‘Movies Are Too Damn Long’ – Lengthy Runtime Criticised By Director Alexander Payne

Alexander Payne is saying what we’re all thinking – movies these days are too damn long!

Speaking at the Middleburg Film Festival, the director criticised overly long runtimes.

“You want your movie to be as short as possible,” Payne said (via IndieWire). “There are too many damn long movies these days.”

Payne didn’t list any movies as examples, but his comment came after the opening weekend of Martin Scorsese’s latest flick, Killers of the Flower Moon. While the movie has received positive responses, the only complaint was that the movie is three and a half hours long.

Funnily enough, Payne is also releasing a long movie. Titled The Holdovers, the comedy-drama is about a disliked private school teacher tasked with supervising students who are unable to return home for Christmas. The movie runs for two hours and 13 minutes, including credits.

“It’s still a little long,” Payne said of his film. “We started screening it, and at the first couple festivals I was looking at the program, and it said 133 minutes. I had to call up the studio and go ‘I don’t think it’s 133 minutes.’ I thought we had gotten it down to around 124. ‘No, it’s 133 after the credits roll.’”

The director did note that there are certain exemptions and that there have been movies that can successfully pull off a long runtime.

“If your movie is three and a half hours, at least let it be the shortest possible version of a three and a half hour movie. Like The Godfather Part II [and] Seven Samurai are super tight, three and a half hour movies and they go by like that. So there’s no ipso facto judgment about length.”

Long movie runtimes have become a growing trend in the past year. 2023 movies Oppenheimer and Beau is Afraid, as well as 2022’s The Batman, RRR, Avatar: The Way of Water and Babylon all went over three hours.

Payne’s The Holdovers opens on 27 October.