E-Paper
Golden Globes 2025 Best Picture winner The Brutalist is 3.5 hours long! Got a rare India-style ‘interval’ in theatres
The Brutalist, directed by Brady Corbet and featuring Adrien Brody, includes a 15-minute intermission, rekindling a classic cinema tradition in US theatres.
Brady Corbet's The Brutalist, starring Adrien Brody, is an epic tale of a brilliant architect's post-war journey to America. It is one of the most critically praised films of the year, dominating the Golden Globes 2025 and earning the Best Motion Picture—Drama award. The film also features something audiences have rarely seen in recent years of U.S. cinema, an intermission.
(Also Read: Golden Globes: The snubs and surprises in the 2025 nominations)
The Brutalist ran with a 15-minute interval in US theatres
The Brutalist premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on September 1, 2024. It received critical acclaim and was named one of the top ten films of 2024 by the American Film Institute. The film has a sprawling runtime of 3 hours and 35 minutes. However, what also caught attention was how it brought back the tradition of an intermission.
The film includes a 15-minute interval, reminiscent of the intermissions commonly seen in Indian cinemas. According to reports, the intermission is marked by a countdown clock displayed on the screen. This break occurs around the halfway mark, separating “Part 1: The Enigma of Arrival” from “Part 2: The Hard Core of Beauty.” The 15-minute intermission is included in the total runtime of the film.
Intermissions were once a part of long films in Hollywood. Classics like Gone with the Wind (1939), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and The Sound of Music (1965) included intermissions to give audiences time to stretch and anticipate the second part. However, as modern films became shorter and multiplex scheduling tighter, this practice largely disappeared from Western cinemas.
Theaters saw a financial benefit from movies without intermissions. Scheduling longer films with intermissions meant fewer screenings per day, thereby affecting box-office revenue. It’s worth noting that three of the four highest-grossing films of all time—Avengers: Endgame, Avatar: The Way of Water, and Titanic—are all over three hours long but do not include an intermission.
In India, however, intermissions remain a vital part of the moviegoing experience. Except for films with relatively shorter runtimes, most Indian films feature an interval, giving audiences a breather to refuel with snacks or discuss the plot’s twists and turns.
About The Brutalist
The Brutalist is an epic period drama featuring Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Emma Laird, Isaach de Bankolé, and Alessandro Nivola. The film won Best Motion Picture – Drama with Adrien Brody winning the Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama, Guy Pearce winning the Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture and Brady Corbet being crowned as the Best Director for the film.
Speaking about the intermission in his movie, Brady Corbet told IndieWire on the red carpet of the 2024 Gotham Awards on December 2, "It was always scripted, the intermission. It’s funny, it’s gotten more attention in a way than we expected it to. I personally have a hard time sitting still for three-and-a-half hours, so I needed it. And it was a public-facing decision.”
