The average running time of the four films above is 152.5 minutes, so even if we generously don't round that up to 153, that's a 2 hour 32 minute average running time. I can't imagine that cinemas vary greatly in the amount of advertisement they show before the start of the film. At my local franchise, we are made to endure at least 30 minutes. The only exception to this being when we went to see Total Recall in IMAX, when for some unbeknown reason the film started immediately with no advertisement before hand meaning we missed the first five minutes whilst enjoying a burger. This means that my last 4 visits to the cinema have seen me spend on average over 3 hours in front of the screen. As I'm sure any Father will be able to testify, that's a lot of time!
So, sat as I am, filtering through the swirling thoughts, emotions, and questions posed by the films above I thought 'does a films length, determine it's Oscar worthiness?'.
Rule 2 of the Oscars states that a film must me more than 40 minutes in length to qualify as a feature film, thereby qualify for the Oscar for Best Picture.
It would be amazing and hugely interesting if a 41 minute film had won Best Picture, however, the film with the shortest running time ever to have won is Marty (1955) at 94 minutes. In a write up for the film during the time, it was said,
"Don't expect that record to be broken anytime soon, either. Oscar winners are gettin' longer, not shorter."
After doing a little digging, I came across a great piece of work on collider.com (http://collider.com/oscar-best-picture-statistics/) which gives a breakdown of running times for the Best Picture winner. The graph plotting the initial data makes it look as though the running time varies a lot, showing that a long running time doesn't always mean Best Picture winner. Further study from this site shows that for the individual concerned, the average running time of films they have watched (which is a lot) is between 90 and 120 minutes. It also shows that 80% of Best Picture winners after 1960 are longer than 2 hours.
So if you're planning on a trip to the cinema at the moment, beware of a numb bum. There are a lot of potential Oscar winners out there at the moment, and as I've found, that means you'll be in for the long haul.
