Is there an ideal length for a movie? While the average movie runs between 90 minutes and two hours, some of the best directors have found good reasons to make movies that last more than three hours. However, the longest movie ever made is Logistics, a Swedish film that broke records when it was released in 2012. It takes 35 days and 17 hours to finish.
Logistics is not your typical Hollywood epic. The Swedish filmmakers Erika Magnusson and Daniel Andersson came up with the idea for and directed the experimental film, which doesn’t follow any normal rules. The movie’s website says that the idea came from the question, “Where do all the gadgets come from?” Magnusson and Andersson tried to figure out the answer to this question by looking at how a pedometer works over its lifetime.
The story starts in a store in Stockholm where the item is sold, and then it goes backwards to show how it got to people. Logistics takes viewers on a trip in a truck, on a freight train, on a huge container ship, and finally to a factory in China’s Bao’an district. The trip happens in real-time, so viewers can see how long and far it takes to get gadgets to people who use them on the other side of the world.
Some of the longest movies ever made would be hard for a lot of people to sit through. Hamlet (1996) by Kenneth Branagh is 242 minutes long, and Cleopatra (1963) by Joseph L. Mankiewicz is a huge 248 minutes long. But it’s almost physically impossible to sit down and watch all 857 hours of Logistics in one sitting (though intrepid journalist and film critic Ashley Darrow did just that in 2022).
You don’t have to watch Logistics all the way through in one sitting, which would take more than a month of your life. Logistics has been broken up on the project’s website into short, two-minute clips, one for each day of the trip. Here, you can watch a shortened version of the epic experiment and then brag about it.
Logistics is an impressive feat of filmmaking, but it’s not for everyone. Some viewers might find it tedious or boring, while others might be fascinated by the slow pace and attention to detail. The movie raises important questions about globalization, consumerism, and the environmental impact of shipping goods around the world.
While Logistics might be the longest movie ever made, it’s not the only film that challenges our expectations of what a movie can be. Experimental films, art films, and avant-garde cinema have been pushing boundaries for decades, exploring new forms of storytelling and visual expression.
One example is Andy Warhol’s Empire (1964), an eight-hour film that consists of a single shot of the Empire State Building at night. Another is Michael Snow’s Wavelength (1967), a 45-minute film that slowly zooms in on a photograph on a wall while a high-pitched sound grows louder and louder.
These films are not for everyone, but they offer a unique perspective on what cinema can do. They challenge us to think differently about time, space, and narrative, and they remind us that there are no rules when it comes to art.
In conclusion, there is no perfect length for a movie. Some films need more time to tell their story, while others are better off keeping it short and sweet. Logistics might be the longest movie ever made, but it’s just one example of how filmmakers are pushing boundaries and exploring new forms of storytelling. Whether you prefer Hollywood blockbusters or experimental cinema, there’s something out there for everyone.