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It’s not your imagination: From the Dune films, to The Batman, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Oppenheimer, the biggest blockbuster movies really are getting longer. Maybe it’s due to directorial excess, or the need for everything to be filled with enough backstory to spin up a franchise, or simply because it’s harder to get people out to theaters so studios want to make it seem like every big film is an event. (And yes, some movies also really do need to be that long—but did No Time to Die really need to be that long?)
And sure, long movies are sometimes great, but length isn’t always (or even often) an arbiter of quality. Heck, some of the greatest films in history—across decades and a wide swath of genres—tell their stories very effectively in 90 minutes or less. What follows, in order of length, are 35 of the best, shortest movies ever, each one worth (not that much of) your time.
Sherlock Jr. (1924)
Running time: 45 minutes
The General is the one that usually comes up when people talk about Buster Keaton’s best films, but, for my money, Sherlock Jr. is every bit as inventive, and quite a bit more charming. Keaton stars as the Projectionist, a poor guy working in a movie house who daydreams about marrying a rich girl (Kathryn McGuire) he can’t really afford to impress. Falling asleep on the job, his daydreams turn to actual dreams as he imagines himself entering the world of the movies he projects and experiencing a visually and technically inventive adventure as the title’s Sherlock Jr. Ultimately, he beats out a romantic rival to win over the girl with his detective skills.
Where to stream: Tubi, digital rental
Detour (1945)
Running time: 68 minutes
It’s not a rule, exactly, but noir films seem to thrive at around 90 minutes—that being, perhaps, the approximate limit of our ability to watch a character descend into inescapable darkness. For a lot less time than that, Detour follows Al Roberts, a small-time piano player who comes into some cash and decides to hitchhike across the country in pursuit of his best girl, who ran off to Hollywood to be a star; unsurprisingly, he encounters some bumps along the road when someone who picks him up winds up dead and Al sorta accidentally assumes his identity.
The picture was made sloppily and on the cheap, but somehow became a classic in spite of all that. It’s now in the public domain and free on YouTube, though as it has recently been restored, you’re better off catching it on one of the big streamers.
Where to stream: Prime Video, The Criterion Channel, Tubi, MGM+, Crackle
Frankenstein (1931)
Running time: 71 minutes
One of the earliest and nearly the best (second only to its sequel) of the Universal horror classics, Frankenstein squeezes enough iconic imagery into 71 minutes that it has remained fresh for almost a century.
Where to stream: digital rental
The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
Running time: 71 minutes
A couple of friends heading out for a fishing trip pick up a passenger, one who just happens to be a thrill killer responsible for several earlier robberies and murders. That tense premise plays out perfectly under the careful eye of director Ida Lupino, an actress as well as one of the very few women directing American films during the ‘50s.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Tubi
The Set-Up (1949)
Running time: 72 minutes
The wildly eclectic Robert Wise (West Side Story, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Sound of Music, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, etc.) directed The Set-Up, with all of the grit and sweat required of a movie of its kind (that being a film noir sports drama), scraping off all the gloss of his prestige pictures. The result is one of the best boxing movies of all time, as well as one of the very best noirs.
Where to stream: digital rental
Petite Maman (2021)
Running time: 72 minutes
Portrait of a Lady on Fire director Céline Sciamma took a hard left turn for her followup film, a gentle, poignant coming-of-age story. A young girl mourning the death of her beloved grandmother helps her parents clean out the family home. One day while playing in the woods, she meets another little girl exactly her age. I can’t really tell you more than that, except to say that the slow build to the reveal of who the girl is will have a shattering effect on anyone who has ever been a parent, or had one.
Where to stream: Hulu, digital rental
Safety Last (1923)
Running time: 73 minutes
Buster Keaton was more daring, and Charlie Chaplin more poignant, but Harold Lloyd was more purely focused on laughs, and no less brilliant than his better-remembered contemporaries. Safety Last! is his most famous film (thanks to the memorable clock scene), and it’s also very nearly his best, with a lot more plot and gags than just the clock bit.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel, Tubi, digital rental
Cat People (1942)
Running time: 73 minutes
Producer Val Lewton traded freedom for prestige early in his career, taking over RKO’s B-movie unit and making shorter movies for cheap. There were very few restrictions placed on him, except for the stipulation that the movies needed lurid titles to draw attention—and, so: Cat People, ostensibly about a new bride who turns into a panther, but really a beautifully shot psychosexual drama about sublimated desire.
Where to stream: digital rental
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Running time: 76 minutes
It took a while for Henry Selick’s The Nightmare Before Christmas to catch on with audiences (and we can probably thank Hot Topic for transforming it into a cultural phenomenon), but those of us who saw it in theaters in 1993 knew it was an instant classic. A sweet and scary seasonal gem about what happens when the king of Halloween gets bored with his holiday and decides he can make Christmas better (or at least bring some severed heads into the mix), it’s likely a slim 76 minutes because of the complexities of stop motion animation, but it’s also the perfect length for an adaptation of the original Tim Burton illustrated poem.
Where to stream: Disney+, digital rental
Nothing Sacred (1937)
Running time: 77 minutes
Comedy, like horror, often thrives at a shorter length, never getting a chance to wear out its welcome. Carole Lombard is great in this smart screwball, playing a hick from a nothing town in Vermont who’s brought to New York City by a cynical reporter (Fredric March) desperate for content. it seems she’s dying of radium poisoning, and the story about her poignant last night on earth will be a headline grabber. Except that she’s not dying—it’s all a scam, and a satire of both the manipulative tabloid press and our hunger for tragic tales that feels at least as relevant nearly 75 years later.
Where to stream: Prime Video, MGM+
Primer (2004)
Running time: 77 minutes
Writer/director Shane Carruth spent basically nothing (allegedly $7,000) to make this impossibly complex sci-fi tale about two Bill Gates-style computer geniuses who hack together a functional time machine in their garage and proceed to use it to fuck up each other’s lives in profound ways. To say more would lessen the impact of this stone cold lo-fi classic.
Where to stream: digital rental
Rec (2007)
Running time: 78 minutes
This bloody and brilliant entry in the found footage subgenre finds a reporter (Manuela Velasco) embedded with a group of firefighters responding to an emergency call in a Barcelona apartment building. Except that it’s not a fire, it’s an infectious disease outbreak that turns people into zombies. It’s a lean and mean, efficiently nerve-jangling thrill ride that spawned several pretty good sequels, and a surprisingly decent American remake (Quarantine)—but none of them can top the original.
Where to stream: digital rental
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)
Running time: 78 minutes
Superhero movies rarely clock in at anything under 6 hours (some of them feel that way, at least), but perhaps it’s not surprising that one of the best is much shorter… and a cartoon. A theatrical spin-off of the revered Batman animated series of the ‘90s, Phantasm sees an old flame reenter Bruce Wayne’s life even as a new vigilante arrives in Gotham. It’s tippy-top-tier Batman, cartoon or no.
Where to stream: digital rental
Paris Is Burning (1991)
Running time: 78 minutes
This landmark queer documentary explores, with clear-eyed affection and occasionally brutal honesty, the heyday of so-called “ballroom culture” in NYC, when queer and trans performers, marginalized in their day to day lives, would glam up and cast off the prejudices of society and the grim reality of the AIDS crisis to strut down the catwalk and lip sync for their lives. It’s a celebration of found family, and a profile of a community and a cultural movement that would, decades later, find wider recognition in shows like Pose and RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
Rope (1948)
Running time: 80 minutes
Hitchcock’s great experiment almost had to be on the short side, given the constraint he placed upon the movie: the whole thing had to look as though it were filmed in one continuous take (in reality, it’s a series of ten-minute takes, if only because that was the most film the cameras of the day could hold). Snooty lovers played by John Dall and Farley Granger stage an elaborate dinner party while concealing the body of a former classmate in nearly plain sight—see if you can spot the culprit.
Where to stream: digital rental
Before Sunset (2004)
Running time: 80 minutes
Sequels are often longer than the original, so it’s a tribute to director Richard Linklater that he’s able to accomplish more in the followup to 1995’s swoonily romantic two-hander Before Sunrise even with a run time that’s 20 minutes shorter. It helps that the brisk film ends beautifully, memorably—and abruptly.
Where to stream: digital rental
Run Lola Run (1998)
Running time: 80 minutes
This German import is more than two decades old, and yet I’m still hesitant to spoil the twist of the thematic engine that drives it, so I’ll just say Franke Potente never stops moving throughout its one hour and 20-minute runtime; it’s a thriller that kicks like a caffeine-addled late night video game binge, and if it was a minute longer, she (and the premise) would have collapsed from exhaustion.
Where to stream: Prime Video
Lights Out (2016)
Running time: 81 minutes
Horror movies don’t need to be long! Tension tends to dissipate if carried too far, as director David F. Sandberg (in his feature debut) and company understood with this high-concept thriller; it was based on Sandberg’s own 3-minute short. Here, Teresa Palmer stars as Rebecca, who thought her childhood nightmares were behind her. What little kid doesn’t have nightmares about creatures in the dark? Except that she’s grown up now, and finding that…surprise! …it wasn’t all in her head.
Where to stream: digital rental
Perfect Blue (1997)
Running time: 81 minutes
Perfect Blue (from director Satoshi Kon) blurs dark fantasy and even darker reality in ways that will remind you of the films of Darren Aronofsky—though, of course, this film came before both Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan, which echo it. (Perfect Blue has also inspired Madonna, so do with that what you will). Its story follows a young Japanese singer who is pushed to quit her career to take a job on television—a move with horrific consequences in the best tradition of high-price-of-fame stories.
Where to stream: Shudder, AMC+, digital rental
Toy Story (1995)
Running time: 81 minutes
Speaking of keeping animation short and sweet, Pixar used to be able to do it. These days many of their films approach (or exceed) two hours—it’s understandable, they’ve earned our patience—but it’s no accident that the shortest of the Toy Story films is still arguably the best, a perfect execution of an absolutely impeccable premise. (Yes, it’s likely only this short because it’s also the first all-CGI movie ever, but sometimes constraints aren’t weaknesses.)
Where to stream: Disney+, digital rental
Rye Lane (2022)
Running time: 82 minutes
Imagine Trainspotting-era Danny Boyle making an Elizabethtown-style romcom, except it’s actually good, and you’ll have a fairly accurate idea of what to expect from the charming debut film from director Raine Allen-Miller. Two mid-20s South Londoners meet shortly after each has suffered a bad breakup; they proceed to help one another get over their respective exes, and I’m sure you see where this is going, but you’ll be smiling the entire way.
Where to stream: Hulu
Hell House LLC (2015)
Running time: 83 minutes
Found footage horror films are often on the short side, in part because horror can work really well at a condensed run time, but also because they are often made on a rather low budget. No matter! When it works, it works. Hell House LLC spawned a franchise based on its clever premise and ambition: the title’s Halloween haunted house-style attraction has a dodgy opening night when the venue chosen to host the event turns out to have a dark history all its own. Luckily for us, a documentary crew is on hand to record the ensuing mayhem.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Shudder, Tubi, AMC+, digital rental
Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Running time: 83 minutes
We’re coming up on the year 2029, which is when this landmark anime promises we humans will have access to “shells,” cybernetic bodies in which we can store our consciousnesses. When a mysterious “Puppet Master” learns to take control of these shells, Major Motoko Kusanagi is tasked with hunting down the criminal. Stunningly animated and impressively thoughtful, this cyberpunk classic has inspired countless action-minded filmmakers (the Wachowskis, for instance).
Where to stream: Prime Video, Tubi
The Heroic Trio (1993)
Running time: 83 minutes
Tung (Anita Mui) is a seemingly mild-mannered housewife, fighting crime on the side with a sword; Chat (Maggie Cheung) is a tough-as-nails bounty hunter with a shotgun; and Ching (Michelle Yeoh) has a suit that allows her to become invisible, working for the Evil Master to kidnap babies…at least until she reconnects with her sister Tung and childhood friend Chat. Together, the three team up to become the title trio in this super fun blend of comic book superhero style and over-the-top Hong Kong-style action and humor.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel, digital rental
She’s Gotta Have It (1986)
Running time: 84 minutes
Spike Lee’s first feature film launched his career with the story of a woman (Tracy Camilla Johns) enjoying the type of sexual freedom typically granted to men. It’s smart, funny, and surprisingly sex positive, if a little problematic by modern standards.
Where to stream: Netflix
Persona (1966)
Running time: 84 minutes
Ingmar Bergman’s avant-garde thriller (maybe?) finds two of world cinema’s greatest actresses, Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann, playing a nurse and her patient. In a claustrophobic environment, the overly personal nurse and the barely speaking patient grow so close that they almost seem to become the same person. Exploring identity, sexuality, and gender, the film made Bergman a bona fide international sensation, at least among the types of viewers who watch Ingmar Bergman movies.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel, digital rental
My Octopus Teacher (2020)
Running time: 85 minutes
Filmmaker and naturalist Craig Foster spent a year forming a relationship with a wild common octopus—a creature that, we’re discovering, can be shockingly intelligent in recognizable ways, and utterly alien in so many others. Still, Foster and the octopus become something like good friends, hanging out and playing with each other as Foster is allowed deeper access into her underwater world. The dangers of that world, and the naturally short lifespan of the species, tee up genuinely moving lessons about the deep fragility of life and the joy and value of connection with nature.
Where to stream: Netflix
Cloverfield (2008)
Running time: 85 minutes
Matt Reeves (War for the Planet of the Apes, The Batman) directs this unique giant monster movie that gives found footage-style filmmaking a big(-ish) budget upgrade. A going-away party attended by several young New Yorkers gets extra wild when a skyscraper-sized kaiju attacks the city.
Where to stream: Paramount+, digital rental
High Noon (1952)
Running time: 85 minutes
Though it seems subtle today, High Noon’s anti-blacklist, anti-witchhunt politics were so clear to audiences at the time that John Wayne called it “the most un-American thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life.” Any movie that pissed off John Wayne that much is fine by me. He made the much-longer Rio Bravo in response and… well, that movie’s also a classic, but it’s 2 hours and 21 minutes long. High Noon does much more with less, and holds up much better.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Paramount+, MGM+
Fruitvale Station (2013)
Running time: 85 minutes
Dramas based on real events tend to be drawn out, but it’s the straightforward efficiency of Ryan Coogler’s first feature, based on the real-life killing by police of a young, unarmed Black man in Oakland, that makes it so beautiful, and so harrowing.
Where to stream: Max, digital rental
Evil Dead (1981)
Running time: 85 minutes
Some movies are on the short side simply because it’s cheaper that way. That may or may not be the case with Sam Raimi’s horror comedy cult favorite, but Evil Dead doesn’t suffer one bit from its truncated runtime. In fact, every movie in the eventual franchise comes in at around the 90-minute mark, give or take, this one having established the perfect length for gross-out practical horror.
Where to stream: AMC+, digital rental
What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
Running time: 85 minutes
A New Zealand horror mockumentary that launched an unlikely franchise, this movie packs a lot of jokes into 85 minutes.
Where to stream: digital rental
My Neighbor Totoro (1986)
Running time: 86 minutes
Animation being a complicated and sometimes expensive proposition, films in the medium tend to run shorter than live-action features. Surprisingly, director Hayao Miyazaki’s beloved Studio Ghibli movies tend to run closer to the two-hour range (he can take as long as he wants, really), but an exception is the classic My Neighbor Totoro, about two girls and their adventures with wood sprites in rural Japan. It’s pretty much a perfect movie from the first frame to the last.
Where to stream: Max, digital rental
Polyester (1981)
Running time: 86 minutes
Even at a brisk 86 minutes, John Waters manages to pack a lot of raunchy laughs into this, his best, if not his most outrageous, movie. It doesn’t matter if you catch that the story of beleaguered suburban housewife Francine Fishpaw (played gloriously by the iconic Devine), who watches as her seemingly picture perfect family falls prey to sex and depravity, is a pitch-perfect parody of Douglas Sirk melodramas; it’s still gloriously, subversively hilarious throughout (and even better in Odorama).
Where to stream: digital rental
Child’s Play (1988)
Running time: 87 minutes
A slasher empire was born with this high-concept , occasionally funny slasher. Writer Don Mancini, who continues to head the franchise, co-wrote this film about a serial killer whose soul comes to inhabit a foul-mouthed doll (Brad Dourif). He proceeds to prey on a single mom and her son. Although the true comedic (and queer) potential of the franchise wouldn’t be fully realized until later, the seeds are all planted here.
Where to stream: Tubi, MGM+, digital rental
Paths of Glory (1957)
Running time: 88 minutes
Stanley Kubrick’s early, essential anti-war film does the (nearly) impossible in creating a moving and compelling war narrative that doesn’t glorify war, even inadvertently. Set during World War I, it stars Kirk Douglas as Colonel Dax, commanding officer of a group of French soldiers. When the soldiers refuse to commit to an utterly pointless attack that would doubtlessly get them all killed, they’re court-martialed for cowardice, largely to protect the egos of those higher up the chain of command. It’s a brisk and brutal 88 minutes, and Kubrick doesn’t need more time than that to make his point crystal clear.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Tubi
The Lion King (1994)
Running time: 88 minutes
One of the highest-grossing animated films in history, The Lion King cemented Disney’s early 1990s revival with its Shakespearean story of Simba, the prince who just can’t wait to be king. Until he learns the price of his wish. Hakuna matata! Don’t watch the (way too long) remake.
Where to stream: Disney+, digital rental
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)
Running time: 88 minutes
The buddy stoner comedy reached its near-apex with this funny, silly, but also kinda sweet “one crazy night” romp. John Cho and Kal Penn are great, but Neil Patrick Harris (playing himself) kinda steals the show.
Where to stream: digital rental
The Palm Beach Story (1942)
Running time: 88 minutes
Claudette Colbert is on the lookout for a rich husband, though she’s already married to an inventor played by Joel McCrea. No matter—they love each other, but could use the money that a second husband could bring in. This could have been a dark satire, but as directed by Preston Sturges, it’s as big-hearted as it is silly.
Where to stream: digital rental
Rashomon (1950)
Running time: 88 minutes
You could tell me that Akira Kurosawa’s much-imitated rumination on the nature of justice and the frailty of memory is only 88 minutes long, but I’m pretty sure I remember it differently. Consider this proof that an all-time classic doesn’t need to take all night to sit through.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel, Tubi, digital rental
Videodrome (1983)
Running time: 88 minutes
All hail the new flesh! David Cronenberg’s legendarily weird horror classic has all the slick (literally) body horror imagery that is the director’s calling card, but it’s also a sly commentary on the subversive power of media in the analogue age, following an amoral TV producer (James Woods, rarely better) as he searches for the secret behind Videodrome, a pirate broadcast of explicit violent and sexual imagery that might actually be more than mere fiction. Debbie Harry costars, looking hot as hell (obviously).
Where to stream: digital rental
Airplane! (1980)
Running time: 88 minutes
There are so many memorable moments and lines here, and they come at such an incredibly fast clip. It’s maybe not the greatest slapstick comedy of all time, but it “shirley” has one of the highest hit-to-miss ratios—even some of its doofiest gags are still good for a chuckle, 41 years later.
Where to stream: AMC+, digital rental
Crank (2006)
Running time: 88 minutes
There’s such an effective high-concept here, it is 100% possible, and very much advised, to look past any of the film’s inherent silliness and just admire it on that merit. Jason Statham plays Chev Chelios, a man poisoned in such a way that he needs to keep his adrenaline levels at a constant maximum, or he’ll die. How he keeps ramping himself up, well, that’s the fun part. It’s loud and gleefully over-the-top, and it would totally collapse if it was even a few minutes longer.
Where to stream: Max, digital rental
Attack the Block (2011)
Running time: 88 minutes
The movie that teamed John Boyega with future Doctor Who Jodie Whitaker is unique in spotlighting a British street gang living on a council estate who also happen to be the only hope against brilliantly designed alien invaders. It’s too much madness for more than 90 minutes.
Where to stream: Max, digital rental
Stand By Me (1986)
Running time: 89 minutes
Stand By Me doesn’t feel short and, in this case, that’s not an insult. The unlikely Stephen King adaptation doesn’t waste a second of its runtime, with director Rob Reiner crafting one indelible, nostalgia-for-childhood drenched scene after another as he tells the story of a group of friends who head out into the woods in pursuit of rumors there’s a dead body to be gawked at.
Where to stream: AMC+, digital rental
Eraserhead (1977)
Running time: 89 minutes
As with the bulk of the David Lynch oeuvre, it’s rather pointless to describe the plot here—something about a one-night-stand that leads to the birth of a lizard baby. No matter. We’re here for the nightmare vibes and vague existential dread. Longtime Lynch collaborator Jack Nance stars in a movie packed with truly indelible imagery.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel, digital rental
Beau Travail (1999)
Running time: 90 minutes
Passions run hot in Claire Denis’ gorgeous, hypnotic tone poem of a picture, which follows the men of the French Foreign Legion as they travel to Djibouti. There, a triangle of obsession and hate develops between Adjudant-Chef Galoup (Denis Lavant), new recruit Giles Sentain (Grégoire Colin), and the Commandant they both admire. Come for the shirtless French guys, stay for the gorgeous camerawork and air of suppressed longing.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel, digital rental
Commando (1985)
Running time: 90 minutes
Look, sometimes you just want a pure, unfiltered shot of 1980s-style action, and in that regard, you can’t do much better than this Arnold Schwarzenegger classic. It has everything: explosions, a made-up Latin American country, a dictator played by Dan Hedaya(!), inspired one-liners, and endless bloody deaths—including a memorable dismemberment by circular saw.
Where to stream: digital rental
The Thin Man (1934)
Running time: 90 minutes
The onscreen couple that set the template for some of the best relationships (without really being bested) in film history began here. I’ve seen this movie multiple times and I couldn’t tell you a thing about the central mystery—only because the boozy chemistry between Myrna Loy and William Powell is the real draw.
Where to stream: digital rental
Eyes Without a Face (1960)
Running time: 90 minutes
Time has lent some class to this French classic, praised and derided equally upon its release for its gross-out effects (which are incredibly tame by today’s standards). When able to see past the horror elements, the film plays more like a dark fairy tale, brutal, but weirdly poetic and beautiful.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel, digital rental
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On (2022)
Running time: 90 minutes
Ninety minutes might sound like too long for a movie adaptation of a series of 5-minute YouTube shorts, but I’d be happy to spend a lot longer with Marcel, who is indeed a shell with shoes on, and just the sweetest little sentient mollusk casing you’ve ever met. This faux-documentary follows Marcel as he searches for his missing family, and I’m not kidding when I say that Isabella Rossellini gives an award-caliber performance as his grandmother. Who is also a shell.
Where to stream: Paramount+, Netflix, digital rental
