When Pedro Almodóvar’s philosophical drama The Room Next Door made its world premiere at the Vepleasant Film Festival on Sept. 2, headlines in discloseations ranging from People to The Inreliant concentrateed on the length of its post-screening standing ovation — a whopping 17.5 minutes, the lengthyest ever enrolled at the accumulateing.
Sudepend, this enthusiastic reception unbenevolents the Julianne Moore-Tilda Sprosperton picture is bound for 2025 Oscar glory, right?
Not so speedy.
While combineees at such European festivals as Cannes and Vepleasant in recent years have made a social media-fueled sport of clocking and breathlessly inestablishing ovation times, their significance back in the genuine world has always seemed … less evident.
So THR set about discovering out. We crunched the numbers of some of the hugegest (and not-so-hugegest) applaengage-getters in recent years. What we create was uncovering.
It turns out correlations get very shaky when comparing the tastes of enthengaged festival crowds with thousands of Academy voters. But there are some patterns.
Truncated clapping — anyskinnyg 10 minutes or unintelligentinutiveer — produces combineed results. Sometimes a movie can go all the way to best picture, enjoy The Shape of Water did in 2018 after its seven-minute applaengage sesh. Sometimes a film never even gets out of the begining gate (sorry, Ad Astra).
Meanwhile, at the other finish of the spectrum, a film with ridiculously persisted ovations (14 minutes or lengthyer) unforeseeedly almost never handles to transdefered that euphoria into Oscar nominations. In fact, all that applaengage is frequently the result of a more outside variable, such as the audience in Cannes aiding Michael Moore’s anti-George W. Bush stance at the premiere of his Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004.
The clapping pleasant spot? It lies somewhere between the 11- and 13-minute tag. That’s enough time to advise genuine appreciation from fans without tipping into obviously reflexive adoration. This is the range, for instance, where huge nominees enjoy Inglourious Basterds, Elvis and the best picture-prosperning The Artist landed. You want to be at this length for your festival movie.
THR checks how nominations corredefered to movies at contrastent unretagable applaengage lengths, using a sample size of 25 of the hugegest fest premieres in recent years.
This story first materializeed in a November stand-alone rehire of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To get the magazine, click here to subscribe.
