Though most modern movies are guilty of being way too long, there are actually a ton of great films that could have benefited from a longer running time. The length of films has fluctuated quite a bit since the art form debuted, but the hour-and-a-half mark has become the Hollywood standard.
Following a conventional story structure, it’s easy for screenwriters to hit certain beats at certain times and deliver a succinct story that doesn’t go on too long. Though really long movies are sometimes justified, the length is often to the detriment of the audience’s enjoyment. However, some movies are actually too short, and they feel incomplete.
Whether they wrap up too quickly and have rushed conclusions, or entire portions of the film were edited out for various reasons, there are some truly excellent movies that could have used more time. Even movies that are already pretty long can be too short if the story needs breathing room, and nailing the perfect length is nearly impossible.
Candyman (2021)
Like its predecessor, the remake of Candyman suffered from a glut of great ideas. The classic ’90s horror film got a modern facelift and centered Black creators in the conversation. Its themes of housing discrimination, gentrification, and racism were even stronger than in the original, but a lot of its horror elements were rushed and felt secondary.
At only an hour-and-a-half, the movie had room to add extra scenes that not only hammered home its themes, but added just a few more chills too. Pacing is crucial in horror, but the rushed pace of the finale was a betrayal of the slow-burn nature of the rest of the film.
A Quiet Place (2018)
High-concept horror has become all the rage since the late 2010s, and A Quiet Place is partially responsible for the boom. Eschewing the so-called smart horror of its contemporaries, the John Krasinski film goes for classic monster chills with an interesting twist that makes it unique in the crowded field. Unfortunately, it’s also a bit short.
The screenplay is almost too clever for its own good, and does such a good job introducing the world succinctly that the movie then rushes to its conclusion without building much atmosphere. If it took a bit more time to build suspense, the 2018 hit could have been an even bigger cornerstone of ’10s horror.
ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Poets Society (1989)
ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Poets Society is a nearly perfect film, and helped to establish Robin Williams as a serious actor on top of his reputation as a funnyman. The movie even won Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards, and is often touted as one of the most finely-crafted scripts of the last 40 years.
ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Poets Society was also nominated for Best Picture but lost to Driving Miss Daisy.
That doesn’t mean the movie couldn’t have been longer, and more time with the characters would have added another layer to the already excellent film. If it had been pushed to two-and-a-half hours, ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Poets Society could have explored more of the student’s home lives, and tied all the plot threads тιԍнтer.
Hail, Caesar! (2016)
The Coen brothers have crafted some truly special films throughout their careers, but Hail, Caesar! is an odd entry in their filmography. It has a lot of the duo’s hallmarks with its quirky characters and humorous mystery plot, but it also lacks a certain spark to help it be a classic.
It’s a great film, but the period comedy needed more time. A brisk pace is usually perfect for comedy, but Hail, Caesar! is rushed in the wrong ways, and sacrifices a lot of world and character-building in the process. With its myriad of suspects, the movie should have been an epic, and could have easily been 120 minutes or more.
The Wrestler (2008)
Mickey Rourke’s comeback movie captured the essence of the sport of professional wrestling, and the men and women who ply that trade. The Wrestler is less of a plot-driven story and more of a character drama, and it digs deep into the mentality of a fading wrestling star who is trying to live day to day.
Though the Darren Aronofsky movie is terrific, it can’t make up its mind if it’s a plot-driven movie or a character study. It has the pacing of the former, but it should have spent even more time with Randy. Character stories can get away with a bloated running time if the writing is compelling, and The Wrestler is certainly a compelling film.
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince (2009)
Adapting one of the most popular book series of all time into movies isn’t easy, and the Harry Potter franchise needed to make some cuts to accommodate the story structure of film. However, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was cut down way too much, and it sacrificed almost all the important nuances of the penultimate novel.
Though it already runs two-and-a-half hours, much of the тιтular mystery is left out of the equation. The film series had so many narrative threads as it built toward its two-part conclusion that only the bare essentials could be kept in. Sadly, this did rob Half-Blood Prince of the chance to truly be the best of the movie series.
Dune (1984)
David Lynch’s Dune is often derided as a complete failure, but it has earned a cult following due to its quirky tone and noble attempt to condense Frank Herbert’s sci-fi fantasy novel. Instead of splitting the story into multiple parts, the 1984 flop opted instead to try to squeeze the book into one movie, which might be its biggest mistake.
Dune could have easily pushed three hours, and would have been a much better product if it was longer than two hours. The concepts are so confusing and dense that a lot of time is needed to digest them, and the film chose to streamline what should have been extended.
Brave (2012)
Animated movies take significantly longer to make than their live-action counterparts, but some need a much longer running time. Brave is one such example, and the underrated Pixar film sometimes feels like parts of a larger movie that has been chopped down to fit a prescribed length for children’s films.
Without sacrificing any of the Pixar heart, Brave introduced a ton of fantastical concepts that add humor and intrigue to the plot. Sadly, a lot of those concepts are rushed and ill-defined, due in large part to the movie’s 90-minute length. Even 10 more minutes would have made Merida’s adventure a bigger cinematic spectacle.
The Wolf Man (1941)
Universal was in cost-cutting mode in the early 1940s, and their horror films were usually produced on the cheap. That means the classic monster flick, The Wolf Man, was given an extremely truncated running time of only a little over an hour. This wasn’t unusual for the time, but way too short for such a great movie.
A few extra werewolf scenes could have really hammered home the horror, or some additional development between Larry and Gwen would have made his demise more tragic. The Wolf Man is still beloved because of what it does right, but if it was a little longer, it could have rivaled contemporaries like Frankenstein and Dracula.
All The President’s Men (1976)
Made just two years after the conclusion of the Watergate saga, All the President’s Men was a contemporary thriller when it debuted. Brilliantly adapting the Woodward and Bernstein book of the same name, the movie version paced out the story to perfection with stunning sound design and performances from Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.
However, it is still too short considering its subject matter and the new information that was available. The тιтular book was written before Nixon resigned, but the movie came out after. Therefore, the wrap-up at the end feels incomplete, since there were even more twists and turns before the scandal finally concluded.
