rather, cemented) a budding phenomenon – one that is as particular as it is heterogeneous: an increasing amount of films whose runtime passes the ‘usual’ 1½ – 2-hour mark, often surpassing 3 hours in length, is being released.

Critics noticed this fact even before the festival on the Croisette started – and not just critics: for example, Vanity Fair published an extensive reportage on the phenomenon of this year’s long films, eyeing the big American box-office hits rather than the little slow cinema gems that were on display on the festival circuit.

A brief inventory – from the early years of cinema to the present

All in all, it’s an interesting moment within the current age of cinema, given that the use of duration seems to transcend not just aesthetics, but also the dictates of genre. It ranges from action flicks (John Wick 4, 2h50′) to biopics (Oppenheimer, 3h, or Elvis, 2h40′) and dramas (Babylon, 3h9′, Tar, 2h 38′) and various other types of blockbusters (Avatar: The Way of the Water, 3h10′), to arthouse fare like Cerrar los Ojos (2h49′), About Dry Grasses (3h17’), Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (3h2′) or Eureka (2h26′, which sees next weekend at BIEFF) – and passes, of course, through films that elude simple distinctions, like Martin Scorsese’s latest, Killers of the Flower Moon (3h26′). Not coincidentally, many of the latter films (also) contain a certain amount of meta-cinematographic discourse: Cerrar los Ojos is a parable in which both the biography and filmography of director Victor Erice naturally intertwine with the film’s cinematography and main narrative; Eureka is akin a journey through various cinematic genres, which Argentine Lisandro Alonso subversively bends towards to his signature slow cinema aesthetics; and Killers of the Flower Moon is both inter-textual (see its usage of the archival imagery) and self-referential (after all, the main narrative crowns Scorsese’s efforts to probe deeply into the psychology of American malaise).

Duration is a factor that even transcends national origins or the politics of its auteurs. Take, for example, the year’s two titanic (in both senses of the word) Romanian titles, Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World and Cristi Puiu’s MMXX – lying at opposite ends of the political spectrum. (Of course, the latter is known for his preference towards shooting films that pass the three-hour mark, save for his debut feature; whereas, in this respect, Jude’s features have a much wider range.)

In such a landscape, Aki Kaurismäki’s slender Fallen Leaves, clocking in at a mere 81 minutes, almost looks like an anomaly – and that is not to mention the prolific Hong Sang-soo, who doesn’t break the 97-minute mark in any of the six (!) features that he’s released in the last two years. On the other hand, films like the ones crafted by Lav Diaz, often surpassing 4 hours in length (just see his absolute domination of this top), or Wang Bing (present at this year’s edition of Cannes with his 3½-hour documentary Youth) are still outliers, as exceptions within the festival distribution system that come across as curiosities that are often treated by many as cinephile endurance tests of sorts (see also Bela Tarr’s Satantango, Jacques Rivette’s Out 1 or Jean Eustache’s La Maman et la Putain) rather than works in their own right.

Of course, the answer that a filmmaker might give is rather straightforward – a film lasts precisely as long as it needs to last, per its dramaturgical and stylistic needs, for better or worse – but there’s no denying the effects that the historical moment (particularly in terms of technical innovation) plays when it comes to these kinds of fluctuations. Since, after all, the phenomenon of long features is by no means new.

Let’s look no further than the canon of silent cinema, at all the masterpieces born from the extension of the length of a film roll, and of the possibility of projecting several reels in fast succession: to name a few, Fritz Lang’s Doctor Mabuse, der Spieler (1922, 4h20′), Abel Gance’s La Roue (1923, 6h57′) and Napoleon (1927, 5h30′), Erich von Stroheim’s Greed (1940, whose original length is approximated to have lasted around 9 hours, and that survives in a 140-minute cut and a partially reconstructed 240-minute-long version), or Louis Feuillade’s Les Vampires (1915, 7h), which considered by many to be the forerunner of modern TV series.

However, there is no denying that both festival fare and blockbusters have long been in a process of “expansion” – and that the digitization of cinema, its fracture with materiality, has brought on a major paradigmatic shift (recall the opening scene of Corneliu Porumboiu’s Metabolism). In addition to the films of the aforementioned Lav Diaz, some of the longest films released in recent years have been (in descending order) Argentine Mariano Llinas’s mammoth-sized love letter to Cinema, La Flor (2018), with its 13½ hour-run, The Works and Days of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin (2020), an 8-hour-long pastoral documentary, Martin Scorsese’s 3½-hour The Irishman (2019), Cristi Puiu’s Malmkrog (2020, at almost 3½ hours), Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car (2021), whose 3 hours pale in comparison to the 5¼ hours of Happy Hour (2015), or Albert Serra’s Pacifiction (2022, 2 ¾ hours).

If we were to add a couple of Hollywood direct-to-cinema movies in the mix – Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021, 4h), Dune (2021, 2 ½ hrs), or Tenet (2020, 2 ½ hrs) – then it becomes quite clear that we’re dealing with more than just a mere coincidence. (Also, consider the fact that this list is not exhaustive.) Despite all the gloomy predictions that were made by certain critics and industry players during the pandemic, who predicted (or rather, predicated) the twilight of traditional theatrical exploitation, things seem to be going so well that all these apocalyptic prophesies have been fully disproven – just look at the countless box office records that have been broken in the past year. And within this particular context, the phenomenon of increasing duration looks even more interesting than it already was.

Some articles, such as this reportage published in the Smithsonian Magazine, attribute the phenomenon to the impact of modern spectatorship habits, focused on the distribution model of streaming platforms (that is, binge-watching), which would have built up the “endurance” of prospective spectators for such “viewing marathons”. However, I find that this is a relatively simplistic explanation (since I’m the type of spectator who loves to see longer films, but I barely watch any series at all). For sure, people’s growing need to attend cultural events in public spaces after the end of pandemic-era lockdowns and restrictions has also been a contributing factor – but I do think that the reason lies elsewhere.

The anti-digital movement and contemporary cinema

One possible explanation for this phenomenon lies in the sheer growth of the anti-digital phenomenon in contemporary culture. And it’s not just the neo-luddites – even though their anti-technological ideology is gaining momentum, especially amongst Gen-Zers. Rather, it’s what I find to be a general state of exhaustion towards small screens, one that has been increasingly palpable in the last year and a half.

At the same time, the fact that social platforms are inundated with extremely short snippets of audiovisual media – their durations are constrained by the limitations of the medium, thus inviting one to rapidly consume videos, clips, and so-called “stories” or “reels” in quick succession (as well as repeated viewings) – leads to an acute sense of fragmentation amongst spectators.

Therefore, the cinema, as a space where a spectator is forced (also by the medium) to channel their gaze, energy, and, above all, attention onto a single visual artifact for a period of time that is considerably extended, becomes more than just a space for escapism. It becomes one space of stillness, of concentration and reflection, of a single, unbroken thread – and extended durations only reaffirm it as such.

The iterations of this phenomenon within cinema are not only limited to duration but also to the massive resurgent interest in shooting on film stock in recent years. Whether we’re talking about first-timers (like Eugen Jebeleanu’s splendidly-shot Poppy Field, on intensely saturated and grainy 16mm), filmmakers who have mainly worked in digital formats throughout their careers (such as Radu Jude, who also made a large part of Do Not Expect… on 16mm) or veterans who are returning to their analog origins (for example, Denis Villeneuve).

At the same time, as the topics surrounding post-humanism become increasingly prominent, one can notice another type of (counter-)reaction in the field of independent and experimental cinema: an approach that eludes anthropocentrism and is marked by an increasing closeness to nature. Representations of flora and fauna in modern short-form cinema are becoming more and more common, as the urban milieu gives way to (or intertwines with) the natural, or, as in Bas Devos’ Here (Berlinale 2023), the small oases of nature that are set within an urban environment take precedence over streets, interiors or building complexes. An intersection of these two concerns – analog cinema and nature – can be found, for example, in Jacquelyn Mills’ splendid Geographies of Solitude, presented at this year’s edition of One World Romania, where the filmmaker makes consistent use of analog footage that was developed using artisanal emulsions, crafted from the very soil and raw materials found on the island on which the documentary was shot.

Ultimately – perhaps extended durations are also the natural response of cinema in the aftermath of massive, widespread social crises – whether we think about films that were released in the wake of World War II, such as The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler, 1942 – 2h52′) or the ones born within in the climate of political disillusionment that followed the break-up of the political movements of 1968 (like the aforementioned Out 1 and La Mamain et le Putain), amongst countless other examples. Because, after all, perhaps these are the circumstances in which we are most inclined towards patience, towards “using” these moments of calm to listen, to analyze, and, above all, to gaze upon the world – a gaze that is longing, lingering, and persistent.\

When it comes to this particular strand of cinema, things aren’t necessarily related to nostalgia culture and aesthetics (as is the case with Barbie, which I analyzed in these terms shortly after its release). Rather, it’s a unique trend, that I believe is entirely adapted to the conditions of the contemporary world, whether or not one is to consider it as being reactionary (since I don’t believe that this label can and may be applied to everyone who approaches filmmaking in this way: some explorations are born out of sincere, honest curiosity). To this end, I must point out a recent, and excellent manifesto that was published in the third issue of the MUBI Notebook print magazine, in which its authors – signing off as The Anonymous Cinema Collective for Digital Disruption – advocate for a boycott of streaming platforms. Similar in tone to a DIY punk guide, “Make Your Movie Unstreamable!” advocates for a three-pronged approach. The first: is a call for filmmakers to archive their films only on physical media, or on formats that are very difficult to digitize (from film stock and tape to LaserDisc), or to export digital copies that are impossible to render. Second: to use aesthetic effects that would result in various digital playback errors or to have an obligatory clause for an accompanying live performance. Last but not least, the manifesto advocates for several “extreme methods” – to visually distort digital copies or even to encrypt viruses within the digital files, amongst others –, methods that round out a picture of the digital rebel: after all, one needs to know the rules of the system to know how to break them.

Main image: a scene from “Eureka”, by Lisandro Alonso.

Flavia Dima

Film critic & journalist. Collaborates with local and international outlets, programs a short film festival - BIEFF, does occasional moderating gigs and is working on a PhD thesis about home movies. At Films in Frame, she writes the monthly editorial - The State of Cinema and is the magazine's main festival reporter.