Margot Robbie in Babylon. Photo / Paramount Pictures
Margot Robbie in Babylon. Photo / Paramount Pictures
Seen The Brutalist and have many, many more hours to spare? Then watch these great films – epic in both scale and length.
It is looking more than likely that Brady Corbet’s masterly epic The Brutalist will sweep both the Baftas and Oscars after its recent success at the Golden Globes. This will be despite – or perhaps because of – its truly staggering 215-minute running time, although this does, helpfully, include a 15-minute interval factored into the picture, which gives audiences a welcome chance to recover from the emotional and intellectual onslaught.
In any case, there is something wonderful about being able to luxuriate in a lengthy masterpiece. Last year’s Oppenheimer flew by at three hours, and truly great directors understand that, in the right hands, a three (or, on special occasions, four) hour picture can justify their length more than amply.
From the beginning of cinema, there have been long films. Abel Gance’s 1927 epic Napoleon, about the life of the Emperor, lasted a staggering 330 minutes, although it was swiftly cut down to a more conventional length, and Gone with the Wind ran nearly four hours when the various overtures and intervals were included. Sometimes, these pictures can end up being interminable, whether because of directorial over-indulgence (Meet Joe Black, or rather, don’t), production issues (Cleopatra, notoriously) or simply by being a decent hour or so of blockbuster cinema sandwiched between two dismal ones (Pearl Harbour).
But there are also some timeless masterpieces that deserve every frame of their length, and audiences wouldn’t wish them to be a second shorter. Here are 20 of the best – in chronological order.
None other than the great director Francois Truffaut said of Marcel Carne’s masterpiece that “I would give up all my films to have directed Les Enfants du Paradis.” High praise indeed, and the picture is all the more impressive for the circumstances under which it was made: shot between 1943 and 1945, production was continually delayed by everything from rationing to the effects of filming in occupied and Vichy France.
That this peerlessly affecting tale of a young courtesan and the men who find themselves near-obsessively in love with her should be not simply a completed film but one of the finest examples of cinema ever made is a remarkable testament to Carne’s skill as a filmmaker; it has been compared to Gone With the Wind, but (whisper it), it’s better.
2. Seven Samurai (1954): 3 hours 27 mins
Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece remains one of the most influential and thrilling films ever made. Forget The Magnificent Seven, the inferior (although still hugely enjoyable) American remake; this peerless picture, pitting a group of samurai against the bandits who continually pillage their village, features some of cinema’s most exciting action scenes, coupled with Kurosawa’s near-anthropological dedication to exploring the codes of honour, loyalty and integrity that the titular samurai live by.
Its DNA can be found in everything from Mad Max: Fury Road to Blade Runner, and countless filmmakers and critics have described it as their favourite film ever made. But it’s one of those rare classic pictures that’s both intellectually rigorous and great fun to watch.
3. Lawrence of Arabia (1962): 3 hours 47 mins
One of the films that Oppenheimer was justifiably compared to, David Lean’s masterpiece boasts one of cinema’s greatest ever performances in Peter O’Toole’s intense, driven T.E. Lawrence. He’s a man capable of peerless heroism and hideous cruelty at almost the same time, and increasingly unsure of who or what he is, as the desert slowly eats away at his psyche.
Yet over its three and a half-hour length, Lean manages not only to make the setting practically a character in its own right, but assembles one of cinema’s greatest supporting casts (Alec Guinness, Claude Rains, Anthonys Quayle and Quinn, Omar Sharif et al), and then tops it off with extraordinary cinematography from Freddie Young and an immediately iconic score by Maurice Jarre. It won seven Oscars; it should have taken twice that.
4. The Godfather Part II (1974): 3 hours 22 mins
Why are we including the Godfather’s sequel and not the original? Simple answer: the first Godfather runs five minutes shy of three hours, and the continuation is a mightier 202 minutes. Debate will never end as to which one is superior, and it’s undeniably true that Brando’s Don Corleone is much missed, but the second part of the trilogy is richer, darker and more Shakespearean in its scope.
In the film, Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone shoulders the soul-destroying responsibility of taking over the family business and losing everyone he cares about in the process, interspersed with flashbacks showing Robert de Niro’s young Vito rising to prominence in early 20th century New York. There are moments which drag, but all is forgiven when it comes to the magnificently bleak resolution in which Michael obtains absolute supremacy at the cost of killing his brother, John Cazale’s pitifully weak Fredo, and ruins himself forever.
5. Barry Lyndon (1975): 3 hours 5 mins
Few of Stanley Kubrick’s films are short, but none of them feel their length: yes, even the much-misunderstood Eyes Wide Shut. Yet his genius for recreating historical periods was brought to its greatest fruition in his perennially underrated masterpiece Barry Lyndon, an adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel that turns a picaresque black comedy into a searing account of what it’s like to gain the world through accidents of fate and then lose it by the same methods, too.
From Ryan O’Neal’s intentionally opaque and perfectly judged performance in the lead to John Alcott’s stunning, deservedly Oscar-winning cinematography, which painstakingly recreates the texture and feel of 18th century paintings, it is a picture that comes as close in transporting an audience back in time as cinema can do, until a time machine is invented. Added bonus: it’s surprisingly funny, too.
6. The Right Stuff (1983): 3 hours 13 mins
“Is that a man?” “You’re damn right it is.” Films about space exploration often suffer from being abstract or uncommercial – witness the failure of Ad Astra and First Man – and Philip Kaufman’s stirring drama about the launch of America’s space programme was initially unsuccessful at the box office, perhaps because audiences wanted something more straightforward in its heroism and action scenes.
Four decades later, it stands up as one of the great masterpieces of its decade, with a brilliant cast of actors who would go onto greater prominence (including Ed Harris and Dennis Quaid) anchored by a titanic performance by actor-playwright Sam Shepard as Chuck Yeager, the first man who broke the speed of sound. Thrilling, often hilarious and inspirational to the most terrestrial of viewers, it is now deservedly beloved by audiences as a classic.
7. Once Upon a Time in America (1984): 3 hours 49 mins
Sergio Leone’s final film, the gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America, baffled its distributors when they were shown Leone’s initial 229-minute cut, and it was heavily edited into a near-incomprehensible 139-minute version, which was the only incarnation of the film available for many years. Upon the release of the uncut version, the critics who had ridiculed the shorter cut, which depicts the fortunes of a group of Jewish gangsters in New York over three separate time periods, were all but unanimous in hailing it a masterpiece.
Daringly experimental in its treatment of memory and objective versus subjective reality, Leone subverts every expectation of what a gangster film should be, and does so brilliantly. We’ll probably never know what happens to Senator Bailey at the end, and that is all part of the mystique of this superb film.
8. Schindler’s List (1993): 3 hours 15 mins
It’s certainly not Steven Spielberg’s most entertaining film, but Schindler’s List still remains his masterpiece three decades after its initial release. Its account of the horrors of the Holocaust shocks not so much because of the nearly unwatchable moments of grotesque and shocking violence, but because of their sheer banality, best represented by Ralph Fiennes’ star-making performance as the SS commandant Amon Goth, a mid-ranking bureaucrat who takes casual pleasure in murder and torture.
And Liam Neeson’s Schindler, an opportunist who discovers a conscience, is a powerful reminder that, before he became cinema’s resident OAP on a mission of vengeance, Neeson was a very fine and subtle actor indeed. Perhaps the ending is a moment of Spielberg sentiment too far, but the rest of this deeply distressing and humane picture justifies that one touch of emotional release.
9. Braveheart (1995): 3 hours
“They may take our lives, but they will never take … our FREEDOM!” Today Braveheart is rather more problematic than it was when it was first released, partly because of its director-star Mel Gibson’s frequent lapses into controversy, and partly because its account of the attempt by William Wallace to drive the English from his homeland of Scotland has been seized upon by the SNP as a quasi-recruiting tool.
None of this damages its standing as a thrilling (if historically wildly inaccurate) epic, paced and directed to perfection and featuring one of cinema’s most purely thrilling battle scenes in the Battle of Stirling Bridge, as Wallace and his men repel an English cavalry charge and seize victory. The fact that it’s all done without CGI makes it all the more impressive, and exciting.
10. Hamlet (1996): 4 hours 2 mins
At the time, it seemed like hubris for Sir Kenneth Branagh to direct an uncut, four-hour version of Hamlet, filmed on 70mm in and around Blenheim Palace and with an all-star cast that included everyone from the sublime (Kate Winslet, Julie Christie, Sir Derek Jacobi) to the ridiculous – if you wanted to see Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ken Dodd in the same film, now is your chance.
Still, nearly three decades on, this stands as a masterpiece of Shakespearean adaptation, with Branagh’s typically intelligent, charismatic performance well served by perhaps the greatest supporting cast ever put on film. There have been bolder, riskier and more provocative Hamlets on screen, but Branagh’s has seldom, if even, been bettered for clarity, emotional impact or chutzpah.
11. Titanic (1997): 3 hours 14 mins
The one-time highest-grossing film of all time, only overtaken by its director James Cameron’s Avatar pictures, Titanic now suffers from a sense of terminal uncoolness, occasioned by its once-ubiquitous Celine Dion theme song, and not helped by its terrible script.
Strip aside the unfortunate dialogue, however, and this is a remarkably accomplished piece of cinema, belying its notoriously troubled production to deliver a genuinely affecting love story (although Kate Winslet remains infinitely better than Leonardo DiCaprio, who needed Scorsese to pull him out of his pretty-boy comfort zone) and a thrilling, chilling spectacle that conveys exactly what it must have been like to perish in the freezing Atlantic that night of April 14, 1912. Audiences loved it, and it still retains an ability for even the hard-hearted to find something in their eye, too.
12. Magnolia (1999): 3 hours 8 mins
In a remarkable year for cinema, Paul Thomas Anderson’s strange and uncategorisable epic drama still remains one of the most distinctive films of its era. Dealing with the overlapping lives and fates of a disparate group of San Fernando Valley residents, it features a career-best Tom Cruise performance as the inspirational “man’s guru” Frank TJ Mackey – a clear precursor to the likes of Andrew Tate – a climatic plague of frogs and more weirdness, event and dramatic speeches than you’d get in a dozen seasons of Netflix prestige shows.
Anderson has made better films (There Will Be Blood), but he’s probably never made one so heartfelt, so personal and so damn weird. And much as we love the Top Gun/Mission Impossible Cruise, could he make another picture like this, please, where he actually acts once more?
13. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003): 9 hours 18 mins
It would be impossible to choose just one of Sir Peter Jackson’s superlative Lord of the Rings films in this list. Each of them has their strengths, and their admirers; even The Two Towers, which has been unfairly slightly maligned in comparison with the others, features one of cinema’s most exciting and brilliantly staged battle scenes in its Helm’s Deep finale.
But what makes Jackson’s Tolkien adaptations so wonderfully rich and endlessly rewatchable, even for people who would normally run screaming from an orc or goblin, is that they combine screen-filling spectacle with beautifully judged performances of operatic grandeur and special effects that bring the world of Middle Earth to life. If only Jackson hadn’t tainted his legacy with the indifferent Hobbit films – but the Lord of the Rings will never fade.
14. Kingdom of Heaven: The Director’s Cut (2005): 3 hours 16 mins
The theatrical release of Ridley Scott’s Crusades epic Kingdom of Heaven was a uniquely frustrating experience; it had the makings of greatness, save a lacklustre Orlando Bloom performance in the lead, but was rushed and made little narrative sense, with the admittedly impressive battle scenes taking centre stage over plot and character development. Scott being Scott, he was allowed to add in another 45 minutes for the DVD release, which had a limited cinematic release, and the resulting three and a quarter hour picture joins the ranks of his finest films.
Bloom, admittedly, still isn’t up to much, but its magnificent supporting cast – with everyone from a masked Edward Norton to Eva Green – are given their time in the sun, and Scott tempers the bloodthirsty action scenes with a sophisticated and nuanced examination of religious extremism and the ethics of colonialism. It deserves a reappraisal, and hopefully will get one, at some point.
15. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013): 3 hours
Perhaps surprisingly for a filmmaker as beloved as Martin Scorsese, the majority of his pictures come in well under three hours; only now, towards what must regrettably be the end of his legendary career, has allowed himself full rein. Yet his most purely entertaining picture of the past couple of decades (if not ever) must be his epic black comedy The Wolf of Wall Street, featuring a career-best Leonardo DiCaprio as the debauched financier Jordan Belfort.
Scorsese stages blissful comic set-pieces of insane invention, coupled with a brilliant cast including everyone from a then-unknown Margot Robbie to a cameoing Matthew McConaughey, and then makes it a powerful lesson about the corrosive effects of greed; not that you’ll notice first time round, because you’ll be too busy weeping with laughter.
16. Avengers: Endgame (2019): 3 hours
How much you like the final film in the original Avengers series can be summarised by one simple question: do you care that Captain America is able to lift up Thor’s hammer Mjolnir? If you do, then this epic adventure will probably be one of your favourite films; if not, take your time, money and interest elsewhere. Yet even for Marvel agnostics, there are still compensatory factors in a picture that was briefly the highest-grossing of all time.
It features a ridiculously starry cast that uses Oscar-winning actors like William Hurt and Michael Douglas as bit-part players, has an excellent (if CGI-disguised) Josh Brolin as its big bad Thanos, and, in Robert Downey jnr’s send-off line, features an iconic moment for the ages that will have even the most superhero-averse of viewers cheering and punching the air.
17. Babylon (2022): 3 hours 9 mins
Damien Chazelle deservedly won a Best Director Oscar for 2016’s La La Land, but since then he has been stuck in full-bore auteur mode. His space race epic First Man disappointed, and his thoroughly out-of-control, 189-minute extravaganza Babylon, about the debauched early days of the Hollywood film industry, was a conspicuous flop, despite a starry cast that included Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and an impressively seedy Tobey Maguire.
Yet in its sheer dedication to excess, Chazelle brilliantly matches the sordid goings-on on screen with a loopy, near Ken Russell-esque energy that is a world away from the more restrained and seemly antics in other directors’ films. It seems certain to become a cult picture in years to come, and Stephen King nailed it when he described it as “one of those movies that reviews badly and is acclaimed as a classic in 20 years”.
18. Oppenheimer (2023): 3 hours
Christopher Nolan’s biopic won seven Oscars and made nearly a billion dollars at the box office, establishing him as the most successful director in contemporary cinema; hugely impressive, for a film that features no conventional action scenes, and largely consists of middle-aged men sitting in rooms talking.
Yet what makes it so propulsive and thrilling as cinema is firstly that the chat is effervescently smart and witty (Nolan, sometimes an underrated screenwriter, delivers his best script since Memento here, which Oppenheimer resembles in some regards) and secondly that its depiction of a brilliant man whose epochal discovery will change the world forever has heft of Shakespearean proportions. After several years in which the Academy could rightfully be accused of picking the wrong film to laud, this was the first occasion in an age that they got it right.
19. Killers of the Flower Moon (2023): 3 hours 26 mins
Martin Scorsese has been fortunate in his filmmaking partners of late. Both Netflix and Apple TV+ have allowed him to make late-period masterpieces in, respectively, 2019’s The Irishman and the recent Killers of the Flower Moon. Both feature phenomenal performances by his regular collaborator Robert De Niro, a firm grip on extraordinarily lengthy running times and beautifully choreographed set-pieces that thrill and horrify in equal measure.
Flower Moon is the pick of the two, partly because of Lily Gladstone’s heartbreaking performance as Mollie, an Osage woman manipulated by Leonardo DiCaprio’s venal Ernest and his diabolical uncle Hale (De Niro, naturally) and partly because Scorsese, now well into his 80s, proves himself a master of pacing, tone and unexpected touches of black comedy. Look on his works, ye mighty, and rejoice.
20. The Brutalist (2024): 3 hours 34 mins
Brady Corbet had made two critically praised but virtually unseen films before his breakthrough with his Adrien Brody-starring epic – but with The Brutalist he has firmly established himself as a contemporary auteur to be reckoned with. Made on a staggering low budget (US$10 million [$17.7m]), Corbet nonetheless manages to marshal a fine cast, including a never-better Guy Pearce as Brody’s smooth but sinister patron, in service of an endlessly fascinating saga that has all the heft and emotional satisfaction of a Great American Novel.
Comparisons were made with The Godfather, There Will Be Blood and Once Upon A Time in America – and all were justified – but this clear-sighted examination of the dark side of the post-war American dream is, triumphantly, its own creation.
