Avoid English-language films that run for less than 100 minutes, as too many are too poor to risk your time.
Linear broadcasting schedules must’ve incentivised conservative producers and directors to cut under 100 mins, to fit a sweet spot of # tv ad-breaks and/or # cinema screenings per evening. That limit inhibits the development of plot and empathy. There’s only time for a rushed story, which makes the result entertainment, not art.
Just rewatch the final scene of Richard Linklater’s Boyhood: how slowly it runs, forcing the audience to remember and relive their 18-year-old selves, and withholding any cathartic release. That empathic tension provokes emotion, which makes it art and art can change its audience.
Quentin Tarantino’s 99-minute Reservoir Dogs is an exception cinephiles used to use to counter. Now Reservoir Dogs’ particularly tense and explosive story entertains, and its nonlinear storytelling helps hide a lack of plot. The audience finishes dazed by an hour-and-a-half of vernacular, off-camera violence, and a jaunty soundtrack. But no emotion. An undercover cop and a bunch of hooligans got shot. So what? Felt nothin’.