The epic movie is a very long Hollywood tradition, dating back almost to the earliest days of cinema. D. W. Griffith's <em>The Birth of a Nation</em>, released in 1915, had a running time of just under three hours.

How much of a step forward this was over previous movie times is indicated by the fact that nine years earlier a film about the life of Australian outlaw Ned Kelly which ran for about an hour had toured Enland as 'the longest film ever made'.

The Oscars have not discriminated against long movies. The longest film ever to be awarded the Best Picture Oscar was <em>Lawrence of Arabia</em>, which ran for 221 minutes. <em>Gone With the Wind</em> was close behind on 220 minutes, with <em>The Godfather Part II</em> clocking in at 200 minutes. More recently <em>Titanic</em> narrowly failed to break the 200 minute barrier, clocking up just 197 minutes of watery action, but <em>The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King</em> made up for this by stretching to 201 minutes. Those who found this an uncomfortable experience to sit through may want to avoid buying the DVD version, which is rumoured to have a running time approaching five hours.

However, a running time of five hours seems like a jiffy when compared to some films that have been made over the years. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the accolade of longest film ever made goes to <em>The Cure for Insomnia</em>, made in 1987. Consisting chiefly of footage of a poet reciting his own 4,080-page poem and interspersed with X-rated footage and shots of rock musicians playing, the film, which lasts for more than 80 hours, sounds eminently worthy of its title. So too does 1970's <em>The Longest Most Meaningless Movie in the World</em>, a 48-hour marathon that was premiered at the Cinematheque de Paris. It is not known whether any members of the original audience were still present when the film ended. Andy Warhol made the film <em>Empire</em> in 1964 with a running time of 24 hours. The film effectively charts a day in the life of the Empire State Building as seen from a distance and is gripping stuff - if you are narcoleptic.

Slightly more watchable is the celebrated 1982 German-Italian co-production <em>Heimat</em>, which runs for a total of 15 hours 24 minutes. It charts the life of a German village between the years 1919 and 1982, and those emerging bleary-eyed from a full screening will probably be surprised to find they haven't aged 63 years while watching it. The film, mercifully, is normally shown cut into separate sections as a TV miniseries.

As for the shortest film ever made, the Guinness Book of World Records cites <em>Film</em>, a 12 second advertisement for the Mini Cooper, although the validity of this claim is open to doubt. Another, more serious contender is the 1998 film <em>Desserts</em>, featuring Ewan MacGregor as a man who finds an abandoned eclair on a beach. The film runs for just three minutes.