IMDb is a widely acclaimed platform for film and television audiences, renowned for its extensive database of films, television shows, cast and crew information, user reviews, ratings and industry news, serving as a go-to resource for entertainment enthusiasts and professionals alike.

Among its most popular features is the Top 250 list, a prestigious ranking of the highest-rated films based on millions of user ratings.

I've found a dataset on Kaggle.com that contains the same list with the columns Rank, Title, Year, Rating, Runtime.

In this context, I studied the average runtime of these films by trying to analyse the evolution of the runtime over the years.

Runtime Trends in IMDb's Top 250 Films (1920–Present)

First, I calculated the average runtime of the films for each year, then I uploaded all the years in a specific array by removing duplicates to ensure a proper analysis.

From 1920 to the present day, we can clearly see how the duration has increased over the years, from 60 minutes to almost 3 hours more frequently.

We can also see that the average length of a film exceeds 120 minutes more often after 1960. A shift that likely aligns with the widespread adoption of colour filmmaking, reflecting both technological advances and changing audience expectations.

Beyond the Clock: What Longer Runtimes Say About Great Cinema

The data clearly shows a significant upward trend in the average running time of films in the IMDb Top 250, particularly after the 1960s. This shift suggests a changing cinematic landscape - one in which storytelling has become more ambitious and audiences have become more receptive to longer, more complex narratives.

The increase in running time may also be linked to advances in technology, the move to colour, evolving audience expectations and the industry's increasing willingness to push conventional boundaries. As cinema continues to evolve, running time appears to be less of a constraint and more of a canvas, allowing filmmakers to fully realise their creative visions.