Maybe we’re crazy, but there’s nothing better than getting comfortable for a really long movie.
A movie that’s three hours or more might seem like a daunting thing to sit through — and it is, if the movie is bad.
But if the movie is a masterpiece, then that runtime just flies by. You may even wish it had been longer.
Watch With Us pulled together a list of what we think are the very best movies clocking in at a runtime of at least three hours.
From Killers of the Flower Moon to Magnolia, here are the very best, very long movies.
5. ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ (2023)
Based on David Grann’s best-selling nonfiction book, Killers of the Flower Moon surrounds the murders of members of the Osage Nation in 1920s Oklahoma over their oil money. When oil is discovered on Osage land, the Native American people become extremely wealthy, but ruling prejudice and xenophobia deem them “unfit” to be in charge of their own money, leading them to require white legal guardians. Osage members start turning up dead, including the members of Mollie Burkheart’s (Lily Gladstone) family. Little does she know, her white husband Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio) is directly involved in the killings — and Mollie’s life is at risk, too.
Clocking in at a whopping 206 minutes, Martin Scorsese‘s chilling, damning chronicle of this horrific chapter in American history still somehow doesn’t feel long enough to depict the scale of the story at hand. Still, Killers of the Flower Moon is a riveting and sensitive take on a ghastly tragedy, helmed with aplomb by Gladstone in her mainstream breakout performance. Teeming with existential dread and rich in meticulous detail, the film shows Scorsese’s craft is only strengthened with age.
4. ‘Magnolia’ (1999)
In this sweeping mosaic of stories, we follow the interconnected lives of different people searching for truth, love, acceptance and happiness in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. Among our characters in Magnolia are Linda Partridge (Julianne Moore), the trophy wife of television producer Earl Partridge (Jason Robards), who is battling terminal cancer; Claudia Wilson (Melora Waters), the emotionally unstable, coke-addicted daughter of game show host Jimmy Gator (Phillip Baker Hall); Frank T.J. Mackey (Tom Cruise), a misogynistic motivational speaker and Earl’s only son; and former quiz kid Donnie Smith (William H. Macy), whose glory days are long behind him.
Paul Thomas Anderson‘s ambitious, 189-minute tapestry of character drama is imperfect, but it’s those very imperfections that make it such a singular viewing experience. Maximalist, melodramatic, strange and tear-jerking, Magnolia manages to be excessive and overwrought in all the best ways. At one point, we used to just let directors take a check and do whatever they wanted, and the results were sometimes Magnolias – and shouldn’t we want more of them? Swinging for the fences is something of an art form.
3. ‘The Deer Hunter’ (1978)
In 1968, lifelong Pittsburgh natives and friends Michael (Robert De Niro), Nick (Christopher Walken) and Steven (John Savage) prepare to leave the safety of their working-class town and ship out to Vietnam. After one final group hunting trip and Steven’s marriage to Angela (Rutanya Alda), the friends set off to fulfill their ambitions of military honor. But when the men arrive, they realize that the reality of war isn’t gold medals and blazes of glory; it’s blood, carnage, savagery and inhumanity. Their experience changes their lives and minds forever, with one of them so haunted that he refuses to ever come back home.
Dark, austere and utterly gripping, The Deer Hunter was an awards darling, receiving nine Academy Award nominations and taking home four — including Best Picture. Confident and sympathetic direction from Michael Cimino provides a steady hand to this tragic ship, with De Niro, Meryl Streep and Walken (who received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor) giving career-best work. The Deer Hunter manages a gripping balancing act of tonal shifts, heavy subject matter and perfect pacing for a 184-minute film.
2. ‘Oppenheimer’ (2023)
Using a nonlinear narrative structure, Christopher Nolan charts the life and career of the father of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), over the span of three hours exactly. From Oppenheimer’s time finishing his PhD in physics at the University of Göttingen, to “I am become death, destroyer of worlds” and accusations of Communist sympathies following the atomic bomb’s creation, Nolan paints a portrait of a deeply flawed, fascinating man, whose quest to save the world turned into regret over its possible destruction. An ensemble film with a massive cast, Oppenheimer includes Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Josh Hartnett and Emily Blunt.
Nolan managed to take a biodrama in which men talk to each other in different rooms and turn it into an epic worthy of IMAX screens. Indeed, the movie’s success as the highest-grossing biodrama and fourth-highest-grossing R-rated film of all time proves that audiences are craving an engagingly made story made for adults. With a rapid-fire pace that feels like an endless montage sequence, Academy Award-worthy performances from Murphy, engrossing sound design, infectious score and ravishing cinematography, Oppenheimer was one of 2024’s best films and Nolan’s crowning triumph.
1. ‘Th
e Godfather Part II’ (1974)
The story of the Corleone family continues in The Godfather Part II, one of those rare sequel movies that is by and large considered superior to the first film. Serving as the first major movie role for a young De Niro, The Godfather Part II contrasts the stories of father and son, Michael (Al Pacino) and Vito (De Niro). The movie alternates back and forth between Michael’s present as the new Don of the Corleone mafia family, attempting to protect his family from enemies, and Vito’s past as an Italian immigrant in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City, establishing his powerful crime syndicate.
The Godfather Part II has maintained its status as “the greatest gangster film ever made” even more than 50 years after it came out, and it is unmistakable that the film is just as fresh (if not more so) than many modern films. Despite the fact that the film clinched a Best Picture win at the 1975 Academy Awards, its critical estimation has managed to grow more and more as the years have gone on. With a riveting narrative structure charting Michael’s moral decay against his father’s rise to power, expansion of the film’s original themes, compelling direction, legendary performances and expressive cinematography, The Godfather Part II remains a masterful blend of popcorn entertainment and artistry that doesn’t feel like it’s 200 minutes long.
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