Inflation at the movies: Runtimes are longer, from 'The Odyssey' to 'You Can See Everything'

Your bladder isn’t lying. Movies are getting longer.All kinds of films, from big-budget spectacles to art house dramas, are stretching their runtimes. It’s an old saying that a short movie can feel long and a long movie can feel short. But data, not just bathroom runs, shows that runtime inflation is real at the movies.After analyzing 36,431 movies released theatrically from 1980 to 2025, researcher Stephen Follows found that the average length of a wide-release movie has grown from 106 to 114 minutes.For most who frequent the movie theater, this isn’t surprising. It’s become a regular feature of the prerelease anticipation of a movie: How long is it? When the official runtime of “The Odyssey” was released (173 minutes), for some it was as if Christopher Nolan had laid down a challenge as intimidating as the Cyclops. But there’s little evidence that long runtimes are dissuading moviegoers. They may even be a draw. “The Odyssey” is the second-highest grossing movie of the year, with $1.