Americans have settled on a perfect length for a movie, and it comes in just under an hour and a half. Asked to name their ideal runtime, 2,000 U.S. adults landed on an average of 88 minutes, according to new survey data.
That preference sets up an awkward summer at the multiplex. Many of the season's biggest titles run far longer than 88 minutes, and Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey," at 172 minutes, comes close to doubling it. A moviegoer who buys a ticket expecting a brisk night out could end up sitting through nearly three hours instead.
Appetite for long films looks to be fading, too. The same question was asked in 2024 and got a slightly higher answer back then, 92 minutes, meaning the ideal has dropped by four minutes in two years.
Only a small slice of moviegoers wants to sit still for a long feature. Just 10% of respondents picked two hours or longer as their ideal, and a mere 3% said a film should run past two and a half hours. For most people, the sweet spot sits comfortably under 90 minutes.
Something is nudging the ideal lower, though the poll did not set out to measure what. A shorter attention span and the habit of watching at home, where a film can be paused or split across sittings, are plausible explanations, but the survey records only the preference, not its cause.
None of this means people have stopped enjoying movies. Rather, the appetite seems to be for stories that get in, land their point, and get out. An 88-minute average leaves little room for a slow first act or a drawn-out finale, the kind of padding that has crept into plenty of modern releases.
Age turned out to be the clearest divide in the data. Boomers proved the most patient viewers, naming 93 minutes as their ideal, the only group to clear the 90-minute line. Every younger generation wanted less.
Gen Xers settled at 89 minutes and millennials at 86. Gen Z came in shortest of all, averaging just 82 minutes. Lined up side by side, the pattern is tidy: the younger the audience, the shorter the film they say they want.
That gap of 11 minutes between boomers and Gen Z might not sound like a canyon, but it captures a real difference in habits. Older viewers grew up when a trip to the theater was the main event of an evening. Younger ones came of age with a library of short clips a thumb-swipe away, and their ideal runtime reflects it.
Reality at the box office looks nothing like that 88-minute wish. Nearly everything on the summer calendar asks for more. Nolan's "The Odyssey" tops the list at 172 minutes, an 84-minute overage that nearly doubles what audiences asked for.
Whether Hollywood takes the hint is another matter. Studios keep filling the summer calendar with long event films even as audiences report wanting something shorter.
A couple of caveats are worth keeping in mind. Respondents reported an "ideal" runtime, a subjective and hypothetical number, so the survey measures stated preference rather than actual viewing behavior or ticket-buying. The two-year drop from 92 to 88 minutes also reflects two snapshots, not a continuous trend line.
Still, the survey lands a clear message from the seats. For now, the gap between an 88-minute wish and a 172-minute epic captures a plain tension: audiences keep asking for less, and the summer slate keeps serving more.