> I think that has to do with excessively long movies

Anecdotal experience but we (n=2) didn't have the urge to pull out our phones on Oppenheimer (180 minutes).

Oppenheimer is not an action flick. :)

Movies with a compelling story keep your attention, but with action, your brain can only take so much stimulation. Unless it has a really compelling story, your mind will wander.

Oh man. I wish more directors knew this. I remember watching one of the fast and the furious movies. It had like a 30 minute long action sequence. That is long enough for the adrenaline to wear off and now it’s all just tedious. I think i literally yawned during what should be edge of the seat action. I’m convinced what it needed was more breaks in the action, or at least more changes in tempo.

Sounds like it would be a better movie split into 2 or 3 sittings.

3 hours is probably getting towards the upper limit but it's hardly historically anomalous. Lawrence of Arabia was over 3 1/2 hours and other "epics" of that era were often in the 3+ hour range. (Though movie theaters often had intermissions which most would probably never do today.) Live theater (with an intermission) is often in that range as well although many newer plays seem to be more like straight through 90 minute length.

Definitely with the intermissions. But I really mean that I often like to stop a long movie, think about it awhile, and then come back to it later. This is how short TV series work, for example. This is also how books work, by their nature. It's a kind of "intellectual digestion" - an intermission is good, but a night's sleep is even better.

Yeah, but no way really to do that for a theatrical release. You can have a Part 1 and a Part 2 spaced a year+ apart if the total length is 3 1/2 to 4 hours a la Dune. That's not what you're asking for though.

Action movies try to keep your attention with ear-splitting volume levels instead.

It's incredibly difficult to keep a viewers attention for 3 hours without them taking a single break, even if they are compelling. I was starting to get antsy in general around the 2h 30m mark.

Agreed. Went to watch Mission Impossible, i pulled out my phone once right at the beginning to put it on silent. My friend might have checked his phone three times for any texts/time maybe.

All I'd like to add to this conversation is a request to not treat all humans as "the average human" as deduced by any scientific study.

I must admit that the fifth vibration finally got me to check my phone during Oppenheimer. Bio pics are generally accepted to have long run times compared to action flicks though.

> Very, very few action movies need to be more than 100min.

I’ve read somewhere that blockbuster movies are trending longer at the moment, because people are ever less willing to pay the high prices for cinema tickets, drinks and snacks, so movie studios need to offer a really big experience to make it seem worthwhile.

While I watched a lot of films on the big screen at school (I was involved in the film group), over the years I've watched fewer and fewer. These days my maybe once a year criterion is whether it's something I'd want to see in IMAX if I could. Though I'm not sure how much length has to do with it.

I'm honestly surprised that movie theaters have come back to such a degree. I suppose the lesson is that the pandemic didn't really change things all that much--certainly not to the degree a lot of people expected. Even more flexible work arrangements, much less fully remote work, is mostly in some bubbles.

This is true but it's getting to be too much. I want to see Oppenheimer in theatres but 3 hours plus travel is just killing it for me.

Don't forget the ads. They have gotten obnoxiously long. The last time I went, the ads for products and trailers went on for 45 minutes with an intermission so they can sell ice cream and snacks. I haven't been to the movies since.

Years ago I went with a friend to see Transformers. He is an absolute massive Transformers fan, so he insisted that we arrive no later than an hour before the movie would start. Me and my girlfriend meet up with him and a few other 90 minutes before, got our tickets, went for dinner and arrived about when the commercials ended and the trailers started. My friend was completely out of it, in his mind we missed part of the experience. I think he's the kind of customers the movies want.

For me, I just get my ticket in advance and show up about 20 minutes late, seems to work out fine.

I bought a projector and a popcorn machine, haven't been to the movies since.

I have those and it doesn't compete with IMAX and cinema sound, so I still go to the movies.

You can't pause or rewind a movie. For that reason alone I would never go, and only watch at home.

are you able to distinguish the quality from watching on a high quality TV?

I 100% can. I also do not care, cause ability to pause matters more.

What kind of a projector?

I mean not that many films that I really want to watch come out per year, so if Oppenheimer is 3hs instead of 2hs or whatever then let it be; I'd rather spend one more hour at the theater and watch the movie knowing the director didn't need to cut an hour off the film.

(Although I do have to say Oppenheimer got somewhat tedious in certain parts)

take your time and watch das boot director cut

> Very, very few action movies need to be more than 100min.

Not to mention an action scene gets really really boring after about 2min. Just more and more of the same. Then add the usual hyperactive editing popular in modern blockbusters and it's like "Yo can you slow down a little? I'd like to actually see a punch happen sometimes"

They're just bad now. You never get bored in Die Hard or a Jackie Chan flick.

Pretty sure most films made in 1988 were also bad.

Sure, most of everything is bad. But there were good ones, a lot of them. Especially in the late 80s and 90s.