7) 1970s Epics
Many of today’s masters of filmmaking came up in the 1970s, which was a time of exceptional artistic freedom for studio directors, who took advantage of this freedom by taking the time they felt was necessary to tell their stories. While Martin Scorsese was not yet making his sweeping crime epics that he would go on to produce, directors like Francis Ford Coppola and Michael Cimino were going all out.
The Godfather Parts I & II were monumental in the multi-generational storytelling they served up over the course of over 6 hours. The time devoted to the story of the Corleone family is necessary to first allow us to get lost in an environment that we might otherwise keep at a distance, and to become invested in characters that we might otherwise consider unsavoury. It allows us to see the many dimensions of the family members and how they relate to the world of organized crime as a whole.
Vietnam War movies The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now also use long runtimes to their thematic advantage, as both depict the sense of madness that this particular war had on its participants. They are both terrific examples of the dizzying effect of making an audience weary, and the receptiveness this can produce in the viewer by the end of such a mentally draining film experience.