10 Movies That Should Have Been An Hour Shorter

Some movies are just too long, but it’s truly special when a movie feels like it will never end. There are plenty of great three-hour movies that don’t feel like their runtime (Lawrence of Arabia and the first two Godfather films are perhaps the easiest to mention), so it’s not like making a three-hour movie automatically means that it’s going to be too long. Shoah is one of the most powerful documentaries of all time, and that’s about nine and a half hours long (acclaimed critic Roger Ebert watched it all in one viewing).

Likewise, a movie that’s less than three hours (or even less than two hours) can feel way too long. A story doesn’t have to be an epic to overstay its welcome, and viewers can find plenty of examples from every decade. There are many different causes for this, but it’s usually the screenplay, the direction, or both. This can vary from mildly annoying to acting as a strong sedative. After all, a movie can feel like it was about 10 minutes too long, 30 minutes too long, or many more. The following films are more or less an hour too long, depending on the viewer’s sensibility—as they tend to include unnecessary plot points, characters who don’t add to the story, scenes that go on for too long, and narrative choices that overall feel like they make the film longer than it should be.

10 ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ (2012)

Runtime: 164 minutes

Christopher Nolan has directed several memorable movies, but The Dark Knight Rises is one of his more forgettable ones. There are many scenes that don’t need to be here: an unneeded elegy for Harvey Dent, all that stuff about Bruce’s physical deterioration when he’ll just regain his abilities soon after, Gordon telling Bruce (Christian Bale) they need Batman to return, Robin’s character in general, etc. This movie takes so long to get off the ground that it takes about 47 minutes for Batman to actually appear as such.

This movie would be less time-consuming and more compelling if it simply had fewer characters. Juggling plot-lines for John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Catwoman (Anne Hathaway), and Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard) pads the runtime in a way that makes everyone’s arc feel incomplete and the story feel like it’s trying too hard to be the length of an epic. It’s the weakest of The Dark Knight trilogy, and a tighter screenplay could have made it almost an hour shorter.

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9 ‘Funny People’ (2009)

Runtime: 146 minutes

Funny People is definitely one of Adam Sandler‘s better movies, but it would have been so much better if the fat had been trimmed off. The movie starts off strong, with parodies of terrible Sandler cash-grabs and an arc where this super-successful comedian named George can rediscover the value of life. It also paves the way for his new joke-writer (Seth Rogen) to gain confidence in himself and improve his relationship with his roommates.

Unfortunately, the second half of the movie veers the film way off course. Specifically, the affair between George and his ex, Laura, takes the wind out of the narrative’s sails. Ira suddenly has little to do, the other minor characters (who contribute much of the film’s charm) all but disappear, and the story is stuck in Laura’s house for too long. Eminem was probably right; George should have just died. Or maybe his character should have found someone new. Along with specific scenes (like the bit with the doctor’s accent) that go on for too long, this movie would benefit from a significantly more concise avenue of storytelling.

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8 ‘Dune’ (2021)

Runtime: 155 minutes

Director Denis Villeneuve really likes a slow burn, and it’s pretty surprising that a movie from a major studio would adopt such an experimental pace. That said, Dune is so slow that it renders its material much less interesting than it ought to be. This is not a comment on its special effects and the actors’ performances; those aren’t the problems. It’s also understandable why someone attempting to adapt a famously impossible-to-adapt novel might want to split it into two parts.

There was even a documentary made about Alejandro Jodorowsky‘s attempt to adapt it in the early 70s, and David Lynch‘s 1984 Dune obviously failed. In light of them, perhaps the studios figured they would listen to the director this time. Unfortunately, the result is a movie that very much feels like a “part one,” failing to come across as a story in itself or even something that makes you want to watch part two. For a film of this length, it has surprisingly little character development and could have been an hour shorter to achieve its intended effect.

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7 ‘Blade Runner 2049’ (2017)

Runtime: 164 minutes

Easily one of the most atmospheric science fiction films of all time, Blade Runner 2049 is successful in many ways. The set design, the special effects, the performances, its direction—even the story’s premise. The editing is what tests our patience. There is certainly a place for slow cinema, as masterpieces like Jeanne Dielman and 2001: A Space Odyssey have demonstrated. But those movies wield drastically better control over their pace by understanding why slowing things down would make viewers ponder the human condition.

Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 has no such control, stretching every scene to parodic lengths. After a while, it feels like watching paint dry. Though visually incredible, the film’s themes and mood would still have succeeded had the scenes been tighter. After all, very few of them consist of heart-pumping action sequences. Most of the story comprises conversations, so padding them with all this needless lingering undermines what would otherwise be a great sequel. Ridley Scott himself said that he would have made this sequel half an hour shorter, but that’s an underestimate. This box office disappointment could have been close to an hour shorter.

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6 ‘Bird’ (1988)

Runtime: 161 minutes

Clint Eastwood directed a movie about jazz? Yes, and it’s actually impressive in many ways. Forest Whitaker is captivating as revolutionary saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker, Diane Venora is excellent as Parker’s final wife, and the music is used from real recordings of Parker. The passion for music is there, and the epic runtime makes for a very ambitious biographical film. Having said all that, Bird is way too long and loses much of its emotional power because of that.

The non-linear storytelling has this narrative jumping all over the place. We catch glimpses of Parker getting laughed off-stage as an up-and-comer, meeting his last wife, touring in the South (where he has to obey segregation laws), struggling with his heroin addiction, and much more. There are extended moments where the audience just watches Parker play, too, but those are not the issue. Eastwood just tries to cover too much ground here, making for a work that would have been more effective at under two hours.

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5 ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ (2012)

Runtime: 169 minutes

The Hobbit trilogy shouldn’t have been a trilogy, but even its first installment is too long. It starts off with almost 10 minutes of backstory that doesn’t even concern Bilbo yet. It takes 13 minutes for the film’s title to appear, and way too long for Bilbo to decide that he wants to go on this unexpected journey. An overlong dinner party sequence is partly responsible for that, which includes a song that makes the viewer wonder if this movie wants to be a musical.

Other scenes that pad the runtime include an extended (and melodramatic) flashback showing an attack on the Dwarves, a troll sequence that’s largely played for comic effect, and a game of riddles with Gollum that goes on for so long that it loses its tension. Along with the fact that this movie relies too heavily on Green Screen, it feels like this film could have (and should have) been under two hours.

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4 ‘King Kong’ (2005)

Runtime: 187 minutes

Peter Jackson is so well known for his J.R.R. Tolkien adaptations that it’s easy to forget that he made a King Kong movie, too. Since he had just finished his acclaimed Lord of the Rings trilogy and was working with a star-studded cast including Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, Jack Black, and Andy Serkis, this movie had a lot of potential and was highly anticipated. Unfortunately, this would foreshadow the overlong and patience-testing Hobbit films to come.

Even with Jackson at the helm and a giant ape on Skull Island as its premise, a movie that’s over three hours long is still very difficult to do well. There is something to be said for a good lead up before meeting an important character, but it takes about an hour for King Kong to be heard (let alone seen). There’s also too much dinosaur stuff (like that silly stampede), bug stuff, and other scenes that divert attention away from the giant gorilla and make the film much more disappointing than thrilling.

3 ‘Babylon’ (2022)

Runtime: 189 minutes

Margot Robbie has expressed how confused she is that director Damien Chazelle‘s 3-hour epic about Hollywood’s transition from silence to sound was a flop. Movies like Oppenheimer have shown that movies of such length can indeed be hugely successful today, but Bablyon wasn’t on that level. Despite Robbie’s stellar performance as rising star Nellie LaRoy, the movie has some significant pacing issues and really could have benefited from a shorter runtime.

It takes over half an hour for the title to appear, which feels like a warning that this movie is going to sacrifice the reader’s patience for its ambition. Too much of this feels like padding. For instance, the dance between Lady Fay Zhu and Nellie could have been cut, along with a few of the montages and the extended fight with the snake. Overall, there are too many character arcs to balance. As The Atlantic’s David Sims wrote, “the film almost deliberately becomes a drag, wringing out every last golden drop of nostalgia until everyone, on screen and off, is miserable and exhausted.”

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2 ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ (2023)

Runtime: 206 minutes

One of the movies nominated for Best Picture in 2024, Killers of the Flower Moon is legendary director Martin Scorsese‘s most recent work. The film was released to positive reviews and received 10 Oscar nominations, yet feels so painstakingly long to sit through that it’s no wonder it won none of them. This could have been forgiven if the movie didn’t also follow so many of the common Scorsese hallmarks; anyone who has seen Goodfellas, Casino, The Wolf of Wall Street, or The Irishman will feel like this movie is just another version of the same basic narrative.

The first ten minutes or so are the best, as they bluntly address the murders of the Osage people and convey the horror of the scenario. However, by largely focusing on Ernest Burkhart’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) perspective afterward, it becomes rather dull to watch him contribute to the plan to separate Osage people from their property. It’s also practically impossible to care about his redemption arc, as the viewer wonders why they’re watching this guy for so long in the first place.

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1 ‘The Irishman’ (2019)

Runtime: 209 minutes

The Irishman has one of Joe Pesci‘s greatest performances, but top-shelf acting can only do so much when the pacing is non-existent. This is not to say that The Irishman has no brilliant moments. When the camera tracks through a nursing home in the beginning, it seems to embody the inevitability of death. Unfortunately, the power of moments like that is not sustained throughout this three-and-a-half-hour slog. It’s basically the screenplay and editing’s fault.

Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci in a mob movie? Sounds great, and sometimes it is, but the narrative is mostly a repetition of what Scorsese has done in previous films. The tone is generally darker, but the story and style aren’t different enough from Scorsese’s other gangster movies to feel like this one is providing enough new insights to justify anything close to its length. Netflix let him make the movie as long as he wanted, but Scorsese’s next work will hopefully display the age-old wisdom of “less is more.”

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NEXT: ’15 Very Long Movies That Didn’t Earn Their Epic Runtime, Ranked’