What Is the BEST Movie Under 90 Minutes?

 

Part One

Time is everything. Knowing we only have so much time is both a superpower and a form of kryptonite for the human race. When I am limited on time, I get stressed out, and thinking about what to do with my free time can be stressful, too. I know I’m not the only one. I suppose a moment when I was contemplating this conundrum inspired the idea to make a list of the best short movies. It then evolved from there into what I am about to embark on: a multi-part series exploring many great films across numerous genres, and pitting them against one another, to determine what movie, exactly, is the best of all-time with a runtime shorter than ninety minutes.

There are many arguments about what constitutes “feature-length” runtime when it comes to films. I have always asserted that a movie should be no less than an hour as an absolute minimum for it to count as a movie. While some believe modern feature length must be greater than seventy-nine minutes, according to many organizations that stand as “experts” in the field, such as the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, a film must only run for more than forty minutes for it to count as feature-length. That seems too generous to me, but I won’t argue. The shortest movie I can think of made in the 21^st century that I have watched is ThanksKilling, at 66 minutes—which barely counts as a real movie, anyway, and it wasn’t widely released in theatres. Usually, if a new movie is released in theatres and the runtime is on the shorter side, it isn’t less than eighty minutes.

It's a relevant question to ask: what are some of the best movies that are under 90 minutes? Lately, the problem of movies being too long has become a generalized complaint among critics and audiences. A couple related facts that are found quite easily online are, 1) the average shot length (time the camera stays focused on something before cutting to a different shot) has gone down from the old average of about 10 seconds to just about 2 seconds, meaning images move and change much quicker than they used to, and 2) the average runtimes for the highest grossing films of the year have increased in recent years. There was a study done a couple years ago published in The Guardian with this interesting result: the ideal film length was deemed to be 92 minutes. There are some movies that don’t need to be as long as they are, for sure, but I don’t feel that everything is too long now. If we look back at the 1950s and 1960s—the era of epic films like Lawrence of Arabia and Ben-Hur and Cleopatra—those movies are too long, but they’re also great! Ultimately, a movie should be as long as it needs to be.

For me, I find the ideal runtime for action/adventure/sci-fi/drama is, more often than not, precisely two hours. Jurassic Park, Jaws, Back to the Future, Alien, and the original Star Wars are all very close in length. For a horror/thriller or comedy, 90 minutes is all you need, give or take. I’m not looking at the give part of that here, though, I’m looking at the take. Let’s take it down below 90 minutes and see what movies we are left with. The results might surprise you! 

 

The Challenge Begins

At first I thought I would just gather up all the movies I could think of that were under 90 minutes, briefly explain each one, and then pick which one is the best overall. I quickly realized that would not be possible, because there are so many movies that are under 90 minutes. Not only that, but there are so many exceptional movies, in multiple genres. How can I really pick just one over so many others in genres completely different from one another? I can’t. That is why this is going to be a meticulously arranged process. I will work my way through several different genres, identifying all the examples I think are the best in those genres that are under 90 minutes, and pick several winners from each. Then, those winners will all go up against one another in a series of elimination rounds, and I will finally crown one movie the winner: the greatest movie of all time that’s under 90 minutes!

There will be upsets. There may even be tears. Each genre has some tough competitors. There will be many movies throughout that might seem to have been forgotten. Trust the process! I verified the runtimes of dozens of movies to make sure I didn’t miss any. There may be some missing that I simply missed, or have not seen, or do not think should be considered “best” so this will not be an unbiased exploration. But, I will try to include all movies worth a mention at the very least for each genre. This is a celebration as much as it is a competition. Bias is inescapable, but I will give each film featured in each round a fair shot, with details and comparisons provided before coming to any conclusions. This might be my most challenging blog series yet, but I am going to have fun with it and stick with it until I have determined which film, in all of film history, stands out as the best one amid a very special mix of short feature length motion pictures.  

Tune in next time for part two: the first genre under examination and the first round of eliminations!