Oppenheimermay be long, but at least people can reasonably watch it in one sitting. After all, some filmmakers couldn’t care less about box-office numbers, critic reviews, or even the audience’s ability to watch the entire work.Experimental movies challenge boundaries and conventions—a plot, character development, a runtime between 80 and 150 minutes, etc.—to the point where they hardly feel like part of the same medium as their theatrical siblings.
Sometimes, this comes in the form of a multi-part series streamed on Netflix or aired on television over several days. But the following films—these mastodons, these titans—cannot be contained by even a serial format, and only the most dedicated viewer would be willing to see them through to the end. Sohere are the fifteen longest films ever made, ranked from shortest (the word has never been used more loosely) to longest.
15’My Human Time' (2014)
InMy Human Time, director-producer-starMarc Sallentsits in front of the camera and only speaks after each minute passes. He is placed in front of a big chalkboard, which has a bunch of markings that are difficult to parse out. “AudioSnaps” (the name of the company) is clear enough to read, though, and it’s also on the laptop in front of Sallent. One can imagine how strange it was to sit there for what seems to be the longest unbroken shot ever. Thankfully, he does occasionally walk around (or even leave frame for a short while).
Every time a minute goes by, an automated ping not unlike what you’d hear on an airplane sounds.Sallent gives us the time, and that’s pretty much it. This is a promotional video for AudioSnaps, which is apparently no longer in business, and viewers can find it on YouTube in three 8-hour sections. Anyone who wants to follow along would have to begin at 9AM.
Watch on YouTube
14’The Clock' (2010)
Christian Marclay’sThe Clockis a montage that seemingly never ends. It does eventually end, but it takes 24 hours to do so. Made of thousands of clips from visual media,The Clockgoes the extra mile and makes sure that it counts the seconds with the local time. Though the audience is watching time move through a long series of fictional stories, the fact that it also aligns with the viewers' clocks stirs up some reflection on, well, time.
Perhaps how we spend that time, too, as this came out when people were watching so much television and film at home (not to mention the proliferation of smart-phone users). This phenomenon has only grown more prevalent, of course; likewise, so has this film. As theMuseum of Modern Art explains, “Marclay’s assemblage of carefully selected clips takes us on a journey through the past in order to heighten our awareness of an ever-elusive and unfolding present.”
13'24 Hours of Happy' (2013)
This is a fun one.Pharrell Williams' pop hit “Happy” can lift someone’s spirits in the span of just 4 minutes, but what if it just kept going? Well, he put together a 24-hour music video that’s meant to keep you smiling all day and night:24 Hours of Happy. While the 4-minute video comprises a montage of many different people dancing around LA for just a few seconds at a time, the 24-hour video is cut much differently. It would be kind of absurd to have that many cuts for so much video, so this enormous compilation is made of long takes; each performer gets to dance to the 4-minute version of “Happy” by themselves.
Then the song ends, there’s a brief pause, and the next dancer comes in for their turn.They’re all a joy to watch, and the song is catchy enough to pull off the gimmick. After all, it’s hard to critique such an aggressive and playful barrage of good vibes. The website where this was originally found (24hoursofhappy.com) is apparently not working at the moment, but no matter; it’s still available on YouTube.
12'24-Hour Psycho' (1993)
Produced and directed by experimental artistDouglas Gordon,24-Hour Psychois an extremely slowed-down versionof one ofAlfred Hitchcock’s most important movies:Psycho. As the title suggests, the original 109-minute movie takes 24 hours to complete. To put it another way, most films move at 24 frames per second while this one goes by at about 2 frames per second. MUBI has a trailer that shows the famous shower scene, which gives you a good sense of how painstakingly long this would feel to watch all the way through.
The suspense from one of the greatest thrillers is replaced with some kind of meditation on…movement, probably. The relationship of the frame with its subject, too, perhaps. First shown at Tramway in Glasgow,24 Hour Psychouses an extremely popular film to minimize the confusion. With the plot already known by most viewers and with no sound at all, one focuses not on figuring out the story but on the construction (and medium) of the horror classic itself.
11'****' (1967)
****(otherwise known asFour Stars) immediately declares that even the 10th-longest movie ever created is impossible to watch in one day. The 25-hour runtime makes a little more sense after learning it was written and directed by famed pop artistAndy Warholat the height of the counter-culture movement.
Warhol actually made a ton of movies, ranging from a two-hourblack-and-white superhero movie calledBatman Draculato a bunch of experimental short films toChelsea Girls, a three-hour commercial success that received mixed reviews.Four Starssets itself apart from all of them with more than just its length; it was also made so that two 33-minute reels would play over each other at once. It’s said that this extremely avant-garde oddity wasonly exhibited in full onceat the Film Makers' Cinematheque for a 1967 screening in a New York City basement that no longer exists. A short-story collection on film,Four Starsis unlikely to be shown in full again.
Four Stars
10’The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple' (1928-1931)
Chinese cinema pioneerZhang Shichuandidn’t showHuo shao hong lian si(translated asThe Burning of the Red Lotus Temple) all at once. Instead,this 27-hour silent epic was released in 18 feature-length sectionsfrom 1928 through 1931, quite a unique point in film history. Every part of the movie was a hit in China and helped make the Mingxing Film Company into a powerhouse. What’s more, it’s alsoknown as the first feature-length wuxia film, so its action scenes must have made up for its length.
This is far from Zhang Shichuan’s only cinematic milestone. He also directed China’s first feature film,The Difficult Couple, which came out in 1913 and prompted the very medium’s popularity. Based on a newspaper serial calledStrange Tales of the Adventurer in the Wild Country, its extensive adaptation is about the rescue of a commander trapped inside a temple. Sadly, the film for this mammoth has been lost to time.
9’The Longest Most Meaningless Movie in the World' (1968)
The late-sixties strike again, as 1968’sThe Longest Most Meaningless Movie in the Worldwas two literal days longand probably moved at a slower pace than a T-rex on a leash. This bizarre film with the most self-aware title possible was composed exclusively of outtakes, commercials, newsreels, and a variety of other premade footage that was apparently edited together in random order with no specific message in mind.
Directed byVincent Patouillardin the UK experimental underground scene, this relentless collage of clips has vanished—leaving only a cool poster and the above dinosaur image as fossils of the psychedelic age. It may have been the longest movie ever released at the time, but was it the most meaningless? The answer remains a mystery.
The Longest Most Meaningless Movie in the World
8’Eniaios' (2004)
Gregory Markopouloscompleted an 80-hour experimental movie calledEniaiosin 1991, and he passed away in 1992—more than a decade before his film would finally be shown to the public in 2004. Or rather, 2004 is when this movie wouldbeginto be shown to the public—as it has only been shown in sections every 4 years since then. The entirety of the 22 cycles has not finished yet. Meanwhile, this movie is made of a total re-edit of 16 movies that Markopoulos had already made, along with 65 other movies that no one had ever seen before. But it can’t get any weirder than that, can it?
Of course it can: these rare screenings take place in a field outside a small village in Greece, the only place where the filmmaker deemed appropriate to witness his works.This serial colossus is made of very short clips, some only one frame long, which sounds like avery difficult viewing experience. It appears that only those who have seen it could even try to make sense of it. “Eniaios” means both “unity” and “uniqueness,” so take that as you will.
7’The Cure for Insomnia' (1987)
Another experimental patience-tester,The Cure for Insomniadisplayed the recital of a 4,080-page poem mixed with family-unfriendly material and heavy-metal music clips…for 87 hours. Chicago’sL.D. Grobanis the poet-screenwriter, andJohn Henry Timmis IVis the director. It’s unclear whether this movie was shown in public again after its late-January to early-February 1987 screening.
The Cure for Insomniawas given the Guinness World Records' stamp of approval as the longest movie of all time, but it has yet to prove that it’s actually a cure for insomnia. All the more difficult to do now, as it has followed the trend of being a ridiculously long film that’s no longer available. Perhaps this lost movie shall return one day, but, until then, the average insomniac will have to settle for the other literal giants of cinema.
The Cure For Insomnia
6’Matrjoschka' (2006)
Writer-directorKarin Hoerleris the force behindthis 95-hour German experiment. Released in 2006,Matrjoschkastems from an image: a boy riding his bike down the street next to some bushes and a house. This image then changes so slowly that the differences aren’t immediately noticeable to the human eye, which may be compared to watching hair grow or paint dry. This doesn’t exactly scream blockbuster to most audiences, but it definitely demonstrates human beings' limited degree of sensory perception.
Therefore,it seems paradoxical to callMatrjoschkaa motion picture, but that may well be the point. The movie’s title comes from what is known as a matryoshka, a semi-cylindrical wooden doll that opens up to reveal a smaller replica, which in turn opens to reveal an even smaller replica, and another—and so on. Essentially, it seems there is always something hidden within. The film’s approach to movement at least helps explain its absurd length: perhaps a comment on how much time it takes to eliminate one’s sense of time.
