Last Updated on 15 September 2023

Here are the cinematic movies with the longest run times ever (according to IMDb). I’m using “Cinematic” in this context to mean released to multiple theaters at the same time. This does not include experimental films, museum installations, or reality shows. Synopses also taken from IMDb.

• The Innocence (2019) – 21 hours (Bangladesh)
  A story of love, dreams, politics, revolution and the aftermath of a freedom war in one of the poorest developing countries, where a few people began to fight all the odds through film-making.

• Resan (The War Game 2) (1987) – 14 hours, 33 minutes (Sweden)
  A global look at the impact of military use of nuclear technology and the perceptions and reactions of various families.

• La Flor (2016/2018) – 13 hours, 28 minutes (Argentina)
  A film in six episodes, connected by the same four actresses, full of various subplots that play with narrative and different cinematic genres , everything structured in an unusual way.

• Out 1, noli me tangere (1971/2015) – 12 hours, 56 minutes (France)
  Following the May 1968 civil unrest in France, a deaf-mute and a con artist simultaneously stumble upon the remnants of a secret society.

• Shoah (1985) – 9 hours, 26 minutes (France, UK)
  Claude Lanzmann’s epic documentary recounts the story of the Holocaust through interviews with witnesses – perpetrators as well as survivors.

• Tiexi qu (Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks) (2002) – 9 hours, 11 minutes (China)
  The impact of the decline of heavy industry on workers and their families in the Tiexi district of Shenyang, China, at the turn of the 21st century, documented unflinchingly by a fly-on-the-wall camera.

• Ebolusyon ng isang pamilyang Pilipino (Evolution of a Filipino Family) (2004) – 9 hours (Philippines)
  The collapse and the struggle of a poor farming clan in Philippines. The ups and downs of Filipino culture are examined under a lens of deep empathy, and the director examines them in a way which brings you to understand these ideas as though you’ve lived them.

• Kagadanan sa banwaan ning mga engkanto (Death in the Land of Encantos) (2007) – 9 hours (Philippines)
  A Filipino poet named Benjamin Agusan (Roeder Camanag) is the hapless native who returns to his hometown Padang to witness the aftermath of the super typhoon.

• Heremias: Unang aklat – Ang alamat ng prinsesang bayawak (Heremias: Book One – The Legend of the Lizard Princess) (2006/2015) – 9 hours (Philippines)
  A wandering peddler separates from his fellow salesman and becomes involved with criminals in the jungle.

• Dead Souls (2018) – 8 hours, 15 minutes (Switzerland)
  A dozen aging survivors are interviewed from Jiabiangou, a complex of three work camps in Northwest China where supposed rightists were sent for re-education in the 1950s and 1960s under Mao Zedong.

• Hele sa hiwagang hapis (A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery) (2016) – 8 hours, 5 minutes (Philippines)
  Interconnected narratives on the Philippine Revolution of 1896-1897 against the Spanish, focusing on Gregoria de Jesus’ forlorn search for the body of the Father of Philippine Revolution Andres Bonifacio.

• The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin) (2020) – 8 hours (Japan, USA)
  A geographic description of fourteen months of the work and non-work of Tayoko in the mountains of Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. A georgic in five books.

• O.J.: Made in America (2016) – 7 hours, 47 minutes (USA)
  A chronicle of the rise and fall of O.J. Simpson, whose high-profile murder trial exposed the extent of American racial tensions, revealing a fractured and divided nation.

• Melancholia (2008) – 7 hours, 30 minutes (Philippines)
  Three people engage in a strange therapy to get away from their agonies. The film is divided into three parts, plus an epilogue, but these parts are not explicitly defined within the movie.

• CzechMate: In Search of Jirí Menzel (2018) – 7 hours, 9 minutes (India)
  Directed by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, this film is an in-depth exploration of the work of renowned Czech director Jiri Menzel and the Czech New Wave.

• Satantango (1994) – 7 hours, 19 minutes (Hungary)
  On the eve of a large payment, residents of a collapsing collective farm see their plans turn into desolation when they discover that Irimiás, a former co-worker who they thought was dead, is returning to the community.

• La roue (The Wheel) (1923) – 6 hours, 57 minutes (France)
  A railway engineer adopts a young girl orphaned by a train crash. Years later when she starts getting suitors, he grapples with whether or not to tell her the truth about her parentage.

• The Best of Youth (2003) – 6 hours, 6 minutes (Italy)
  An Italian epic that follows the lives of two brothers. Nicola and Matteo Carati are two brothers from Rome, who live the years from 1966 to 2000 through all the events that happened during this period.

• Siglo ng pagluluwal (Century of Birthing) (2011) – 6 hours (Philippines)
  An artist struggles to finish his work. A storyline about a cult plays in his head. Fundamentalism will destroy the world. The artist destroys his muse in the process. He redeems her in the end.