10 Longest Best Picture Nominees, Ranked (2024)

Throughout the history of the Academy Awards, there have been plenty of large-scale movies with similarly large runtimes that have won Best Picture. Of course, there are also a decent number of winners that run closer to an hour-and-a-half than three hours or more, but bigger does indeed sometimes seem to be better, for Oscar voters. Given there are long winners, so too are there plenty of movies well over three hours that have been nominated without winning Best Picture.

The following nominees represent this well, and are ranked below from long to longest. Again, winners aren't counted here, though technical, winners were also nominees at one point, so the following isn't entirely comprehensive, from a certain point of view. So, perhaps it's appropriate to give "honorable mentions" to the likes of epic-length winners like The Godfather: Part II (202 minutes), Ben-Hur (212 minutes), Lawrence of Arabia (228 minutes), and Gone with the Wind (233 minutes).

10 'The Right Stuff' (1983)

193 minutes

The Right Stuff may have earned its fair share of Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture, but it still feels underrated overall. Simply put, movies that exceed three hours in length scarcely feel as well-paced or entertaining as The Right Stuff does, with the film telling an engaging, exciting, and moving story about America’s first space program, particularly the events surrounding the Mercury Seven.

Beyond being entertaining, The Right Stuff is also spectacular as far as technical accomplishments go, with much of the filmmaking and use of special effects holding up surprisingly well. It’s a film that successfully manages to cover a wide range of emotions and a considerable length of time, feeling exceptionally well-balanced overall and the kind of Best Picture nominee that, in hindsight, could well have been a very deserving winner.

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9 'Reds' (1981)

195 minutes

There’s an argument to be made that you need a runtime of more than three hours when the movie in question has as many noteworthy actors crammed into it as Reds does. The leads here are Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton (the former also being its director), with an impressive supporting cast that includes Jack Nicholson, Paul Sorvino, M. Emmet Walsh, and even Gene Hackman (albeit fairly briefly).

The plot of this historical epic revolves around an American journalist who admires the social revolution that occurred in Russia during the 1910s and 1920s, and sets his sights on inspiring something similar within the U.S. Without a doubt, Reds is exceedingly long and a little slow in parts, but it’s still an impressive accomplishment with plenty of elements that hold up relatively well when watched today.

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8 'The Sand Pebbles' (1966)

196 minutes

A lesser-known and perhaps underrated war moviethat notably stars Steve McQueen in one of his most serious/dramatic roles, The Sand Pebbles is maybe overlong, but it’s also very impactful when it needs to be. It takes place in China during the 1920s, with the main plot revolving around a group of people on a gunboat who are tasked with making a perilous journey along a river to rescue a group of captive missionaries.

The Sand Pebbles does have the feeling of an old-fashioned Hollywood movie in some regards, but it’s also surprisingly violent for a movie of its time, demonstrating how American filmmakers were gradually willing to put more surprising content into their films throughout the mid to late 1960s. It also might not justify its entire runtime, but it justifies a good deal of it; perhaps something closer to 160/170 minutes would’ve felt a little tighter and more suitable overall.

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7 'Doctor Zhivago' (1965)

200 minutes

Like The Sand Pebbles, which was released the following year, 1966's Doctor Zhivago is another remarkably long war movie that was nominated for Best Picture. It’s also potentially comparable to the aforementioned Reds, given Doctor Zhivago also explores the Russian Revolution while telling a story that involves a fair degree of romance and sweeping emotions, balancing all these components relatively well.

David Lean was a master of directing epics that really helped define the term, as it relates to cinema, and though Doctor Zhivago might not have been on quite the same level as prior movies of his like The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia, it wasn’t too far off. There’s a lot going on within Doctor Zhivago to justify its 3+ hour-long runtime, and anyone who likes the sorts of grand epics that were popular in the 1950s and ‘60s ought to check it out.

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6 'Giant' (1956)

201 minutes

Giant is up there with the best movies of the 1950s, and though it’s not a flawless epic, it was a good deal better than the large-scale movie that did win Best Picture the same year: Around the World in 80 Days. Narratively, Giant manages to span many years and a total of three generations, telling the story of various people in Texas clashing over land, oil reserves, and love.

It’s also well-remembered for being the last movie to feature James Dean, the legendary young 1950s actor who died tragically young and only appeared in three films in total. He’s not the protagonist in Giant, and instead showcases his range by playing a less likable character who emerges as something of a villain within the film. The rest of the movie around Dean is also pretty great, as Giant is beautifully shot and surprisingly well-paced for a film of its age.

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5 'The Alamo' (1960)

202 minutes

While John Wayne’s accomplishments as an actor are gargantuan and spanned decades, he only ever directed two movies during his long career: The Alamo and The Green Berets. Interestingly, both are classifiable as war films, despite Wayne being best known for his Westerns… though to be fair, when it comes to The Alamo, it is arguably a blend of war and Western genres.

It’s a movie that clocks in at close to three and a half hours, and tells the story – based on true events – of various soldiers who stood up to a much larger army during the 1836 Battle of the Alamo. It’s not a film that holds up tremendously well by any means, but it is ambitious and expansive, and was at least well-received by Oscar voters back in the day, as demonstrated by its nomination for Best Picture.

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4 'Killers of the Flower Moon' (2023)

206 minutes

Killers of the Flower Moon is a late-career film from Martin Scorsese, which more or less means a long runtime is to be expected. Some may find a movie with a runtime of 206 minutes that also contains troubling subject matter to be a tough sit, and without a doubt, Killers of the Flower Moon is, but intentionally so. Certain aspects shine through and make it engaging nevertheless, with the acting being particularly strong.

The narrative revolves around a series of murders committed against the Osage population during the 1920s, as they owned oil-rich land that non-Osage people wanted to obtain. Killers of the Flower Moondepicts these crimes in unflinching detail, shedding light on an awful series of true-life events while showcasing a particularly sinister type of evil that led to such crimes being committed.

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3 'The Irishman' (2019)

209 minutes

Speaking of long Martin Scorsese movies, The Irishman was even lengthier than Killers of the Flower Moon, clocking in at just one minute shy of 3.5 hours. With a dynamite case that includes the likes of Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, and Harvey Keitel, The Irishman tells the story of Frank Sheeran, a truck driver turned hitman who purportedly played a key role in the disappearance of union boss Jimmy Hoffa.

Though The Irishman is undoubtedly long, it feels difficult to call the film slow, given it moves along at a relatively quick pace in order to cram many years into a single coherent narrative. It draws out tension and slows down a little when needed, but it’s fairly easy to get immersed in the film and find that its 3.5-hour-long runtime ultimately passes by pretty quickly, all things considered.

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2 'The Ten Commandments' (1956)

220 minutes

A biblical epic to which all others are measured, The Ten Commandments came out the same year as the aforementioned Giant, with both films confusingly losing to Around the World in 80 Days. Like Giant, The Ten Commandments would’ve been a worthier winner of Best Picture, being an expansive and well-made retelling of the biblical Book of Exodus.

It narratively centers on Moses, following how he learned of his heritage and went on to become a well-respected leader of the Hebrew people, partly thanks to obtaining the titular Ten Commandments from God himself. The Ten Commandments is a lavish production overall, and though it’s now old enough to the point where some cracks show as far as the special effects are concerned, it can still be admired for how mind-blowing it would’ve been for audiences at the time of its release.

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1 'Cleopatra' (1963)

248 minutes

A notorious production that was one of the costliest in cinema history, Cleopatra lives in infamy, to some extent, but as far as compelling old-school epic movies go, it’s definitely not terrible. It’s about the titular queen, and her interactions with both Julius Caesar and his successor, Marc Antony, becoming involved with both in her quest to hold onto the power she held in Egypt.

Cleopatra is something of an epic/historical melodrama, and is going to be much too long for most current-day viewers, given its length of more than four hours (and it is flawed, in some regards, making it harder to recommend than other movies of the same length). But the scope of Cleopatra is rather bewildering, in many ways, and the novelty of watching something so massive can provide some rewards for patient viewers.

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