Many three-hours-or-longer films reside on my all-time greatest roster — The Godfather Part II, Apocalypse Now, Lawrence of Arabia, The Wolf of Wall Street, Scarface, The Irishman, Barry Lyndon, Ben-Hur, Titanic, The Seven Samurai, Gone With The Wind, Spartacus, etc.
Length, of course, has always been immaterial or irrelevant when it comes to quality — no bad film can be too short, no good film can be too long, etc. There’s nonetheless something a bit more transporting or inviting or impactful when it comes to films that are just a bit shorter — 165 minutes to 180 minutes, I mean.
If you’re talking “long but good movie,” 165 to 180 is HE’s sweet spot. Long but a little lighter, tighter and trimmer…slightly less indulged.
HE’s favorite 165 to 180s: The Godfather (175), Heat (170), Patton (172), The Best Years of Our Lives (170), Saving Private Ryan (169), The Thin Red Line (170), Long Day’s Journey Into Night (174), The Young Lions (167), The Longest Day (178), Beau Is Afraid (179), Dogville (’03), The Great Escape (172), The Unbearable Lightness of Being (171), Braveheart (178).
I even have a certain elveated regard for flawed films in this realm…King of Kings (168), In Harm’s Way (165), The Towering Inferno (165), The Good Shepherd (167), Alexander (175), etc.
All this said, we’ve all become sick of the relatively recent avalanche of needlessly long movies, otherwise known as the Peter Jackson King Kong syndrome….films running between 130 and 150 minutes or longer for no apparent reason other than a lack of basic narrative discipline.