Why movies went from 15 minutes to 2 hours

Movies used to be really short. How did it change? Almanac Hollywouldn't is our miniseries on big changes to movies that came from outside Hollywood. Watch all of the episodes right here on YouTube. Episode 1: Episode 3: Why are movies about two hours long? In this episode of Vox Almanac, Vox’s Phil Edwards researches the history of movies — and discovers the Italian silent film classic that changed movies forever. Subscribe to our channel! In the 1900s, movies were typically around 15 minutes long — that was the length of one reel (depending on playback speed and a few other variables). But in 1913, that changed significantly thanks to the blockbuster “Quo Vadis” — a two-hour epic that wasn’t just long, but had blockbuster ambitions. Quo Vadis involved huge stunts, thousands of extras, and real Roman locations, taking movies to a scale little before seen. When it premiered, instead of p