How long should a movie usually be? Two hours is pretty much the norm. Three is OK if the movie really earns it. But four or more? That's got to be something really special when you consider the effects on audiences' bladders. But sometimes, the time investment really is worth it. These behemoths, some of which run well over four hours, deserve all the time they take. Some were originally TV miniseries or released in multiple parts before being cut together into a single film. Others are extended cuts of films with shorter theatrical releases. And some were just made that long. From historical epics to sprawling superhero stories to fantasy masterpieces, these movies that run over four hours are worth every minute.
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00:00Although most movies run for a couple of hours, some are just so epic that they deserve a
00:05runtime twice as long, or more.
00:07So block out a few weeks on your calendar, get cozy, and enjoy.
00:10These are the best films ever made that are over four hours long.
00:14The 1963 historical epic Cleopatra begins shortly after the Roman emperor Julius Caesar
00:20wins a massive civil war.
00:22Arriving in Egypt, he meets and falls in love with Cleopatra, daughter of the pharaoh, with
00:26devastating consequences for Caesar, Egypt, and the entire Roman Empire.
00:31Over the course of the movie, Cleopatra's crowned queen of Egypt has a child with Caesar
00:35and is eventually forced to pick sides when Rome is divided after the assassination of
00:39her lover.
00:40Initially angered that her son, Caesarion, was not chosen to succeed him, Cleopatra is
00:44given another chance to interfere with Roman affairs when Mark Antony approaches her and
00:49asks for supplies in his war against the would-be emperor, Octavian.
00:54Plenty of backstabbings and bloody battles ensue, and while let's just say, things don't
00:58turn out well for Antony or Cleopatra.
01:01It's not that often that you can say a four-hour film might be too short, but that may well
01:05be the case with Cleopatra.
01:07The only real problem with this film is that virtually every chapter of the real Cleopatra's
01:12life could fill out an entire miniseries, and director Joseph L. Mankiewicz tried to
01:16stuff most of it into his movie.
01:19So you gotta give him credit for trying, and creating a straight-up masterpiece in the
01:22process.
01:24If you were skeptical that the long-awaited so-called Snyder Cut of 2017's Justice League
01:29would live up to the insane levels of hype it generated, you weren't alone.
01:33Snyder's filmography is generally hit-or-miss, and although there has been the occasional
01:36bright spot, the DC Extended Universe has mostly been something of a disappointment,
01:41especially in comparison to the far more successful Marvel Cinematic Universe.
01:45As such, all the signs were pointing to a Snyder Cut that was only superficially different
01:49from, but not better than, the so-so theatrical release.
01:53And boy, were those signs wrong.
01:55Zack Snyder's Justice League isn't exactly Dark Knight brilliant by any means, but it's
01:59a truly worthy superhero team-up outing nonetheless, and a significant improvement over the original
02:05version.
02:06I don't care how many demons he's fought and how many hells, he's never fought us, not
02:11us united.
02:13It's also a triumph for Snyder and his fans, who fought tooth and nail to get this version
02:17of the film released after years of being the butt of superhero movie jokes, and putting
02:22up with destructive creative meddling from the studio.
02:25In the end, the release of this four-hour epic turned out to be one of Hollywood's greatest
02:29redemption stories.
02:30Each of the three parts of the 2010 French-German film Carlos is longer than the one before
02:36it, and they're all the length of an entire movie.
02:38The story follows the exploits of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, otherwise known as Carlos the Jackal,
02:43a real-life political terrorist who committed multiple violent acts in Europe on behalf
02:47of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
02:51Part one follows Sanchez as he fights alongside militants in the Middle East before moving
02:55to London and then Paris, taking part in multiple killings and bombings along the way.
02:59The chapter ends with him adopting the name Carlos and escaping capture by the French
03:03police.
03:04Part two focuses on a single real-life terrorist attack staged by Carlos in which he kidnapped
03:09multiple OPAC officials, but then released some after being unable to find any countries
03:14in which he could seek asylum.
03:15This part ends with him becoming an agent for hire for a number of nation-states and
03:19setting out to work within the Soviet sphere of influence.
03:23Part three, the longest of all, follows Carlos' continuing operations in Eastern Europe, exploiting
03:27the geopolitical instability in the region to traffic arms between various clients and
03:32sponsor states.
03:33Perhaps, inevitably, the movie ends with his 1994 arrest by French intelligence agents.
03:39Sound like a lot?
03:40Well, it is, which is why Carlos, which was originally a TV miniseries, clocks in at a
03:45truly impressive five and a half hours.
03:48Gettysburg, the made-for-TV epic about the Civil War battle of the same name, shouldn't
03:52work half as well as it does.
03:54The decision to cast re-enactors with their own uniforms and gear may sound like a no-brainer,
03:59until you realize that the re-enactors don't tend to look much like scrawny teenagers who
04:03actually fought in the battles the movie depicts.
04:06On top of that, the action is bloodless, the cinematography felt unimaginative and dated
04:10even in 1993, and you can very nearly see the strings holding up those goofy fake beards.
04:16And then, of course, there's the fact that the director's cut goes on for four and a
04:20half hours.
04:21And yet, somehow, the movie manages to be more than worth a watch.
04:25Randy Elderman's score is one of the most underrated of the 90s, and the main cast give
04:30career-defining performances.
04:32Jeff Daniels gives one of his best as Colonel Chamberlain, whose regiment is forced to defend
04:36Little Round Top against seemingly impossible odds.
04:40Tom Barringer does a winning turn as Longstreet, while Richard Jordan gives a haunting performance
04:44as the Confederate officer Low Armistead.
04:47In the end, against all odds, Gettysburg actually shines.
04:51The epic 1984 crime movie Once Upon a Time in America is the final entry in Italian director
04:56Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time trilogy.
04:59Set in 1918, it follows two petty criminals who lead a group of youngsters from the slums
05:04of Manhattan's Jewish ghetto to prominence in the world of organized crime.
05:08Naturally, this movie has all the mainstays of classic gangster cinema — extreme violence,
05:13thick New York accents, drug use, unscrupulous characters, and Joe Pesci.
05:17Unfortunately, studio meddling undermined Once Upon a Time's chances at the United States
05:22box office.
05:23The Ladd Company, which produced and distributed the movie, was spooked by the initial six-hour,
05:28two-part release that Leone had premiered in Europe, and trimmed it down to 139 minutes
05:33without his consent or involvement.
05:35Inevitably, critics and audiences alike disliked this shortened release, and the movie pretty
05:39much bombed at the box office.
05:41Nowadays, at least, the full version of Once Upon a Time in America enjoys a much more
05:46favorable reputation with critics and audiences, leading to this film becoming yet another
05:50cautionary tale of the perils of unwelcome studio interference.
05:55Kenneth Branagh's adaptions of the works of William Shakespeare are some of the most popular
05:59and critically acclaimed to date, and one of the best of all is 1996's Hamlet.
06:03A word-for-word recreation of the original play, this movie's cast is, by far, its finest
06:08asset.
06:09"'Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio.'"
06:18Branagh's turn as Prince Hamlet is obviously the heart of the movie, but Derek Jacoby's
06:23performance as King Claudius, killer of Hamlet's father and the story's primary antagonist,
06:28is just as memorable.
06:29In fact, pretty much every actor in Hamlet has a good go at stealing the show, although
06:33perhaps the most surprising is the young, pre-Titanic Kate Winslet, who plays Ophelia.
06:39Branagh has made a handful of tweaks and alterations to the original play, of course, most notably
06:43the 19th century setting and the inclusion of a number of flashbacks.
06:48But Hamlet still manages to pull these off without losing any of the magic of Shakespeare's
06:52original play.
06:53Overall, this movie more than justifies its four-hour runtime.
06:57The long-running artistic collaboration between Hungarian director Béla Tár and novelist
07:02László Krász-Nehorkai came to a head in 1994 with Schatantango.
07:08This seven-hour, twelve-chapter behemoth of a film follows the exploits of the slick-tongued
07:13Eurimius who arrives at a small farming commune in the final days of communism and, after
07:17promising them good fortunes in a wondrous new land, ends up making off with all their
07:23money.
07:24It would be nigh-on impossible to even go into the many, many characters and plot developments
07:28that feature throughout Schatantango.
07:31All you need to know is that it's widely considered one of the best films ever made, boasts a
07:35rare 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and is widely regarded as a masterpiece of Eastern European
07:41cinema.
07:42The 2003 Italian historical drama The Best of Youth follows Nicola and Matteo Caratti,
07:47two brothers from Rome who are forced to navigate the difficulties of life in post-World War
07:52II Italy.
07:53After a flood in Florence, Nicola marries Giulia, a pianist and political extremist,
07:57before entering into the field of psychiatry.
07:59Meanwhile, Matteo joins up with the police and tries to right society's wrongs with brute
08:04force before meeting and falling in love with Mirella, a starry-eyed photographer.
08:08Over the course of the film's six-and-a-half-hour runtime, these four characters survive floods,
08:13violence, and extreme political turbulence as they discover all kinds of truths about
08:17themselves and each other.
08:19Like many other super-long films, director Marco Tolio Giordano originally wanted The
08:23Best of Youth to be a TV miniseries.
08:26Instead, it was given a theatrical premiere at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, where critics
08:31overlooked its punishing runtime to give it widespread acclaim, as well as the coveted
08:35prix en sautant regard.
08:38If there's such a thing as a Holocaust movie for the faint of heart, it's probably not
08:42worth watching.
08:43Still, few of them are quite so gut-wrenching, haunting, terrifying, enraging, and unforgettable
08:48as Shoah, French director Claude Lanzmann's nine-hour documentary.
08:51In his movie, Lanzmann examines every last detail of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe
08:56beginning in the Warsaw Ghetto, a tiny district where that city's Jewish population was corralled
09:01by Nazi occupiers before being shipped off to concentration camps.
09:05Shoah's story also delves into the horrors of the labor and extermination camps themselves
09:09— the millions of Jews, communists, Roma, and other so-called undesirables who were
09:13imprisoned and killed in them, the administrators and soldiers who ran them, and the civilians
09:18who lived nearby.
09:19Perhaps most shockingly of all, however, is Shoah's exploration of the banality of the
09:23evil that characterized the Nazis' crimes.
09:25Although the movie doesn't really touch on Holocaust denial, many of the people interviewed
09:29for the documentary still refuse to take responsibility for their roles in the Holocaust.
09:33It's moments like these that help make Lanzmann's movie not just an incredibly uncomfortable
09:38watch, to say the least, but a truly essential one, too.
09:42As if its 11 Oscar wins weren't proof enough, 2003's Lord of the Rings, The Return of the
09:46King is one of the most critically acclaimed and popular movies of all time.
09:50It's one of those films where each re-watch makes you fall in love a little harder, in
09:54which every last scene is shot, performed, and scored to perfection.
09:57As for the film's finest moments, where do you even start?
10:04There's the tragedy of the fall of Asgiliath, in which Faramir leads his remaining men on
10:08a chaotic retreat back to Minas Tirith.
10:11There's Pippin's song performed for a feasting Denethor as Faramir rides back to Asgiliath
10:16on a suicide mission.
10:17There's The Lightning of the Beacons, Gandalf's recollection of the afterlife, Iowan's battle
10:22against the Witch-King, Frodo and Sam's climb up Mount Doom, the battle at the Black Gate,
10:27and perhaps most famously of all, the ride of the Rohirrim, which might be the most fist-pumping,
10:32beautiful, edge-of-your-seat battle sequence ever put to film.
10:35The theatrical version of The Return of the King only actually runs for about three and
10:39a half hours, but the extended edition adds on a whole heap more, including the death
10:43of Saruman, Gandalf's confrontation with the Witch-King, and the hero's confrontation with
10:48the Mouth of Sauron.
10:49Now, some say this version of the film is over-stopped.
10:51Heck, some people think, the theatrical releases.
10:55But the truth is that the extended version of The Return of the King represents the very
10:58best of Peter Jackson's momentous, beautiful, and epic Lord of the Rings trilogy.