‘Ideal’ movie running time is 92 minutes, poll claims

Well, including the definition of self-indulgence doesn't seem to have helped to make sure everyone understood it.

Another way to understand self-indulgence in film is that it effectively impedes a movie from being a good artistic statement. A good artist doesn't need to become self-indulgent to turn out a great film; on the contrary, becoming self-indulgent would effectively destroy any chance that such filmmaker could make a great film.

Good art, simply put, is not about wallowing in excess.

The unfortunate part of the situation with some new streamers is that they don't really care if some of their movies actually don't make any money, as we have just seen Apple throwing away hundreds of millions for the bragging rights to the new Scorsese and Ridley Scott movies, despite the fact they lost a bundle with their theatrical release (and most likely will never turn a profit).

If you're an esteemed filmmaker and you know Apple will gladly give you $300m for your movie, despite the fact not many people will turn out to the theater, well that's a sure-fire recipe for self-indulgence. The filmmaker then had to make sure that money is spent, whether the movie needed it or not.

The fact that you think Killers of the Flower Moon was wildly self indulgent, and include Once Upon a Time in America as one that isn't self indulgent, says all I need to know about how little you grasp what we are talking about here.


Leone is a consistently more indulgent filmmaker than Scorsese is. Just because you were engaged with OUATIA more than Flower Moon doesn't mean that one wasn't indulgent.


But whatever. Hit me with your dictionary again, please. Illuminating stuff you've been hearing from that Mr. Webster.

While exceptions abound, I'd say as a silent film buff that 92 minutes is about right for most (not all!) flickers.

Dreyer's restored Passion clocks in around this time, so what more can one really say?

They say you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make 'im drink...

PS: Judd Apatow.

This guy does the impossible, making COMEDIES that are generally over 2 hours long, and I always feel like they could have been longer.

Breaks every rule in the book, but when you have Leslie Mann running around in front of your camera, time stops & rolling on the floor as you gasp for breath is always imminent!

The problem with "self indulgent" is that, like a lot of expressions in English, truth of any sort, as my English teacher used to say, depends on whose ox is being gored. I defy anybody to make a defensible logical distinction between "authentic vision" and "self indulgent". One of my worlds is the local art scene, where those two mix constantly, and again, the distinction is really difficult, but with much smaller amounts of money on the table than making a movie, so nobody really cares. Generally, it's a pointless distinction since what the gallery wants to know is whether you like it and whether you're willing to buy it, they have 200 objects on walls and whatever doesn't sell goes back to the artist in a couple weeks. Cynics would say that all artists are self-indulgent narcissists, but if the object might look good in the dining room, I'll pay for it.

Soooooo, I guess, the main question, when it comes to the movie world, what IS the difference between Vision and Self Indulgence? I admit that I'm punting on that distinction myself. I've known enough artists in other fields that, IMO, they're circles that overlap by about 90%, in fact, for artists I have known, part of their difficulty in sales is that they don't stop to ask whether anybody else would actually like this, since that would defeat their authentic vision. It all gets more difficult for movies since the amount of money is exponentially larger and you do actually have financial backers who are concerned about money.

Once you get into multi-million dollar budgets with money from corporate entities who have to report back to owners and stock holders, a LOT of it is going to be about money.

Exactly how many bland platitudes and word definitions do you expect this horse to be drinking?


Sorry buddy, this horse is already on to whiskey. But stick around, he might need some of your boring ass water by morning time when that's the only stuff it can stomach.

I can see discussion here is starting to wane. However kudos to skizzerflake's last post...I had started a post very similar (but not as well written) then my computer ate it. All I was going to say was: What is a self indulgent film maker or self indulgent movie? Is Wes Anderson self indulgent? What about Woody Allen?

Ideal for me during the week is 90 min to 120 minutes long.
During the weekend or a day off (holidays for example) anywhere from 2 1/2 hours on up

Short films I can watch at any point and en masse

Also, if you concern yourself too much with running time you will miss out on some great films.
If you concern yourself with not watching films that are “self indulgent” you will also miss out on some great films. Those are usually the most interesting regardless if they fail or not. Regardless if run time.

A self indulgent filmmaker can be considered all sorts of things, and I already touched on this. Self indulgence is frequently inseparable or close to inseparable from what an artist says and how they say it


What the term is generally used as though is more sinister. It is a way to look down on a film that doesn't comply with what a general audience wants. And what this audience wants is usually primarily storytelling and the handful of ways it is considered appropriate to tell one.


So in short, people who cry foul on self indulgence believe an artist should conform to their whims. An artist isn't their to express themselves, unless it is conventionally entertaining. It is meant to keep alternative voices quiet. It is meant to make people who feel a movie didn't speak directly to them, that this was a movie that was arrogant. It is meant to bring a movie down if it dares to confuse a viewer or make them feel like they didn't understand something, because how dare a movie make them feel like they might not be up to the task of that movie.


It's basically a word that tries to keep artworks stagnant, and remain forever placating the ego and needs of the majority.

That is an almost laughably self-contradictory statement. It is practically saying that any artist with an identifiable voice is self-indulgent, which is a completely bonkers thing to say.

I don't know anyone who uses the term in such a "sinister" way. Also, there are all kinds of ways in which filmmakers constantly change the traditional storytelling technique and they are not immediately considered 'self-indulgent'. Films like The Graduate in 1967 and Pulp Fiction in 1994 were considered fairly innovative in the way their narrative techniques; they may seem less "fresh" today because they've been copied so often.

I don't know of anyone who has done that.

I think there are a lot of wonderful movies that challenge viewer's expectations in all kinds of awesome ways and they are not self-indulgent in any way, shape or form.

Art should never be stagnant, but a self-indulgent film is almost invariably a good gauge of whether or not a filmmaker themself has become stagnant.

You seem to be interpreting "self-indulgent" in a very different way from virtually anyone else I know who has ever used to term to describe a film. It's not a word that is bandied about just because a filmmaker is being innovative or challenging some storytelling trope - those are all good things, and should be actively encouraged, if not by the moviegoing masses, then certainly by film enthusiasts and scholars.

Just to throw out an idea out there, would Erich von Stroheim's original 8-hour long cut of Greed be considered a self-indulgent movie?

I mean, nobody who got to watch that version of the film is alive today, and since the complete version has been forever lost, perhaps nobody can know with 100% certainty... but it is certainly possible that it was at least a bit self-indulgent. That does not necessarily mean it would have been unwatchable, but in 1924, it was certainly unreleasable.

And so what we have in the truncated version is certainly a wonderful film, but it does make the serious film scholar wonder what it would have been like to watch the complete 8-hour version. Even if it was a self-indulgent affair, it still could have been a more interesting film than anything else that was released in 1924.

Cool and thanks.

Agree 'self indulgent' would primarily be used in the derogatory sense. However I don't feel that's necessarily a bad thing per say as it expounds, to some degree, on how one person feels about a movie. I liked Heaven's Gate, but it is in my mind a good example of a self indulgent movie...It might be more accurate to say the director Michael Cimeno was self indulgent. From what I read, it sounds like Cimeno would be described clinically as having OCD.

Do people literally say that an artist should conform to their whims? I can't recall too many post where someone has said that. They might have said, I wish the film was different, but that only speaks to type of film they like.

I'll respect that you feel that way. I feel opposite. I feel that it's more than fair for a viewer/consumer of a movie to use a verbal sledge hammer if they didn't dig the movie. If an artist isn't to be constrained in their vision, then the audience shouldn't be constrained in their viewpoints of said art.

I understand negative wording of art or movies could upset you, but I'm sure nothing any of us ever say on this board is going to influence a film maker in any way.

When I think of what a lot of people call self indulgent movies, I think the film maker was going for grandiose. We could call that 'showing off' but then most all greatness comes from showing off in one way or another. However that doesn't mean showing off make one great. OK back to work for me.

A movie can be grandiose without being self-indulgent. But the problem with "grandiose" is knowing when a story needs it and when it doesn't.

I recently re-watched The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974)
It's 104 minutes long.
Pacing is excellent and seems to go by very quickly.
I almost felt sorry it seemed to end so quickly, yet if it were longer it would probably receive my usual criticism: too long.