With chart-topping, award-winning films sometimes clocking in at three and a half hours apiece, have films started getting too long?

Golden Globe winning film The Brutalist clocks in at three and a half hours – and while it is excellent, Lunchtime Live host Andrea Gilligan claims, is there really any need for a film to be that long?

The film which details the story of a Hungarian, Jewish-born architect was, in fact, so long that there was an intermission in the middle of the film.

Adrien Brody in The Brutalist (2024), directed by Brady Corbet. Credit: Brookstreet Pictures / Kaplan Morrison / Album

“I don't know when I was last at any movie in the cinema that had a break to change the reel, and the break was roughly in and around 25 minutes,” Andrea said.

“I think the last time I sat through a movie in the cinema that had a break was Titanic, which was probably back in about 1996 or 1997.

“It's not the first time, though, in the last 12 months that I've gone to the cinema to see a movie that length, because Oppenheimer was in and around the same and so too was Killers of the Flower Moon.”

Andrea is now wondering if this movie length is the goal for directors.

Is the aim to make movies roughly around this duration? And does the length of the film actually deter people from going to the cinema?

"A little bit apprehensive"

The Irish Independent journalist Saoirse Hanley saw The Brutalist and to her own surprise thought it was worth the four hours spent watching it – which is rare for her.

“I have to say, and this is rare coming from me, because I am normally a big advocate for the return of the 90 minute movie, but I actually feel like it was four hours really well spent,” she told Lunchtime Live.

“I say this with shock in my own voice because over the past couple of years, I've had real long film fatigue, especially if you go to the cinema on a weekday evening, it's very hard to have the attention span after a day's work to last a full film.

“When I initially heard about the runtime of this one, I was a little bit apprehensive, I feel like [the run time is] going to really deter people, but I'm so happy that I invested the time in it.”

"You're going to be there for a long time"

Ms Hanley said she definitely thinks run times deter people from going to see movies.

“I know for myself I actually never got around to seeing Killers of the Flower Moon in part because I knew how long it was and it just didn't capture me enough to be like, ‘Yeah, I'm gonna go see that’ and it just got away from me,” she said.

“I was thinking about this last night coming out of the film, that I really want to recommend it to people, but I feel like it has to come with the disclaimer of, like, just accept that you're going to be there for a long time - accept that you're clearing your evening to be there.

“Because I think if you go into it unwittingly, it is a huge amount of time to be giving.”

The Better Man Billboard on Sunset Blvd on January 6, 2025. Photo by Barry King/Alamy Stock Photo

Ms Hanley said the distinction for her is that The Brutalist was a story worth telling “over that much time”.

“I came out of the also excellent Robbie Williams bio, but my friend turned to me and she said, ‘Oh my god, that was two and a half hours’.”

There is "no world" where the Robbie Williams bio (Better Man) needed to be two and a half hours, Ms Hanley said.

Adrien Brody in The Brutalist (2024), directed by Brady Corbet. Credit: Brookstreet Pictures / Kaplan Morrison / Album