Poll Claims Americans Prefer 92 Minutes for ‘Ideal’ Movie Running Time

The perfect movie length is 92 minutes — at least, according to a new study.

Market research company Talker Research released the results of their poll on Wednesday, April 24. The study was conducted online from April 3 to April 8, with 2,000 American adults participating. 

Of those, only two percent surveyed “thought a movie should be longer than two and a half hours,” per the study. Instead, 92 minutes — just over an hour and a half — was determined “as the ideal average length.”

Furthermore, only 15 percent of those polled “want to sit through a movie that’s two hours or longer.” And 23 percent said that in the previous 60 days, they had “reluctantly sat through three or more” movies “that they felt were too long.” 

In a similar study from data and business intelligence platform Statista in 2022, also polling around 2,000 Americans over age 18, 48 percent claimed they prefer two-hour movies, whereas 28 percent preferred hour-and-a-half movies. 

The new data seems to contradict box office history, especially considering three of the four highest-grossing films of all time — 1997’s Titanic, 2019’s Avengers: Endgame and 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water — have a run time of over three hours. The 2019 remake of The Lion King, at just under two hours, is the only movie on the list of highest earners that comes close to 92 minutes. 

Looking at last year’s box office champions, top-grosser Barbie similarly came in at just under two hours. Best Picture Oscar winner Oppenheimer, 2023’s third-highest champ and a record-breaker for the biggest biopic of all time, clocks in at exactly three hours. 

Interestingly, last year’s second-biggest success, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, hit Talker Research’s “ideal” length at exactly 92 minutes. So do such box office smashes as 1998’s Beetlejuice, 2004’s Dodgeball and 2008’s Kung Fu Panda.

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Despite audiences’ apparent distaste for long movies, a study published last year by the website What to Watch proved that hit films are getting longer. It looked strictly at the box office success of recent decades, determining that the average movie length has increased from 110 minutes in 1981 to 141 minutes in 2022. The biggest hit of 2024 so far is Dune: Part Two, which almost reaches the three-hour mark. 

Of course, moviegoing has changed significantly in that time, particularly thanks to the rise of streaming content and the COVID-19 pandemic impacting turnout at cinemas. Streaming data remains difficult to track down and it’s unclear if new studies reflect big-screen movie experiences, at-home viewing or both. 

Talker Research’s poll further asked participants about subtitles in film. Whether to watch with or without subtitles at home is a “total non-issue” for 77 percent, while 15 percent said it’s a “hotly debated topic in their household.” Younger generations, meanwhile, are more likely to “always” watch movies with subtitles.