Pretty much anything directed by Jacques Rivette - IMDb, but most especially L’amour fou (1969 - 4h, 12m), Celine and Julie go Boating (1974 - 3h, 13m) and Out 1 (1972 - 12h, 56m). The “short” version of the latter, Out 1: Spectre (1972) runs a mere 4h, 13m. When it came to wasting film stock, Mr. Rivette had few peers.
I imagine trying to sit through Birth of a Nation or Intolerance would be plenty boring for any child as well.
I remember being bored to tears trying to watch Chariots of Fire as a child. And as an adult.
I found the Antonioni movie Il deserto rosso to be pretty boring as an adult, so I doubt I would have found it more interesting as a child.
I’m going to nominate The Darjeeling Limited. Even as an adult I didn’t get it. It never gave me any reason to care about these people.
Nitpick: It was Remains of the Day lunchboxes, and My Dinner with André action figures.
The movie struck a chord with my group of friends, because some of them had been in the Findhorn Community that’s the subject of much of André’s soliloquy about the Scottish cult that can move rocks with their minds.
So of course I had to make the friends some “My Dinner with André Action Figures!” and fake up packaging for them.
Back on topic, this could be the winner… I loved it, but it’s slow for any age group.
It’s tough when your kids are bored to death by one of your childhood favorites.
My kids loved Rat Race. So I thought, hey, why not show them the original? The first movie my dad took me to in a theater, the one that we laughed at all the way through: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
But the kids kept saying “Borrrring…”, “Shouldn’t they have cut to another scene by now?”, “Can we watch Rat Race again?” and “This is slowwwww…”
Seeing it through their eyes, it sure is.
Judgment at Nuremberg.
Here are some that haven’t been mentioned yet. I stuck to great classics. Picking bad movies or ones that are boring for adults is like shooting fish in a barrel.
The Lion in Winter
The Third Man
Chinatown
The Apartment
The Sweet Smell of Success
Lawrence of Arabia
Dr. Zhivago
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Roman Holiday
All of these deal with themes that most children don’t have the life experience to understand, and some of them are too slow-moving for most kids.
I’d add Greed to that list.
Here are some Disney animated movies that I think are boring:
Mars Needs Moms
Strange World
The Black Cauldron
Brother Bear
Home On The Range
Wish*
*I haven’t seen that one
I like Andrei Rublev, but young kids may wonder who those people are supposed to be.
I’d nominate “The Deer Hunter”. I was 15 when it came out and was bored by it, yet found parts of it disturbing. I think it’s the only film my parents dragged me to that I was bored by.
With Tom Hanks? I love that film, I have a copy and rewatch it once in a while.
A snoozer for sure.
I went on a date to see The Right Stuff and it bored her so much she left. I liked it.
Yeah, some great acting, I will admit, but I have absolutely no desire to ever see it again. Same with The Seventh Seal
Lots of slo-mo running?
Hilarious but very long.
I have tried that film a couple of time, but never made it thru.
My wife still hasn’t forgiven me for “making” her watch it with me. It’s been a little over 20 years I think.
Dad took my brother and me, who were about 9 and 12, to see “2001” when it was re-released in the late 1970s. We didn’t get it. I’ve tried to watch it more recently, and I STILL think it’s dull and boring.
I do remember really liking the much lesser-known sequel “2010.”
When I first learned of it I expected it to end in a necktie party, but no such luck.
The book (in competition with The Horse Whisperer) was the Fifty Shades of Gray of the 90s. Both movies were kinda snoozefests for me.
I’ll nominate two: Prince of the City, starring Treat Williams (I fell asleep in the theater); and, believe it or don’t, the original Dr. Doolittle (with Rex Harrison and Anthony Newley). I wanted to love that film, but I couldn’t sit through it.
If you think Citizen Kane is boring, don’t ever try to watch The Magnificent Ambersons. The only thing in it worth seeing is the very young Anne Baxter.
At language school, I was forced to endure Andrei Rublev and Oblomov. Both are absolute snooze fests.
Back in the '90s, I was staying in a motel with HBO. I had just finished reading Steven Bach’s Final Cut, so I was excited to learn Heaven’s Gate was coming on at the top of the hour. I had wanted to see it for a long time, so I made myself comfortable and switched it on. I fell asleep after the first 15 minutes.
Rat Race was marketed as a “remake” of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, but I’ve never seen any similarity between the two except for the basic premise of a bunch of complete strangers chasing after a ton of money.
When it comes to science fiction, I found THX 1138 to be excruciatingly boring, even more so than 2001. The latter at least had cool spaceships and special effects to watch.
Birth of a Nation ?
all 3+ hours of it.