10 Recent Movies That Prove You Don’t Need More Than 90 Minutes to Tell a Great Story
With both 2025’s The Brutalist being a mighty 215 minutes long, and Avatar: Fire and Ash having a mammoth run time of 197 minutes, it seems that Hollywood is embracing the epic. Even award-nominated and winning movies, Marty Supreme, Sinners, and Sentimental Value, are all well past the two-hour mark, and whilst sometimes a story needs time to build the world, most films that run beyond 100 minutes could easily trim away ten or so minutes.
And so, the 90-minute or under movies are the unsung heroes of cinema. Not only are the stories more punchily paced, but they also don’t cause the numb bum scenario of their meatier counterparts. Plus, for the cinephiles in the world determined to watch as many movies as humanly possible, why watch one three-hour epic when you could see two 90-minute films and push that view count higher?
Of course, not all shorter movies are worthy of praise. The vast majority of horror movies easily clock in under 90 minutes, for example, but the quality is not always there. Sometimes, though, a director and writer know exactly how to craft a perfect story and parcel it up into a runtime of no more than 90 minutes. As counter programming to all the well over two-hour movies flooding the market, we’ve rounded up some of the best recent examples that prove you don’t always need more than an hour and a half to tell a great story.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone was sitting on their computers on Zoom calls. Whether for business or pleasure, Zoom became a lifeline for people, that was until Rob Savage dreamt up Host. Running at just 57 minutes, Savage’s Host played out in real-time as a group of friends performed a seance on Zoom and quickly found themselves haunted by a malevolent presence. There are episodes of TV shows longer than Host, but its micro runtime was entirely intentional and meant to more closely align with Zoom’s 40-minute free meeting session threshold.
Host also perfectly modernises the found-footage formula, changing tack to the screen-life genre, and has gone down in history as one of the most important films within the subgenre, sitting right alongside The Blair Witch Project.
Written and directed by Emma Seligman, Shiva Baby stars Rachel Sennott as Daniella, an aimless young woman made to attend a local Shiva by her parents. There she is met with a never-ending barrage of questions about what she is going to do with her life, as well as having to dance around both her ex-girlfriend and sugar daddy.
A masterclass in anxiety, Shiva Baby is most certainly a movie for fans of the Safdie brothers’ brand of stress-fuelled viewing. Seligman doesn’t go quite as hard as the Safdies, who are known for their long-length movies, keeping Shiva Baby to only 77 minutes. Don’t let that fool you, though, as Shiva Baby is still extremely potent.
Although 2025 appears to have been the year when Hollywood decided to fully embrace the super-long movie, independent filmmakers have still been flying the flag for shorter films. One of the best films that frankly hasn’t had enough attention is Babak Anvari’s Hallow Road. Set over the course of one night, primarily in real-time, the thriller joins parents Maddie and Frank as they jump in the car to assist their daughter, Alice, whose car has broken down in a secluded spot of rural countryside. As they converse, Alice also reveals her involvement in a potential crime, causing her parents to panic even more.
Although set almost exclusively within the setting of a car, Hallow Road is incredibly tense and has the audience on the edge of their seat throughout. Thankfully, it is only 80 minutes long, as anything longer would be far too stressful a viewing experience.
Aardman’s Wallace and Gromit movies are a staple of festive family viewing, and their 2024 return in Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl was an instant hit. Not only does the film rejoin eccentric inventor Wallace and his loyal pup, Gromit, but it also brings back the iconic villain, Feathers McGraw. Having spent years in incarceration after his arrest in The Wrong Trousers, McGraw escapes prison by hacking into the mainframe for Wallace’s new invention - handy, helpful robot Norbot.
Full of all the humour that fans have come to expect, plus some exceptional stop-motion animation, Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is the perfect movie to watch with the family. At just 82 minutes, the Aardman film is also just the right length to keep the kids entranced.
Before she directed True Detective: Night Country, director Issa López made the exceptional Tigers are not Afraid. A film endorsed by both Guillermo del Toro and Stephen King, the 83-minute Mexican movie mixes the gritty reality of Mexico’s street children with fairytale elements to craft a story that is utterly mesmerising. After Estrella’s mother goes missing, likely at the hands of the local cartel, Estrella sets out to find her, stumbling across a group of young boys led by El Shine. The boys agree to help Estrella in her mission, and their journey into darkness is harrowing to watch.
Tigers are not Afraid channel’s Pan’s Labyrinth, Peter Pan, and City of God, creating a movie unlike many others, and one that deserves to be more widely known than it is.
Way before he was an Oscar winner, Michael B. Jordan was one of the three lead stars in Josh Trank’s Chronicle. The feature debut of Trank, Chronicle is a teen, sci-fi, found-footage movie that follows three friends as they develop superpowers after encountering a strange object. Whilst Chronicle has its fun moments with the boys using their new abilities to play pranks on the townsfolk, it is also a fascinating study of both the male psyche and how power can corrupt, with Dane DeHaan’s character taking his powers to the dark side.
The 84-minute movie gave the careers of everyone involved a massive jolt, and given Jordan’s newfound Academy status, it is well worth seeing this earlier movie to see how his craft has progressed.
Bundle HD
Directed by Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement, who also star, What We Do in the Shadows is a feature-length variation of what audiences now know as the comedy show What We Do in the Shadows. Although the core characters from the comedy series are missing, the film formed the genesis for its mockumentary storytelling format and had a crew filming a different set of modern vampires.
If you have somehow watched all six seasons of the television series without having watched the film, you are missing out. Featuring the same silly and witty comedy and an even more useless clan of vampires, it is very easy to see why this idea was too good to be limited to just 86 minutes.
Potentially better remembered for his breakthrough movie, Troll Hunter, it is André Øvredal’s The Autopsy of Jane Doe that proves to be his greatest work. Toll Hunter is a fantastic found-footage movie, but at 103 minutes, it is one of the examples of a film that could chop away some time and be even better. In contrast, the svelte 86 minutes of The Autopsy of Joe Doe don’t have an ounce of fat on them. Father and son morticians are called to perform an emergency autopsy of a newly admitted Jane Doe. As a storm whirls outside, the duo begin work, but it doesn’t take long for them to realise that this body is unlike any they have encountered before.
Filled with a persistent sense of creeping dread, painfully intense silences, and a heart-stopping bell that forever rings exactly when you don’t expect or want it to, The Autopsy of Jane Doe is an excellent example of a well-executed horror movie that doesn’t outstay its welcome.
Despite its title, William Oldroyd’s Lady Macbeth has little to do with its Shakespearean namesake. Instead, the story focuses on Katherine Lester, a young bride sold into marriage, who embarks on a dangerous affair with one of her workers. An early film in Florence Pugh’s career, Lady Macbeth proved early on that the actress was a formidable force in front of the camera. In turn, it also demonstrated that you can tell a sweeping period epic within just 89 minutes.
Period drama and thrillers of this ilk typically tip well over the two-hour point, and so Lady Macbeth is the film for those who want to scratch an itch for something historical looking and dramatic, but are under time constraints.
Jim Archer’s Brian and Charles was a darling of 2022’s Sundance Film Festival. In many ways, a more grown-up and live-action version of Wallace and Gromit, Brian and Charles tells the story of eccentric and lonely inventor Brian, who makes a robot, Charles Petrescu, to be his companion. However, when the town bully lays eyes on him, Brian must take a stand to save his cabbage-loving, washing machine-chested bestie.
Told in the mockumentary format, Brain and Charles is a charming comedy that beautifully champions the underdog. It’s also a wonderful story of accidental fatherhood, friendship, and courage, and at just 90 minutes is an easy way to while away an afternoon.
