Movies Under 90 Minutes Part 10: Conclusion

 

Part Ten:

The Finals - The Best Movie Under 90 Minutes of All-Time is…?

 

Welcome to the grand conclusion of this series, as I not only crown one film the greatest of all time with a runtime of less than 90 minutes, but look back on the many movies throughout the competition that did not earn that title, though deserve further recognition just the same. 

First of all, I want to include a bunch of movies that I failed to mention at all in the genre eliminations, because for as much research as I did, I still left out so, so many good movies that were under 90 minutes, and some I neglected consciously, but a few I genuinely just missed, because there are way too many movies out there for one man to see! Christopher Nolan’s first movie, a black-and-white indie thriller called Following (1998), is only 70 minutes, and while it’s not one of his all-time best, it’s certainly his best movie that’s under 90 minutes…but then again, it’s also his only one. You know which comedy troupe has more than one movie shorter than 90 minutes? The Marx Brothers! I only mentioned Duck Soup, which is cited as their best comedic film, but they made other ones before that which were just as short, such as Horse Feathers (1932), and some hilarity historians identify other films of theirs as still holding up, too.

I didn’t cover that many short releases from more recent years, and that was by choice. The point of this exercise was to find the greatest movie of all time shorter than 90 minutes, and I just don’t see how a movie that came out only a few years ago could possibly rival something like Stand by Me which came out four decades ago and is still highly praised. It might seem unfair, but that’s just how I tackled it. Some recent films that have been acclaimed are the early-lead-role-for-Florence Pugh Lady Macbeth (2016), the thirty-years-in-the-making stop motion epic Mad God (2021), and the award-winning animated Latvia/France/Belgium production Flow (2024). There’s also The Squid and the Whale (2016), Don’t Breathe (2016), Shiva Baby (2020) and Migration (2023), but I’ve only seen one of those four, and that’s another reason for excluding certain films: I don’t have infinite time to watch every single movie on every list of decent ones that are under 90 minutes—my meditation on time (specifically, a lack thereof) is why I made this series in the first place.

Adam Sandler fans were probably bummed I didn’t mention Billy Madison (1995), at 89 minutes, and Jim Carrey fans likely lamented the lack of Liar Liar (1997), at 86 minutes. Another underrated under 90 comedy is Hot Rod (2007), from the guys behind The Lonely Island. They also made Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016), and kept that one under 90, too. Speaking of comedies, I’m not a big South Park fan, so I also didn’t include South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999), at 81 minutes. Ditto for SpongeBob, but big fans might think The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie (2004) should have at least been in the running. Oh yeah, and there's 9 (2009), which is often cited as underrated. One last mention for animation: I covered three of Don Bluth’s best animated films but forgot to mention All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989), which is still considered a favourite of his by some.

One genre I omitted entirely was documentaries, for a couple reasons. I feel like they are kind of their own thing, separate from fictional filmmaking, for intending to present stories that are true or based on truth. Obviously there are so many good ones, but I’m not familiar enough with the genre overall to speak with any real authority about what the best of them are, regardless of runtimes. Some of the ones I considered when I first started writing this series and thought I might try to include the genre were March of the Penguins (2005), Blackfish (2013), and My Octopus Teacher (2020), which yes, are all animal-focused docs, but those are primarily the types I like to watch. There’s also Searching for Sugar Man (2016), at 86 minutes, and two others that come within seconds of qualifying but are just over 90, Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) and Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013). 

Back to the genres of fiction, there’s The Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night (1964), at 87 minutes, the dog lover's family flick Beethoven (1992) (also 87 mins.), the French sci-fi animated film Fantastic Planet (1973), which is 71 minutes, and the first animated adaptation of George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm (1954), at merely an hour and twelve minutes! One genre that was pretty packed was horror, but I somehow missed a bunch that were at least worth pointing out, even if they weren’t going to win. The Most Dangerous Game (1932) is the oldest, running a paltry 62 minutes, and there’s Duel (1971), one of Steven Spielberg’s first films, which is 90 minutes if you go by the theatrical version (the only version I’ve seen), but the original version that first aired on ABC was only 74 minutes. The Fog (1980) is usually identified as having a 90-minute runtime, but the actual time on the Scream Factory Blu-ray release is one hour, twenty-nine minutes, and thirty-seven seconds, so it incorrectly gets rounded up! But, is it really the best horror movie under 90 minutes? Of course not. It’s not even the best short horror movie from the 1980s. Five other shoutouts go to Videodrome (1983) (89 minutes), Night of the Creeps (1986) (88 minutes), Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) (83 minutes), and two of my favourite killer animal movies, Anaconda (1997) (89 minutes) and Piranha 3D (2010) (88 minutes).

Now, to briefly revisit some previous movies I covered in earlier parts, three of the horror movies I had initially thought would make it further in the competition were Frankenstein, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Creature from the Black Lagoon. While Frankenstein and Texas Chain Saw did make it to the genre eliminations round, Creature from the Black Lagoon just pales in comparison to so many of the other films from other genres. For horror-comedy, I went in expecting Tucker & Dale vs. Evil to make it as far as the quarter-finals, but it didn’t even beat Evil Dead 2 in the first round. I almost regretted not giving This is Spinal Tap a chance to compete in the genre eliminations round, but there was just no way it was going to beat something like The Lion King or Paths of Glory. Some of the animated movies that were toughest to eliminate initially were The Little Mermaid, Brother Bear, and Peter Pan, but that whole genre was tough to wrap my head around, because there is just such a diverse collection of films with so many different strengths that it became hard to objectively identify which ones were the best for what they each represented. I know that was the most bias-heavy genre for electing initial competitors, but I think I was quite generous in giving many of the miscellaneous competitors a chance to move into the next round, though I did expect more than one sci-fi movie to make it through—possibly Chronicle or The Day the Earth Stood Still.

I would’ve been surprised to see any films that weren’t already part of my Favourite Films Series make it beyond the quarter-finals, but the ones that did make it over the ones that didn’t were still surprising. As I narrowed the scope of greatest competitors, some unexpected eliminations in the quarter-finals and semi-finals were The Lion King (the only movie get a perfect CAWSPEEL score), The Naked Gun, which is one of my favourite comedies of all-time, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which I contest is still one of the best Disney classics in spite of being the very first. Speaking of CAWSPEEL, I’m going to look back on those scores for the two finalists, before I review both of them and pick which one is superior. There are reasons relating to quality as to why Fantastic Mr. Fox, Pinocchio, and Homeward Bound all scored one point less than Toy Story or Stand by Me, but those scores alone did not determine the finalists.

 

FINAL CONTENDERS

 

Toy Story and Stand by Me both got 39/40 with the CAWSPEEL system, but lost one point in two different categories. For Toy Story, I gave it a 4/5 for emotional impact, because it’s very difficult to think about the first Toy Story in isolation now that it’s part of an ongoing film franchise which should have stopped at the third entry. The Toy Story trilogy was, for a short time, one of the most perfect trilogies in all of cinema. Toy Story 3 is, ultimately, far more emotional, and a perfect ending. The climax, finale, and resolution of the first Toy Story are all perfect for the story being told in that film. Getting back at Sid for torturing toys is oh-so satisfying and scary and funny at all once, and then it launches right into the high-speed pursuit of the moving truck, and we get the emotional resolution of Woody and Buzz reuniting with Andy. The very end, teasing that Andy’s Christmas present, a new puppy, is going to cause future headaches for Woody and Buzz, is…fine. It’s not bad, not great, amusing enough, but emblematic of Toy Story’s overall greater strength being a comedy meant for general entertainment through amazing visuals and character designs over intending to tell a truly emotionally affecting tale. That is not to say it doesn’t get the audience emotionally invested—the whole Buzz realizing he’s just a toy really does hit, but in comparison to the only other movie left, no, it’s not as emotionally stirring overall. 

For Stand by Me, I gave it a 4/5 for sound/music, which is more on the technical side of things compared to Toy Story’s lost point. I didn’t take any points off for the visuals or sound of Toy Story; the music by Randy Newman fits perfectly, the voice acting is spot on, and the sound effects are memorable, but even in comparison to Toy Story 2 and 3, the first movie still looks pretty good to me, in terms of the details achieved in the animation. Yeah, it’s comparatively dated, but not as much as may be expected, and there was nothing significant enough to take it down in points in any of the other categories.

Visually, Stand by Me is fantastic, but to be honest, the music does not resonate with me all that much. When I say music, I mainly mean the original score by Jack Nitzsche. I like the song from which the movie gets its name when it plays at the end, and I like some of the other era-appropriate tracks we get to hear throughout, but when I think about everything great to do with Stand by Me, the music is one of the last things that comes to mind. That being said, sometimes a really noticeable soundtrack can be distracting, and one thing I like about Stand by Me’s music, despite it not really staying in my ear after the movie ends, is how well it fits most of the scenes and becomes like invisible set dressing, fitting what you are seeing and hearing from the characters without it overpowering the performances.

Previously, I pointed out Pinocchio was a very male-driven story, and the same can be said of Stand by Me, but one is a fantasy tale of many settings and locations featuring characters from many backgrounds and experiences, whereas Stand by Me tells a much more grounded story in a specific point in time about four kids and doesn’t deviate from that. Toy Story, for that matter, also doesn’t have many prominent female characters; we don’t get Jessie until Toy Story 2, and Sid’s sister is a pretty stereotypical supporting part. The remaining comparisons of weaknesses between Stand by Me and Toy Story are slim to none, at this point.

 

FINAL ELIMINATION

 

I did not have an answer to the question “what is the best movie under 90 minutes?” when I first asked it, and after two years of thinking about it, watching more and more movies, comparing and contrasting them, and analyzing each one, I finally have my answer. With that answer now in mind, I look back and find it surprising that it wasn’t more obvious from early on. I guess when there are just so many different movies that are so good for so many different reasons it can cloud one’s judgement, but as I have slowly eliminated movie after movie, being left with just two, it has led to this seemingly inevitable outcome.

Both Stand by Me and Toy Story are adventure stories, at their cores, but two very different adventures featuring a cast of characters who can’t even be compared, because one cast consists of four adolescent friends, and the other cast consists of several anthropomorphic toys, plus two young boys, one good, the other bad. I’ve looked at these movies’ strengths and weaknesses, and at the end of the day, only one can win. I can’t really use the prioritization matrix at this point, because I couldn’t simply pick one over the other as a priority to watch. Both are endlessly rewatchable, but one of them has something the other does not…

 

THE WINNER…

 

Stand by Me is the greatest movie under 90 minutes of all time! What it comes down to in the end, without thinking about anything else other than just Toy Story and Stand by Me, is the lasting emotional resonance and the access to pure nostalgia one has over the other. Toy Story taps into the nostalgia of childhood, but it’s not about Andy, really, it’s about his toys, and their experiences. Stand by Me taps into nostalgia for a specific point in one’s life, and in its simple premise (“you guys wanna go see a dead body?”) it explores the very concept that instigated this series in the first place: time. All of us only have so much time here on earth. The coming-of-age genre has always been a great place to explore the loss of innocence, the inevitability of growing up and getting older, and the formation of early friendships, but Stephen King’s story looks at the way a young life cut short by a tragic accident impacts four other young lives who are just getting started, with so much learning, growing, heartache, and discovery left to come.

The last lines of Stand by Me are devastating, as adult Gordie types them out on his word processor, marking the end of his story recounting the pivotal series of events from his childhood. “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?” Stand by Me has something more to say with the story it tells without it feeling forced or unnatural. The story is, indeed, about being human, and it’s a story I didn’t fully understand when I first saw it as a kid, but like any great movie, it gets better with age, with more time spent thinking about it, and more times seeing it play out from beginning to end. Stand by Me is not only the best movie with a runtime under 90 minutes, but one of the best movies from the entire decade in which it was made. It’s also a story out of time; though made in the 80’s, it’s a look back at the 1950s, which gives it a timeless quality Toy Story simply does not possess despite its fantastical nature.  

Is Toy Story the best computer animated feature film ever made? I don’t think so. It was the first, sure, and it holds up well, and it’s a great story, but being the first of your kind doesn’t automatically make you the best. It set the bar very high from the start, but it’s not as if that bar hasn’t ever been met or surpassed since. Is Stand by Me the best coming-of-age film ever made? That’s a tougher question, but it’s certainly in that conversation. For it being an example of an art form that’s all about a medium of moving pictures, Stand by Me acts like a snapshot of a moment in time, and shows how one moment can send ripples through your whole life. The human connection, the joy of life, the fear of death, and the inevitable passage of time, all coalesce. It’s a movie that will exist as a singular favourite of mine forever, on a deeper level than Toy Story will.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS

It’s been a fun exercise recounting all of these movies spanning many decades and genres through the lens of their unusually short runtimes! It also took way longer than I originally expected, but I’m glad to have been thorough, and even more glad still that I have unintentionally created a resource of sorts for anyone looking for good movies to watch when in a pinch for time. As a fun little bonus to end off with (and because I haven’t done a CCC countdown list in a while), here are my top five movies from each genre, in no particular order. Remember, these are my personal favourites, unranked.

 

Top 5 Horror:

Frankenstein

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Creature from the Black Lagoon

Lake Placid

Re-Animator

 

Top 5 Horror-Comedies:

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

Trick ‘r Treat

Zombieland

The Evil Dead

Evil Dead 2

 

Top 5 Comedies:

Office Space

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle

This is Spinal Tap

What We Do in the Shadows

The Naked Gun

 

Top 5 Disney Animated:

Pinocchio

The Fox and the Hound

Lilo & Stitch

The Jungle Book

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

 

Top 5 Animated – Non-Disney:

Toy Story

Ice Age

The Iron Giant

The Land Before Time

Hoodwinked!

 

Top 5 Stop Motion & Live-Action/Animation Hybrids:

Chicken Run

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Dinosaur

Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey

 

Top 5 from Miscellaneous Genres:

Run Lola Run

Stand by Me

Paths of Glory

Rope

Once

 

So, what are some of your favourite movies under 90 minutes? Which ones did I get right, and which ones did I get wrong? Let me know, and who knows, maybe I’ll be inspired to revisit this topic one day. But, at this point, now that I’m finally done, I’ll have to find a new cinematic inquiry to explore. Perhaps I could figure out the best movies that are over three hours long? That one might take me a while…like, even longer than this one…

Movies Under 90 Minutes Part 9: Semi-Finals

Part Nine: The Semi-Finals - Three Films Eliminated

 

After the surprising results of the quarter-finals, I am now left with our final five competitors in this battle for greatest movie of all time that’s under 90 minutes! This penultimate installment will be a combination of new and old. I’m going to save repeating myself and not say the same things about these films I’ve already written at length about; instead, I’ll include links to what I’ve previously said about these finalists before, then focus on how they compare to one another before choosing the final two films to duke it out in the final round. That means for three of these movies, this will be as far as they go. 

In no particular order, first I’m looking at Toy Story.

Toy Story (1995): Favourite Films Series - https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2025/11/toy-story-1995-favourite-films-series.html

Next up, Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009): Favourite Films Series - https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2022/04/fantastic-mr-fox-2009-favourite-films.html

Next is Homeward Bound.

Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993): Favourite Films Series -  https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2026/02/homeward-bound-incredible-journey-1993.html

Next is Stand by Me.

Stand by Me (1986): Favourite Films Series - https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2021/09/stand-by-me-1986-favourite-films-series.html

And last but not least, Pinocchio.

Pinocchio (1940): Favourite Films Series - https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2026/08/pinocchio-1940-favourite-films-series.html

 

It’s all fine and dandy to review why each of these films are part of my Favourite Films Series, but now I’m moving beyond that. It comes as no surprise that the dominant genre remaining is the family films genre. It was the toughest one to whittle down, and the remaining films are all of the highest caliber. Stand by Me is the outlier now, in terms of genres, but in many ways, that story is designed for all ages, despite dealing with some mature themes and containing content that is decidedly unfriendly for children. Does that put it at an advantage or disadvantage when compared with the other four?

Having seen each of these movies numerous times throughout my life, two considerations include which one I’ve seen the least number of times, and which one I saw latest in life. Thinking back, I’ve probably seen Pinocchio the least, which is a little ironic given it’s the oldest movie here, and among the three that were released before my lifetime (though Toy Story came out when I was only fourteen months old), but I think one of the main reasons was because I didn’t own it on VHS. There may have been some parental logic around renting types of movies that were different than what we already had at home; if I was in the mood for a Disney animated feature, it would make more sense to just put on one that we already owned, or rent something different to make the most of the rental fee. I recall picking Homeward Bound multiple times when renting movies, more often than Toy Story, and when I started buying movies myself, that was a game changer.

I can even recall in what order I came to own these five movies: first Fantastic Mr. Fox, then Toy Story, Stand by Me, Homeward Bound, and then Pinocchio. I first saw Fantastic Mr. Fox when I rented it in the twilight of my movie rental days (before streaming destroyed that wonderful pastime), and when I bought it later, it came with the Blu-ray, DVD, and a digital copy. I remember watching it on my old iPod with one of my best friends when we were on a camping trip in high school, I’ve watched the Blu-ray multiple times, and I’ve shown the movie on DVD to an art class. Homeward Bound rewatches have been lower since I’ve owned it compared to when I was a kid, but I think I’ve seen Toy Story more times as an adult and might even appreciate it more now. The same goes for Pinocchio. Stand by Me has been a consistent rewatch for me in my adult years. I distinctly remember the day I bought the DVD when I was in high school and the guy at the register looked at it, paused, and remarked on how great he remembered the movie being, and that he hadn’t thought about it in a while, but it was worth owning. I first saw it on TV, then kind of forgot about it myself for a little while, and I don’t recall what made me remember it. I think I just happened to find it when browsing at the store.

In chronological order, I first saw Toy Story, then Pinocchio, followed by Homeward Bound (all by age five, I’d estimate), then Stand by Me came later, around age 10, and last was Fantastic Mr. Fox, at age 15. There are also the individual nostalgia factors. For the sake of clarity, nostalgia is defined as pleasure and sadness caused by remembering something from the past and wishing that you could experience it again, so it does not mean the movie I saw first is the one I’m most nostalgic for. I would say I feel the most nostalgia watching Stand by Me, not because of my experience watching it for the first time, but because I can picture myself as Gordie Lachance, or Chris Chambers, or any of those kids, really, and remember what it felt like to be that age and experience the world at that point in life, even if their experiences differed quite a bit from my own. By virtue of the story’s core, it’s like a reservoir of nostalgia. In terms of wishing I could see one of these movies again for the first time, I think I would pick Pinocchio, believe it or not, just for how harrowing and exciting it is, as well as how unpredictable it can be, which is hard to imagine nowadays because the story is so universally known.

I’ve looked at the strengths of these movies plenty, but I must now look at some of their weaknesses. In terms of quality, that really is subjective, but there are plenty of metrics I can use. I don’t take stock in critic scores and Rotten Tomatoes percentages the way I once did, but if it’s any consolation, Pinocchio is the only film out of these five with a perfect 100 % critics’ score. All of them are 10/10 movies for me, so I need to get more specific.

Pinocchio, for all its timeless qualities, does feel a little dated in a couple respects. Whether intentional or not, for how varied the cast of characters is in terms of unique types (the protagonist is a living puppet, his sidekick is a cricket, and there are human characters amid talking animals and a magical fairy) there is a lot of boy energy; aside from Geppetto’s pet goldfish Cleo (who says nothing) and the aforementioned Blue Fairy (who only appears in two scenes), there are no female characters of note. When comparing the emotional impact of Pinocchio against some of the other Disney classics, even ones outside of this competition, Pinocchio’s desire to become a real boy isn’t the most emotionally compelling want of any Disney protagonist, and I get that it’s also connected to Geppetto’s dream of having a real son, but he’s absent for several scenes in the later part of the film, and we kind of forget about his emotional investment for a while until he’s reunited with Pinocchio in the belly of Monstro the Whale.

Homeward Bound, despite what I would call a superior emotional grip on the audience compared to Pinocchio, carries the asterisk of being a remake, and I'm going to compare it to not only the original The Incredible Journey from 1963 but also the 1961 book by Sheila Burnford which served as the source material for the initial adaptation. Homeward Bound loosely adapts the story, and any way you slice it, it’s a movie meant for kids to be watched with their families. Even compared to something like Babe, a similar film which came out two years later, it’s a softer, more easily digested tale, but author Sheila Burnford has been cited as saying she did not write The Incredible Journey just for kids to read. Having read the book myself, I recognize it’s a story that’s accessible for children but meant for all ages. Conversely, Babe was based on The Sheep-Pig, written by Dick King-Smith specifically as a children’s novel, but then the film adaptation appealed to more than just kids, partially because of its comparatively deeper themes. Homeward Bound, for all its effective meditations on survival, hope, and emotional bonds, just does not delve as deep as some similarly themed films. It’s also worth noting that in terms of legacy, the sequel, Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco, was seen as less impressive on a technical level after the new benchmark set by Babe a year earlier.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is arguably the quirkiest of these five films, and I think it ties with Toy Story as the funniest, for me. Some of the laughs Fantastic Mr. Fox generates are bigger, but I think it’s because of the more askew nature, from the visual design and shot composition to its narrative structure and the strangeness of some of the characters, that its emotional impact is a little less compared to Toy Story. Sizing them both up against one another, both films tell unique stories, have a broad cast of colourful, interesting characters, and place those characters in harrowing scenes filled with action, gags, and thrills. By the very nature of what Toy Story is about—a kid who is just like any other kid, who has favourite toys and loves to play with them, living in a world where toys want to serve their purpose of being played with and bring children joy—it just taps into a deeper emotional connection than the plight of a family of stop motion foxes being pursued by angry farmers.

I won’t draw this out any further than I need to. What it comes down to, for me, in picking the final two films, is highlighting which of these five contenders have the greatest number of unique qualities in tandem with the greatest emotional impact in the stories that you just can’t duplicate or get anywhere else. That is why I am picking Stand by Me and Toy Story as the finalists! I’m sorry to those fans who were championing Homeward Bound, Pinocchio, or Fantastic Mr. Fox, but the final two films have been chosen for the elimination challenge. Next time I am going to reflect back on all of the films that I have covered in this series to see how these two made it through to the end, and I will crown one of them the title of greatest movie under 90 minutes of all-time!