
Have movie trailers always been this long?
I analysed 6,926 trailers from 4,004 top-grossing films to find out if modern trailers really are too long or if I’m just getting old.
I saw Jurassic Park: Rebirth in my local cinema this weekend and I’m annoyed.
Now, I know what you’re thinking - How can they possibly justify that title, given that:
Of the nine featured dinosaurs, six were from the Cretaceous period (Aquilops, Mosasaurus, Quetzalcoatlus, Spinosaurus, Velociraptor, Titanosaurus, and the trusty T-Rex), two were fictional (Distortus Rex, and Mutadon) leaving just one that was actually “Jurassic” (Dilophosaurus).
It didn’t take place in a “Park”.
Nothing was “Rebirthed”.
While this may be true, I was annoyed long before the movie actually started.
Among the trailers which played before the movie, three stuck out. Each one felt like it went on forever, packing in nearly every action beat, joke, and spoiler they could.
After about 30 seconds, I was convinced I’d see the films… and then they kept going. One trailer even managed to actively put me off due to explaining too much of the plot.
This got me thinking - have movie trailers always been this long, or am I just becoming a grumpy old man?
Let’s turn to the data to find out.
How long are movie trailers?
I tracked down 6,926 movie trailers from over 4,000 top-grossing films between 1930 and 2025.
Across all movies, the average trailer was 122.8 seconds, a hair over two minutes long.
War films, biographies and historical films have the longest trailers, with Documentaries, family films and westerns keeping it shorter.
A short history of long trailers
What we now call a movie trailer started in 1913 as a bit of promotional footage for a Broadway show. By 1914, film exhibitors were copying the format for cinema, but they screened these shorts after the feature (hence the name, as they trailed the movie), which quickly proved a mistake as audiences headed for the exits.
When the National Screen Service took control in the 1930s, trailers got a makeover. Their template: overblown taglines, stentorian narration, cast roll calls, and visuals designed to impress.
Gone with the Wind in 1939 ran nearly three minutes and promised “the most memorable event in the annals of the motion pictures.” Frankenstein in 1931 ran 1 minute and 40 seconds.
The late 50s and 60s saw directors get hold of the format. Hitchcock’s Psycho trailer is famous for running more than six minutes, despite featuring absolutely no footage from the movie!
Kubrick’s campaign for Dr. Strangelove cut together rapid-fire stills with no voiceover, steering away from plot recaps and towards spectacle or mood.
Blockbusters in the 1970s put trailers front and centre. The Jaws trailer from 1975 ran for 3 minutes 21 seconds and pretty much reveals everything about the movie.
So it seems that long trailers are not a wholly new invention.
But are they happening more often?
Have movie trailers got longer?
I charted the three-year rolling average for trailer length from 1940 to 2025. For much of the mid-twentieth century, the average was well above two minutes, often edging toward two and a half minutes.
That trend reached its highest point during the late 1960s and early 1970s. At this time, event films and roadshow releases routinely used trailers that topped 140 or even 150 seconds.
Starting in the early 1980s trailer lengths fell quickly. The late 1980s saw the shortest averages in the dataset, sometimes under 100 seconds.
Through the 1990s, trailer length crept back up but did not return to the heights of earlier decades. The blockbuster cycle of the 2000s and 2010s added more seconds, but even now the average remains below previous peaks.
Since 2010, trailer lengths have stabilised, with most years sitting just above two minutes.
So the answer to the core question - “Have movie trailers always been this long, or am I just becoming a grumpy old man?” I’m afraid to say that it’s the latter.
Long in the tooth
And it seems that my grumpiness is also not new. Folk have been complaining about overly-long trailers for almost as long as trailers have been around.
Many online articles cite an MPAA rule that movie trailers cannot run longer than two minutes 30 seconds, but I have struggled to find an official source for this. The only time limitation I can see in their official rules relates to the five seconds the pre-tailer card has to be on-screen.
In 2014, the National Association of Theatre Owners (recently rebranded as Cinema United) responded to audience complaints by pushing for a stricter two-minute limit for trailers shown in cinemas. Their argument was that shorter trailers would improve the moviegoing experience and allow for more screenings per day. Studios pushed back, claiming that two minutes was too short to set up story and spectacle.
Both the MPAA and Cinema United guidelines are voluntary, without real penalties. This is reflected in the data, in that many trailers exceed this limit but also that the 2014 decree did seem to have a very slight dampening effect.
So there we have it - trailer length today is not at some historic high. In fact, trailers used to be even longer for most of the twentieth century.
The drop in length during the 1980s and early 1990s, and the slight dip after the NATO guidelines, mean the average trailer is shorter than it was during the eras of Gone with the Wind, Ben-Hur, or Jaws. Bah humbug.
Notes
Today’s research is based on the running time of 6,926 movie trailers, covering 4,004 of the top-grossing films for each year from 1930 to 2025. I sought trailers of the 50 highest grossing films of each year (the 2025 crop are the 50 highest grossing so far, as of mid-July 2025) using a variety of sources including YouTube, IMDb, Wikipedia, The Numbers, Movie Insider, and Letterboxd.
I excluded TV promos, sizzle reels, and extended clips. Some trailers in the dataset were made for digital release, whereas the rules I mention are all aimed at theatrical trailers.
Further reading
If you enjoyed this exploration of movie trailers then you may enjoy a research I conducted a few years ago entitled How far in advance are film trailers released?
It may be time for me to revisit this research, though, as one of the trailers I witnessed over the weekend was for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey which comes out in over a year.
I find an article that considers an idea and concludes it's false is one of the most refreshing "hot takes" I could hear. I also felt like trailers were getting long as hell but apparently we were both just getting old. Appreciate the insights.
Today's Stephen Follow's sub stack write is one of my faves yet...totally interested in your analysis! I created a 1 minute trailer for my doc and in your research it shows docs have the shortest trailers..for a reason...one festival judge said my trailer didn't tell them the plot LOL..I knew I did it right...264 acknowledgements for my doc Interpreting Erik later...sometimes you have to just stand by your decisions. Love your newsletter! Donald D'Haene London, Canada