Screenplays usually land around 90 to 120 pages. And the reason involves both technical considerations and the practical realities of making a film.
Characters, story, and originality aside, the reality is you’re here to sell a product. The length of your product is just as important as any of the other elements you have in your screenplay. Whether you’re deciding if your script should be longer or shorter, there are some things to keep in mind.
In this article, I’ll show you some of the hidden reasons why certain films run as long as they do and how you can apply that to your own screenwriting process. Lastly, I’ll offer you a Story Weapon to help ensure that every page of your screenplay counts.
“How Long Should a Screenplay Be?” is the question of woe to every writer at the beginning, middle, and end of their script. Look at the industry standard screenplay formats, study the scripts that you love, and pace yourself out with an outline. Once you have a sense of your audience and what they’re capable of buying into you will have the clarity you need to finish your screenplay on time and within scope.
The industry standard length
Each page of your script translates to one minute of screentime (you can read about screenplay formatting here). This means your feature film should range between the 90 minute to 120 minute range.
I know what you’re thinking. Aren’t there movies that are 2 and a half hours long? Even 3 hours? There are always exceptions to the rule, but ultimately it depends on who’s attached to the project.
Here’s the reality: those lengthy exceptions tend to go to established names, such as Christopher Nolan or Quentin Tarantino. For one, those guys direct their own movies, so studios and producers know exactly what they’re investing in. It’s for that reason the script for the 180-minute Oppenheimer, and the 160-minute Once Upon a Time in Hollywood made it to theatrical release.
The standard 90-120 page range exists for a reason. The length of your screenplay directly correlates to the film’s budget and shooting time. Therefore, one of the first things producers check is the script length, and, barring exceptions, they are less likely to read anything that doesn’t fall within the standard range.
Screenwriting is all about economy. You may have heard the adage: “Get into the scene as late as possible and out as early as possible.” The key is to show your efficiency with storytelling, and how reliable you are as a professional in the industry. Think of the page limit as a way to communicate that you’re worth their investment.
Genre and how it affects length
As you’d expect, the genre of a screenplay also has an effect on where your screenplay should roughly fall.
Comedy and Family stories
- Zootopia 2 – 108 minutes
- Naked Gun (2025) – 85 minutes
- Anaconda (2025) – 98 minutes
Thriller
- 28 Years Later – 115 minutes
- She Rides Shotgun – 120 minutes
- Eddington – 145 minutes
Drama
- Train Dreams – 102 minutes
- Is This Thing On? – 121 minutes
- If I Had Legs I’d Kick You – 113 minutes
If you take a look at these examples, there is a clear pattern that. When you’re dealing with pure comedies and family movies made for casual entertainment, you can do with less runtime and number of pages. For a screenplay that develops something deeper, you’ll naturally find yourself with a longer script on your hands.
Why does this pattern exist?
Comedies rely on momentum and quick pacing. When your story relies on the impact of jokes and gags, you’ll end up with diminishing returns if your movie overstays its welcome. Audiences tend to have a limited attention-span for comedy. It’s a must in this genre to keep things fresh, and a long runtime can often spoil the effect.
“To make your jokes as funny as possible… Shorten as much as possible. End on the laugh trigger.”
– Ben Rosenfeld, Comedy Writing for Late-Night TV
Thrillers allow for a more fleshed out exploration of characters and themes. For that reason, a longer runtime is permissible if that’s what’s needed to make your story cohesive. A screenplay can’t rely on thrills alone, however, which is the reason thrillers have so many subgenres, such as crime, political, legal, medical, action, etc.
Dramas earn their runtime. You’ll rarely see a drama that’s less than 100 minutes in length. The genre tends to be more character-driven, which can allow for longer scenes and more character exploration, which usually means a greenlight to be more liberal with the storylines yo.
Nevertheless, the key thing to remember during all this is to aim for the most efficient storytelling. Whatever the page number ends up being, each scene needs to serve your story.
The essential first step
Structuring your screenplay is the best way to get the lay of the land before getting too granular with the story you’re telling. The best thing you can do to get a grasp on how long your screenplay will be is by creating an outline.
“Screenplays are structure.”
– William Goldman
The first act is ideally around 25-30 pages long. You’ll see this magic number show up in a few different structure models, such as the “Save the Cat” template. If you can stick to ranges like this, then you’ll be on your way to mastering pacing in your screenplay.
If your first act runs to page 40, that’s a signal you may have taken too long to get there. By then, your reader may have lost interest, while waiting for the critical turning point.
By mastering story structure, you will develop an innate sense of the mechanics that will help you marry your character motivations to plot.
Common issues when dealing with screenplay length
You find yourself on page 140 at the end of Act Two
If it comes to this, it’s not that you don’t know what to cut – it’s that you don’t want to cut anything. That’s understandable. You’ve poured your heart and soul onto the page and this thing has become your baby. But the reality is that with a new outline, you may begin to see that you’ve written scenes that are not actually germane to the story you are telling. And while you may have fallen in love with some of these scenes, you must be willing to “kill your darlings.”
As much as you may love your characters or a specific setting, you have to remove any scenes that don’t advance the plot, or don’t deepen your characters in a meaningful way. Say, for example, you have a scene where your character is contemplating the morality of his job as a henchman as he drinks in a bar. Well, perhaps you already targeted that same topic earlier when you showed him struggling to go through with an assignment. As a screenwriter, you must be ruthless. By boiling down your story to only what is essential, the script will get tighter and stronger.
You’re at page 62 and your story already feels complete
There are two possibilities here.
- Is it possible your story works better as a short film? Perhaps your story doesn’t have subplots, and thus, you might want to tighten it up even more and produce it as a short film?
- The other consideration is that oftentimes when a script falls too short in length, the screenwriter hasn’t explored the characters deeply enough.
Ask yourself these questions:
- Have the relationships between characters been fully explored?
- Is there anything that feels like it has been left unsaid?
- Is there anything important to the story that could be made clearer?
- Did I take full advantage of every scene and the settings in which they take place?
You wrote your screenplay without following proper formatting
This is a common issue for novice screenwriters, and fortunately, one that is easily fixed. Adjusting to the proper format may instantly solve your page length dilemma. It’s actually easy to learn screenplay formatting, and worth taking the time to get it right. From something as simple as the font you use, to how to set dialogue lines and parentheticals, your goal should be to present a professional screenplay so that your work is taken seriously.
Your story weapon: Keep your audience in mind
If your screenplay deals with a character who’s struggling with his own morality as he ruthlessly hunts down criminals, then that story demands more pages. Likewise, an animated adventure about a dinosaur finding his way back home will likely require fewer pages. Young audiences are far less likely to sit through a two-hour film.
Remember this principle: the right length for your screenplay isn’t about hitting an arbitrary range, it’s about familiarizing yourself with your genre and understanding what is expected from your story. A psychological thriller that explores issues of moral ambiguity and lost identity may justify a higher page count than a light romantic comedy.
But ultimately, the question isn’t “How long should my screenplay be?” The real question is, “How much space do I need for my story to be told well and satisfy the audience?”
The standard screenplay length is a guide, use it and hone your craft to where it deserves to be.
FREE STORY STRUCTURE GUIDE! Are you struggling with your outline and looking for support? My FREE GUIDE will lead you through the process of marrying the wildness of your imagination to the rigor of story structure to unlock your story within.
