Five Great Movies Under 90 Minutes

As much as I’d love to carve out an afternoon for an epic, three-hour movie marathon, reality usually has other plans. Work eats up most of the day, and whatever time is left gets swallowed by the endless to-do list: the faucet’s leaking, the vacuum’s calling my name, and somehow it’s already time to make dinner. So when I finally do get a moment to sit down and watch a movie, the first thing I check is the runtime. These days, short and sweet is the dream, and a tight 90-minute story is almost impossible to beat. 

With that in mind, this list adheres to strict rules: every movie clocks in at 90 minutes or less. Not 91. Not “basically 90.” If it goes over by even a minute, it’s out. Otherwise, you’re on a slippery slope—first it’s 95 minutes, then 100, and before you know it, you’re making excuses for why you’re halfway through a Lord of the Rings extended-edition marathon on a Tuesday night.

Shogun Assassin (1980) – 85 minutes

After being betrayed by his clan, a disgraced samurai embarks on a bloody journey of revenge with his young son in tow. Pushing a baby cart rigged with hidden weapons, the Lone Wolf cuts a savage path through feudal Japan.

Okay, I’m cheating a little here, using Shogun Assassin as a gateway drug to the entire Lone Wolf and Cub franchise. The film is an English-dubbed re-edit that stitches together the first two entries—Sword of Vengeance and Baby Cart at the River Styx—into one relentless package. Flashing blades, severed limbs, and geysers of blood fired with the force of a jet engine, Shogun Assassin distills the best action from both movies and wraps it in an admittedly bare-bones story.

But if you’re after bloody, operatic samurai carnage, this movie delivers in spades. There are some notable differences from the original films, but if Shogun Assassin strikes your fancy, the rest of the series is more than worth your time. And best of all? All six Lone Wolf and Cub movies clock in at under 90 minutes!

Blue Ruin (2013) – 90 minutes

When a drifter learns that the man who murdered his parents is being released from prison, he returns home seeking revenge.

A large part of what makes Jeremy Saulnier’s Blue Ruin so compelling is Macon Blair’s performance as Dwight Evans, a protagonist who feels deliberately wrong for the role of vigilante. Blair himself recognized that immediately. “Jeremy said, ‘We’ll do this as a really stark, brutal revenge movie, and you’re gonna be the lead,’” Blair recalled while speaking with Rolling Stone. “And I’m thinking, ‘That’s a terrible idea.’ I’m imagining Liam Neeson or Clint Eastwood. I was like, ‘Bro, you need a big, tough guy who’s credible kicking ass…and that’s not me.’”

But that discomfort was exactly what Saulnier was after. As Blair remembered, Saulnier explained, “‘That’s precisely the point: You don’t belong here, and that’s why it’s hopefully going to be interesting.’” Soft-spoken and unassuming, Dwight isn’t comfortable with guns—or even with other people—but once he commits to his path, there’s no turning back. Blue Ruin slowly and relentlessly ratchets up the tension as his revenge grows messier and bloodier, leaving you to wonder not whether he’ll succeed, but how he can possibly survive it.

Shiva Baby (2020) – 78 minutes

Trapped at a Jewish shiva with her parents, ex-girlfriend, and secret sugar daddy all in attendance, a college student’s anxiety spirals out of control.

Few movies capture anxiety as efficiently—or painfully—as Shiva Baby. What starts as a shiva observance quickly turns into a full-blown pressure cooker of secrets, judgment, and social landmines. It’s funny and excruciating in equal measure.

Anchored by a fearless, star-making performance from Rachel Sennott, the film weaponizes social discomfort with almost sadistic precision. The pacing is razor-sharp, and the script delights in stacking humiliation upon humiliation until it feels unbearable. Shiva Baby is proof that a movie can be short, intimate, and brutally effective, leaving you wrung out long before its mercifully brief runtime comes to an end.

High Noon (1952) – 85 minutes

As a newly married town marshal prepares to leave his post, he learns that a vengeful outlaw he once jailed is arriving on the noon train. Abandoned by the townspeople he’s protected for years, the marshal must decide whether to run—or stand alone against a deadly reckoning.

High Noon is a masterclass in tension and moral clarity. Told almost in real time, the film strips the Western down to its bare essentials: duty, fear, and the cost of doing the right thing when no one has your back. It’s old Hollywood at its tightest and most effective, with a ticking-clock structure that still feels modern decades later.

Gary Cooper delivers one of the finest performances of his career as Marshal Will Kane—a turn that earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor—even though he was far from the studio’s first choice. John Wayne was initially offered the role and passed. The studio then approached Gregory Peck, Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and Charlton Heston, all of whom declined. The film also features the stunning Grace Kelly in one of her earliest roles, while marking the screen debut of Lee Van Cleef, who would later become a Western icon in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Death Rides a Horse, Sabata, and more.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) – 83 minutes

A group of friends travelling through rural Texas stumble into a nightmare when they cross paths with a family of cannibals led by the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is one of the most influential horror movies for a reason. It’s a masterclass in raw, nerve-shredding efficiency. It feels filthy, unhinged, and exhausting in the best possible way, wringing maximum terror out of minimal resources.

What’s truly remarkable about The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is how real it feels. Shot with a documentary-like roughness, the film always gives me the feeling that I’m watching something I shouldn’t be seeing. Director Tobe Hooper suggests far more than he ever shows, using sound, editing, and sheer sensory overload to leave the audience feeling battered and drained. It’s a movie that stands as definitive proof that horror hits hardest when it’s lean, nasty, and utterly uncompromising.

Great storytelling doesn’t require an epic runtime, and this list only scratches the surface of the killer 90-minute movies out there. Let us know your favourite 90-minute films in the comments—because with this many lean, mean classics still on the table, a sequel to this list feels pretty much inevitable

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