What is the Longest Movie Ever Made?

Have you ever watched a really long movie? Did you get bored or think to yourself “when will this movie be over”? Or perhaps you were glad that the film was long because it was really well made. You may have also thought of the question: what is the longest movie ever made? It's an interesting question and one which I'll answer for you today. 

Before answering however, it's important to clearly define what type of movie we're talking about. There are different kinds of movies out there and some of them are exceptionally long because they weren't made to be watched on a Friday night by the average person on the street. One example of this is the experimental film 24 Hour Psycho which was released in 1993. This movie is just an editted version of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho which was made to play at 2 frames per second rather than 24 frames per second like the original movie. The result is that the film ends up being 24 hours long.

Such films are known as experimental or avant-garde pieces. They are meant to be an interesting and innovative form of art which the majority of people probably aren't used to. The longest movie of this kind (and the longest movie of any kind period) is a film called Modern Times Forever which was made by an artists' group called Superflex. It runs for 10 days and depicts a Finnish building called the Stora Enso undergoing centuries of decay. It was screened for the first time in front of the actual Stora Enso building.

You might now be saying to yourself: "What about mainstream movies though? It's all well and good that there are these strange avant-garde films which run for days, but what's the longest movie that you could go and see in theatres?" Here, the Guinness World Records tell us the answer. They gave the record for “the longest film commercially shown in its entirety” to a German movie called Heimat II: A Chronicle of a Generation. This movie describes life in Germany from 1960 – 1970 while following a central character named Hermann. The film first premiered in Munich, Germany and has a length of 25 hours and 32 minutes (not something I would want to watch all at once).

So there you have it, the longest movie ever made. If you guys have anything specific related to movies that you want me to write about, let me know in the comments.

You can get Heimat II: A Chronicle of a Generation on Amazon here.