Riba Rambles:
MORE Musings of a Mental Magpie

A few weeks back, when talking about Lawrence of Arabia, I started wondering:

What was the last mainstream (non arthouse) motion picture to have an intermission?

Lawrence had an intermission (with a brilliant pitch for lemonade right before the break), so the change happened sometime after the mid-1960s.

I can see how modern multiplex design prohibits intermissions -- both the risk of people sneaking into other movies and the security issues of people leaving possessions unattended at their seats.

But I think the current crop of moviemakers have forgotten Alfred Hitchcock's famous quote:

So, in my own obsessive way, I started looking for the answer.

I found two articles by film critics that make the same assertion:

“So far as I can tell, the last film to be presented with an official intermission was Gandhi, back in 1982.”
          — Leonard Maltin

“The last intermission in a mainstream movie bisected "Gandhi" in 1982. The breaks were discontinued so more screenings could be packed into the day. Also, multiplexes were emerging in the early 1980s. Intermissions make it hard to keep track of multiplex patrons -- who could take advantage of the extra traffic to sneak into several movies without paying.
For a long time the disappearance of intermissions wasn't much of a problem. But in the past half-decade, the amount of 180 minutes-plus movies seems to be increasing to a level not seen since the early 1970s.”
          — Peter Hartlaub, SF Chronicle

But surely the trend was already well underway before that. Is there any way we can see the shift?

Wikipedia has pages listing Films over three hours long and Films over four hours long. [They also have pages for longer films, but much over four hours and you're definitely into arthouse/cult territory, which aren't relevant for these purposes.]

I went through those lists, weeded out the non-mainstream films and those too old (before the mid-1960s). I scoured Wikipedia and IMDB for each movie's length and whether or not it had an intermission. And then I threw the whole lot into a table to look for the patterns.

Fifty-two titles in all.

On my own, I've been able to find out about intermissions for three-quarters of them.

Thirteen are still undefined, mostly films released during the late-1970s and early-1980s. [And, of course, my sources may be wrong on some of the others.] If you've got additional information, please share it with me so I can correct the list.

Anyway, here's what I've got:

Movie Intermissions since the mid-1960s

Key to table:
Intermission:  • definitely has intermission  • definitely no intermission  • uncertain about intermission	Year:  • 1960s   • 1970s   • 1980s   • 1990s   • 2000s	Length:  • over 4 hours  • top half  • bottom half  • under 3 hours
Examples combining the styles:    • Short 1960s movie with break    • Uncertain 1980s movie    • Long 2000 movie without break

Click any column header to sort:

Title	Year	Length	Intermission?	Notes	Links
Apocalypse Now	1979	2:33	No
Apocalypse Now Redux	2001	3:22	No
At Play in the Fields of the Lord	1991	3:09	?
Barry Lyndon	1975	3:04	Yes
Blood in Blood out	1993	3:00	?
Cleopatra	1963	3:12	?
Cleopatra	1963	4:03	Yes	roadshow version
Dances with Wolves	1990	3:00	No
The Deer Hunter	1978	3:02	?
Doctor Zhivago	1965	3:17	Yes
The Fall of the Roman Empire	1964	3:08	Yes
The Falls	1980	3:05	?
Fanny and Alexander	1982	3:08	Yes	theatrical release
Fiddler on the Roof	1971	3:01	Yes
Gandhi	1982	3:08	Yes
Gettysburg	1993	4:14	Yes
The Godfather	1972	2:55	Yes
The Godfather, Part II	1974	3:20	No
Gods and Generals	2003	3:51	Yes
The Great Race	1965	2:40	Yes
The Greatest Story Ever Told	1965	3:19	Yes
The Green Mile	1999	3:08	No
Hamlet	1996	4:02	Yes
The Happiest Millionaire	1967	2:52	Yes
Hawaii	1966	3:09	Yes
Heaven's Gate	1980	3:48	Yes
The Iceman Cometh	1973	3:59	?
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World	1963	3:12	Yes
JFK	1991	3:09	?
King Kong	2005	3:07	No
The Last Emperor	1987	2:40	Yes
Lawrence of Arabia	1962	3:36	Yes
LotR: The Fellowship of the Ring	2001	2:58	No
LotR: The Return of the King	2003	3:21	No
LotR: The Two Towers	2002	2:59	No
Magnolia	2000	3:08	?
Malcolm X	1992	3:22	No
Nicholas and Alexandra	1971	3:03	Yes
Nixon	1995	3:12	No
Once Upon a Time in America	1984	3:49	Yes
Pearl Harbor	2001	3:03	No
Red Beard	1965	3:05	Yes
Reds	1981	3:14	Yes
The Rescuers Down Under	1990	1:16	Yes	Accompanied by 24-minute "The Prince and the Pauper" with intermission between short and feature.
Ryan's Daughter	1970	3:15	Yes
The Right Stuff	1983	3:13	?
Schindler's List	1993	3:15	No
Short Cuts	1993	3:07	?
Tess	1980	3:10	?
Titanic	1997	3:14	No
Woodstock	1970	3:04	?
Wyatt Earp	1994	3:11	?

Some interesting trivia:

• The Godfather, Part II is 25 minutes longer than the original Godfather.
  Yet the earlier (shorter) movie had an intermission, and the later (longer) movie didn't.

Oh, and Leonard Maltin was wrong, at least by my judgments of what is and isn't mainstream...

PS: Long movies omitted from consideration:

Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler; H"tel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie; L'Amour fou; La Belle noiseuse; Ludwig; Mera Naam Joker; My Voyage to Italy; Scenes from a Marriage; Siberiade; The Sorrow and the Pity; Until the End of the World; The Alamo (1960 film); Amar Akbar Anthony; Andrei Rublev; Anniyan; Around the World in Eighty Days (1956 film); Awaara; Ben-Hur (1959 film); The Best Intentions; The Birth of a Nation; Boccaccio '70; Celine and Julie Go Boating; Chandni; Chelsea Girls; Children of Paradise; A Constant Forge; The Cremaster Cycle; Cristo si Š fermato a Eboli; Das Boot; Devdas (2002 film); Dil Chahta Hai; Dil Hai Tumhaara; Ek Aur Ek Gyarah; El Cid; Eureka (2000 film); Exodus; Frau im Mond; Giant; Gone with the Wind; Greed; Hey Ram; Hum Aapke Hain Kaun; Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam; The Human Condition (film trilogy); Intolerance; Judgment at Nuremberg; Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham; Kal Ho Naa Ho; King: a Filmed Record...Montgomery To Memphis; Lagaan; Lakshya; Lamhe; The Legend of Suriyothai; The Leopard; Les Uns et les Autres; Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon; Maine Pyar Kiya; Mohabbatein; Muqaddar Ka Sikander; Naseeb; Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero; No Direction Home; O Lucky Man!; Pepe; A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies; Renaldo and Clara; Saagar; Sangam; The Seven Samurai; Sholay; Silsila; Spartacus; A Star Is Born (1954 film); Sunshine (1999 film); Swades; Teheran 43; The Ten Commandments (1956 film); A Touch of Zen; The Tree of Wooden Clogs; Underground; The Unknown Soldier (1985 film); Veer-Zaara; Waqt (1965 film); War and Peace (1956 film)