(Picture by Paramount Photos/courtesy Everett Assortment. Thumbnail: Walt Disney Studios Movement Photos / © Marvel Studios / courtesy Everett Assortment; New Line Cinema / courtesy Everett Assortment.)
All of the sudden discovering your self with numerous free time? In possession of a homicide of minutes, a bounty of hours, a gaggle of additional days, questioning tips on how to fill all of them up? Seems like you would go for a film – a extremely loooong film. Nicely, we’ve sifted by the backend of cinema historical past, from the silent period all the way in which as much as the current, and picked up and ranked the 100 best-reviewed motion pictures that run three hours or longer (Licensed Contemporary motion pictures listed first) to conquer these pesky waking moments.
The director who takes essentially the most benefit of your consideration span? No shock: It’s Martin Scorsese, with six movies on this listing, together with 2019’s The Irishman. Different administrators with a number of entries are legends identified for his or her predilection for epic storytelling: Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai, Purple Beard); David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia, Physician Zhivago); Oliver Stone (JFK, Malcom X); and Stanley Kubrick (Spartacus, Barry Lyndon). After all, Francis Ford Coppola will get a pair in there: There’s The Godfather, Half II (although not The Godfather, which is three minutes shy of three hours), and Apocalypse Now Redux over common ol’ vanilla Apocalypse Now, which runs a swift 2.5 hours.
Now Redux underscores an attention-grabbing level. It’s included as a result of the movie had a nationwide theatrical launch, and bought its personal separate Tomatometer rating from the unique film. Different director’s cuts that clear the 3-hour mark, like Watchmen or Kingdom of Heaven, or prolonged editions like Lord of the Rings, are excluded as a result of they don’t have their very own Tomatometers, and by no means noticed main launch.
In the meantime, Kill Invoice Vol. 1 & 2 had been reduce from the listing: You had to purchase two tickets, which means two separate motion pictures. (However Grindhouse is in as a result of one ticket on the field workplace bought you the entire sleazy shebang.) This Kill Invoice rule applies in excluding different potential candidates just like the Nymphomaniac volumes, or Steven Soderbergh’s Che: Although it screened at Cannes as a single launch, in America it was cut up in two, requiring two purchases, making them two motion pictures.
Then we arrive at European movies like Scenes From a Marriage or The Better of Youth, which had been initially introduced as TV miniseries earlier than being edited into singular entities. These depend. Once more, it’s all about how the film was packaged and exhibited for consumption in North America. And at last, we put in a minimal requirement of 10 Tomatometer-approved critic opinions and scores for every film to maintain this information from trending too obscure.
Are longer motion pictures higher? We wrote an article exploring the notion. One thing have to be holding these filmmakers within the edit bay, piling on the celluloid. With a film like Avengers: Endgame, the enchantment of an extended runtime is obvious: It’s bought dozens and dozens of colourful characters desirous to pummel one another, and needed to wrap up a 22-movie story arc. Titanic‘s bought a sinking boat. King Kong has a giant ape.
However a number of the different motion pictures’ hooks aren’t as apparent. Movies like Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev or Bela Tarr’s Satantango use their beneficiant runtimes to discover new dimensions in cinema, to construct one thing mystical and mysterious inside viewers, culminating near a rapturous expertise. And some of the documentaries, similar to Shoah or O.J.: Made in America (which had an awards-qualifying theatrical run), want the area to do proper by their subjects.
Not too long ago, we’ve added long-awaited sequel Avatar: The Means of Water, the Eighties tribute horror doc In Search of Darkness, and Indian motion epic that’s been a success on Netflix, RRR.
With all that mentioned, it’s time to get actual cozy on that sofa: Take a look at the 100 finest motion pictures 3 hours or longer! —Alex Vo
#1
Adjusted Rating: 108305%
Critics Consensus: Arguably Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece, The Seven Samurai is an epic journey traditional with an engrossing story, memorable characters, and gorgeous motion sequences that make it probably the most influential movies ever made.
#2
Adjusted Rating: 102283%
Critics Consensus: O.J.: Made in America paints a balanced and thorough portrait of the American dream juxtaposed with tragedy and executed with energy and ability.
#3
Adjusted Rating: 102693%
Critics Consensus: Ingmar Bergman conveys the sweep of childhood with a fastidious consideration to element and opulent perception into human frailty in Fanny & Alexander, a masterwork that crystalizes most of the administrators’ preoccupations right into a familial epic.
#4
Adjusted Rating: 106290%
Critics Consensus: Schindler’s Record blends the abject horror of the Holocaust with Steven Spielberg’s signature tender humanism to create the director’s dramatic masterpiece.
#5
Adjusted Rating: 101768%
Critics Consensus: Lavish and wistful, The Leopard options epic battles, luxurious costumes, and a ballroom waltz that competes for many stunning sequence dedicated to movie.
#6
Adjusted Rating: 101861%
Critics Consensus: Robust performances abound, and Carne’s wit and style are evident on this masterful (if lengthy) French epic.
#7
Adjusted Rating: 106032%
Critics Consensus: Drawing on robust performances by Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, Francis Ford Coppola’s continuation of Mario Puzo’s Mafia saga set new requirements for sequels which have but to be matched or damaged.
#8
Adjusted Rating: 97857%
Critics Consensus: A outstanding debut that sadly serves as its creator’s epitaph, An Elephant Sitting Nonetheless affords an uncompromisingly grim but poignant portrait of life in fashionable China.
#9
Adjusted Rating: 99452%
Critics Consensus: The Proper Stuff packs quite a lot of film into its hefty working time, spinning a colourful, fact-based story out of constantly partaking characters within the midst of epochal occasions.
#10
Adjusted Rating: 96963%
Critics Consensus: Documentarian Claude Lanzmann brings the ghosts of the Holocaust again to vivid life as soon as once more The Final of the Unjust, a dense and haunting investigation into complicity and ethical quandary.
#11
Adjusted Rating: 120107%
Critics Consensus: An epic gangster drama that earns its prolonged runtime, The Irishman finds Martin Scorsese revisiting acquainted themes to poignant, humorous, and profound impact.
#12
Adjusted Rating: 96257%
Critics Consensus: Lagaan is lavish, rousing leisure within the old style custom of Hollywood musicals.
#13
Adjusted Rating: 98160%
Critics Consensus: Robert Altman’s ensemble drama deftly integrates its disparate characters and episodes right into a humorous, poignant, emotionally satisfying entire.
#14
Adjusted Rating: 97440%
Critics Consensus: Kenneth Branagh’s sprawling, finely textured adaptation of Shakespeare’s masterpiece lives as much as its supply materials, utilizing robust performances and a pointy cinematic focus to create a powerfully resonant movie that wastes none of its 246 minutes.
#15
Adjusted Rating: 98155%
Critics Consensus: Andrei Rublev is a cerebral epic that filters difficult concepts by a grand scope — forming a transferring thesis on artwork, religion, and the sweep of historical past.
#16
Adjusted Rating: 124037%
Critics Consensus: Thrilling, entertaining, and emotionally impactful, Avengers: Endgame does no matter it takes to ship a satisfying finale to Marvel’s epic Infinity Saga.
#17
Adjusted Rating: 105772%
Critics Consensus: The epic of all epics, Lawrence of Arabia cements director David Lean’s standing within the filmmaking pantheon with almost 4 hours of grand scope, sensible performances, and exquisite cinematography.
#18
RRR (2022) 94%
94%
Adjusted Rating: 96029%
Critics Consensus: Intoxicatingly excessive, RRR pulls out all of the stops to make absolutely the most of its 187-minute runtime.
#19
Adjusted Rating: 95433%
Critics Consensus: Earns its 6 hours working time by telling an engrossing story with compelling characters.
#20
Adjusted Rating: 99514%
Critics Consensus: That includes terrific performances and epic motion, Kubrick’s restored swords-and-sandals epic is a real traditional.
#21
Adjusted Rating: 95254%
Critics Consensus: Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles affords a lingering, unvarnished, and finally mesmerizing take a look at one lady’s existence.
#22
Adjusted Rating: 102579%
Critics Consensus: Visually breathtaking and emotionally highly effective, The Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King is a transferring and satisfying conclusion to an ideal trilogy.
#23
Adjusted Rating: 95489%
Critics Consensus: The extra footage slows down the film considerably (some say the brand new reduce is inferior to the unique), however Apocalypse Now Redux remains to be an ideal piece of cinema.
#24
Adjusted Rating: 94828%
Critics Consensus: Regardless of its hefty working time, Carlos strikes alongside briskly, due to an attractive story, unique locales, and a breakout efficiency by Edgar Ramirez.
#25
Adjusted Rating: 93636%
Critics Consensus: Its four-hour size is undeniably imposing, however Norte, the Finish of Historical past rewards affected person viewers with an absorbing, visually expansive viewing expertise.
#26
Adjusted Rating: 94277%
Critics Consensus: Exquisitely designed and fastidiously ornate, Masaki Kobayashi’s bold anthology operates much less as a daunting instance of horror and extra as a meditative tribute to Japanese folklore.
#27
Adjusted Rating: 91828%
Critics Consensus: With its subtitles and a working time nearing 4 hours, Eureka definitely locations calls for upon its viewers. For these with the endurance, nevertheless, this visually pretty movie builds to an emotionally resonant imaginative and prescient of transcendence.
#28
Adjusted Rating: 98940%
Critics Consensus: Gone with the Wind‘s epic grandeur and romantic attract encapsulate an period of Hollywood filmmaking — however that may’t excuse a blinkered perspective that stands on the improper facet of historical past.
#29
Adjusted Rating: 92501%
Critics Consensus: Brawny in each mind and scope, Reds is an intimate epic that captures the tumult of revolutionary change and the eagerness of these navigating by it.
#30
Adjusted Rating: 96193%
Critics Consensus: Uncooked, sincere, powerfully acted, and deliciously intense, Blue Is the Warmest Colour affords a few of fashionable cinema’s most elegantly composed, emotionally absorbing drama.
#31
Adjusted Rating: 96368%
Critics Consensus: Director Richard Attenborough is often sympathetic and sure-handed, however it’s Ben Kingsley’s magnetic efficiency that acts because the linchpin for this sprawling, prolonged biopic.
#32
Adjusted Rating: 94944%
Critics Consensus: Cynical, ironic, and suffused with seductive pure lighting, Barry Lyndon is a posh character piece of a hapless man doomed by Georgian society.
#33
Adjusted Rating: 92035%
Critics Consensus: Anchored by a strong efficiency from Denzel Washington, Spike Lee’s biopic of legendary civil rights chief Malcolm X brings his autobiography to life with an epic sweep and a nuanced message.
#34
Adjusted Rating: 92003%
Critics Consensus: Large earns its imposing identify with a towering narrative supported by placing cinematography, huge concepts, and highly effective work from a trio of legendary Hollywood leads.
#35
Adjusted Rating: 94273%
Critics Consensus: Monumental in scale and distinguished by modern approach, Napoléon is an expressive epic that maintains a singular intimacy with its topic.
#36
Adjusted Rating: 95058%
Critics Consensus: Whereas Bernardo Bertolucci’s decadent epic by no means fairly identifies the dramatic pulse of its protagonist, stupendous visuals and John Lone’s potential to make passivity riveting give The Final Emperor a rarified grandeur.
#37
Adjusted Rating: 100384%
Critics Consensus: A largely unqualified triumph for James Cameron, who affords a dizzying mix of spectacular visuals and old style melodrama.
#38
Adjusted Rating: 94639%
Critics Consensus: Dances with Wolves suffers from a simplistic view of the tradition it makes an attempt to honor, however the finish outcome stays a stirring western whose noble intentions are sometimes matched by its epic grandeur.
#39
Adjusted Rating: 89189%
Critics Consensus: Epic in size, thrilling to behold, and completely absorbing, Winter Sleep calls for — and rewards — viewers’ affected person consideration.
#40
Adjusted Rating: 89845%
Critics Consensus: Sergio Leone’s epic crime drama is visually gorgeous, stylistically daring, and emotionally haunting, and crammed with nice performances from the likes of Robert De Niro and James Woods.
#41
Adjusted Rating: 97183%
Critics Consensus: Its greatness is blunted by its size and one-sided standpoint, however the movie’s weaknesses are overpowered by Michael Cimino’s sympathetic course and a collection of heartbreaking performances from Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, and Christopher Walken.
#42
Adjusted Rating: 87303%
Critics Consensus: Mysteries of Lisbon achieves an epic heft by an unhurried tempo and luxurious images, its beguiling episodes culminating in a powerful entire that justifies a prolonged runtime.
#43
JFK (1991) 85%88%
Adjusted Rating: 88711%
Critics Consensus: As historical past, Oliver Stone’s JFK is doubtful, however as filmmaking it is electrical, cramming a ton of data and pleasure into its three-hour runtime and making nice use of its excellent solid.
#44
Adjusted Rating: 87503%
Critics Consensus: Bombastic and infrequently foolish however extravagantly entertaining, Cecil B. DeMille’s all-star spectacular is a muscular retelling of the nice Bible story.
#45
Adjusted Rating: 89191%
Critics Consensus: Uneven, however by way of epic scope and grand spectacle, Ben-Hur nonetheless ranks amongst Hollywood’s most interesting examples of pure leisure.
#46
Adjusted Rating: 94571%
Critics Consensus: That includes state-of-the-art particular results, terrific performances, and an impressive sense of spectacle, Peter Jackson’s remake of King Kong is a potent epic that is trustworthy to the spirit of the 1933 unique.
#47
Adjusted Rating: 91773%
Critics Consensus: Grindhouse delivers exhilarating exploitation fare with wit and panache, enhancing upon its supply materials with feral intelligence.
#48
Adjusted Rating: 89711%
Critics Consensus: It might not be the perfect of David Lean’s epics, however Dr. Zhivago remains to be brilliantly photographed and sweepingly romantic.
#49
Adjusted Rating: 88632%
Critics Consensus: Magnolia is an bold, prolonged work that finally succeeds attributable to attention-grabbing tales and glorious ensemble performances.
#50
Adjusted Rating: 86103%
Critics Consensus: A chook could love a fish — and musical followers will love this adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof, even when it is not fairly as transcendent because the long-running stage model.
#51
Adjusted Rating: 90607%
Critics Consensus: Humorous, self-referential, and irreverent to a fault, The Wolf of Wall Road finds Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio at their most infectiously dynamic.
#52
Adjusted Rating: 84030%
Critics Consensus: Although The Inexperienced Mile is lengthy, critics say it is an absorbing, emotionally highly effective expertise.
#53
Adjusted Rating: 91189%
Critics Consensus: Narratively, it may be pretty commonplace stuff — however visually talking, Avatar: The Means of Water is a stunningly immersive expertise.
#54
Adjusted Rating: 76756%
Critics Consensus: Very like its topic’s time in workplace, Nixon may need ended sooner — however what stays is an engrossing, well-acted take a look at the rise and fall of an interesting political determine.
#55
Adjusted Rating: 100524%
Critics Consensus: Expansive in its magnificence in addition to its mind-numbing horror, Shoah is a towering — and completely singular — achievement in cinema.
#56
Adjusted Rating: 101316%
Critics Consensus: Just like the Grateful Lifeless’s finest music, this documentary justifies its expansive working time — and affords audiences a Lengthy Unusual Journey that is properly value taking.
#57
Adjusted Rating: 102353%
Critics Consensus: The Sorrow and the Pity narrates a painful chapter in France’s historical past by an impressively wealthy mosaic of testimonies and historic archives, giving a posh texture to the struggles of a folks amid tragedy.
Starring:
#58
Adjusted Rating: 101027%
Critics Consensus: A sensual and hypnotic masterpiece, La Belle Noiseuse luxuriates in its four-hour run time whereas holding viewers consideration.
#59
Adjusted Rating: 101512%
Critics Consensus: By documenting arguably essentially the most famend music competition in historical past, Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music achieves the uncommon feat of capturing the distinctive spirit of its time.
#60
Adjusted Rating: -1%
Critics Consensus: Lifeless Souls excavates a authorities’s sins with private accounts that protect the previous whereas illuminating the issues of the current.
#61
Adjusted Rating: 100338%
Critics Consensus: A implausible cinematic and inventive achievement, Edward Yang’s A Brighter Summer season Day depicts youth, beliefs, violence and politics in a melancholic, tender gentle, culminating in a posh portrait of Taiwanese id.
#62
Adjusted Rating: 89065%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#63
Adjusted Rating: 83071%
Critics Consensus: Martin Scorsese invitations audiences to observe him by the films that formed him, providing each a extremely informative dissertation on Italian cinema historical past and an intimate glimpse into the director’s upbringing.
Starring:
#64
Adjusted Rating: 101043%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#65
Adjusted Rating: -1%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#66
Adjusted Rating: 50279%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#67
Adjusted Rating: 48194%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#68
Adjusted Rating: 98189%
Critics Consensus: A brilliantly directed feast for the eyes with an epic story to match, A Contact of Zen marks a groundbreaking achievement within the wuxia style.
#69
Adjusted Rating: 97192%
Critics Consensus: Greater than 5 hours go by in a blink on this frantic Indian crime epic that spans generations and encompasses tons of of characters in a bloody spiral of brutality, all masterly filmed by Anurag Kashyap.
#70
Adjusted Rating: 96692%
Critics Consensus: Leni Riefenstahl displays on her personal Great, Horrible Life on this absorbing documentary, which contends with the contradiction of the terrible energy that nice artwork can maintain.
#71
Adjusted Rating: 97126%
Critics Consensus: The Mom and the Whore (La Maman et la putain) finds writer-director Jean Eustache working at peak type to ship a gripping assertion on late Nineteen Sixties French society.
#72
Adjusted Rating: -1%
Critics Consensus: Time is a necessary character in Jacques Rivette’s Out 1, Noli Me Tangere, an excellent 13-hour research of human relationships and an exploration of how a era’s goals and beliefs slowly fade as life goes ruthlessly by.
#73
Adjusted Rating: 98805%
Critics Consensus: Energetically paced and visually wondrous, Les Vampires is a raucous epic that depicts legal mayhem with pioneering fashion.
#74
Adjusted Rating: -1%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#75
Adjusted Rating: 68080%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#76
Adjusted Rating: 94058%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
Starring:
#77
Adjusted Rating: 99278%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#78
Adjusted Rating: 94056%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#79
Adjusted Rating: 93683%
Critics Consensus: Judgment at Nuremberg dramatizes historic atrocity with thoughtfulness and vitality, interrogating complicity and genocide with an all-star solid on the peak of their respective powers.
#80
Adjusted Rating: 92308%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#81
Adjusted Rating: 92236%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#82
Adjusted Rating: 76939%
Critics Consensus: An engagingly humorous melodrama in addition to an bold exploration of sexual conduct, Sion Sono’s Love Publicity supplies almost 4 hours of extraordinarily unusual and entertaining cinema.
#83
Adjusted Rating: 85108%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#84
Adjusted Rating: 79482%
Critics Consensus: Driving apart essentially the most polemical elements of the director’s biography, Woody Allen: A Documentary attracts an attention-grabbing image of the filmmaker’s opus whereas permitting some glimpses of his intense private life.
#85
Adjusted Rating: 90050%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#86
Adjusted Rating: 65321%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#87
Adjusted Rating: 87375%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#88
Adjusted Rating: 86556%
Critics Consensus: Clocking in at almost three and a half hours, George Harrison: Dwelling within the Materials World is a transferring portrait of the so-called Quiet Beatle’s spirituality and troubled existence that highlights the perfect of Scorsese’s sensibilities.
#89
Adjusted Rating: 63042%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#90
Adjusted Rating: 78799%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#91
Adjusted Rating: 71846%
Critics Consensus: Gettysburg‘s reverent method to historical past is balanced with the dedicated work of a gifted solid – and the hard-hitting dramatization of a bloody turning level within the Civil Struggle.
#92
Adjusted Rating: 74054%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#93
Adjusted Rating: 75063%
Critics Consensus: Typical David Lynch fare: followers of the director will discover Inland Empire seductive and deep. All others will contemplate the heady surrealism impenetrable and pointless.
#94
Adjusted Rating: 71371%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#95
Adjusted Rating: 65758%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#96
Adjusted Rating: 33476%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#97
Adjusted Rating: 59073%
Critics Consensus: Cleopatra is a lush, ostentatious, endlessly eye-popping epic that sags collapses from a (and the way may it not?) four-hour runtime.
#98
Adjusted Rating: 61702%
Critics Consensus: Heaven’s Gate comprises too many concepts and placing spectacle to be a catastrophe, however this western buckles beneath the load of its personal sprawl.
#99
Adjusted Rating: 57927%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#100
Adjusted Rating: 50809%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#101
Adjusted Rating: 24243%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#102
Adjusted Rating: 33604%
Critics Consensus: No consensus but.
#103
Adjusted Rating: 35217%
Critics Consensus: Straightforward to admire but troublesome to like, Wyatt Earp buries eye-catching course and a powerful solid in an undisciplined and overlong story.