10 Movies That Have Put Me To Sleep. Like, I Actually Fell Asleep.
Several of them, more than once!
Having been a self-proclaimed cinephile since my early teens, admitting that I have fallen asleep while watching the following movies is akin to a bibliophile owning up to having never read Infinite Jest.
I wish I could preface this list with the disclaimer that it happened when I was a frazzled new parent who was so overworked and under slept that any time I sat on the couch my body demanded to steal a moment of rest, no matter how good the movie was.
But… I don’t have kids.
I think, really, it’s two things:
I just like to sleep, I think? I’ve always been a good sleeper.
A lot of these occurred in my early twenties and were watched either at like 3am or hungover in a dark room.
No matter how good some of these movies may be, they are seriously like Ambien for me. A few are even repeat offenders! And one in particular, despite having tried to watch it many times, I’ve never managed to get to the end.
It doesn’t really happen much these days, I mean, I did just manage to listen to the ENTIRE LORD OF THE RINGS SAGA ON AUDIOBOOK1 - and didn’t fall asleep once. I mean, I def tuned out, but no full loss of consciousness.
So, I do have sticktoittiveness! However, in the face of these epics (and almost all of them are epics) I am powerless.
And, so, here are:
10 Movies That Have Put Me To Sleep
2001.
I know. Blasphemy! This one is a repeat offender, too! I’m sure I eventually saw this one the whole way through but to be honest, I can’t totally recall. The thing is, I WANT to watch it. It looks incredible! This new trailer is amazing! I revisited this movie multiple times - I tried in high school ZZZZZ, college ZZZZ, grad school ZZZZ… and then I think I finally muscled my way through, but like I said, I’m not totally certain. Do you know how humiliating it was to be in film school and have to tell people I never made it to the end of this movie? It was a total blow to my cred. How was everybody else able to watch this but me?! Did you all just drink tons of coffee beforehand? Am I secretly a narcoleptic but only during certain acclaimed movies?
This one isn’t totally my fault. The whole movie is at night! Much like 2001, this movie haunted me through my film school career, knowing that it was another Achilles Heel, an embarrassing hole in my repertoire. This one I know for a fact I did finally muscle through at some point in my 30’s. Yes, it took that long. And I liked it! But it was still hard for me not to doze off. Its sequel Blade Runner 2049 was totally not a problem, however. Saw it in the theater and loved it (is that a controversial opinion? It might be?)
The Abyss is really THE one. The one I never finished. I could not get through it in a single sitting. Impossible! I remember the first time trying to watch it at a friend’s house in high school in the middle of the night, I can remember lying on the floor, my face smashed into the carpet, thinking that I was so uncomfortable but falling asleep anyway. I had been so stoked to see it! I loved Terminator! I had a weirdly huge crush on Michael Biehn! And yet…
Okay, this updated trailer makes this movie seem WAY more exciting than it is. This one I don’t even really feel that bad about because damn it is long and it is slow. Yes, it’s gorgeous but… did I mention it was long and slow? You know it’s a rough go when you fall asleep IN A THEATER, which is how I saw this for the first time in an early morning film class. I woke up at some point in the middle of a LOUD SNORE and looked around embarrassed only to realize that most of the students had already bailed.
All Quiet On The Western Front
Another casualty of an early morning film class. I fell asleep in the dark theater almost the second the movie started. My kiwi strawberry Snapple slipped out of my hand and CRASHED onto the floor, sending sticky Snapple streaming down the slanted floor of the theater, no doubt soaking many a backpack. I snuck out and I will never venture to watch this again.
Another recut trailer that makes the movie look WAY more exciting than it is. That said, I think I was just too young when I tried to watch this. I worked at the video store in high school and brought it home to watch with a friend of mine. I made it until the wedding scene. The wedding scene that seriously felt like it would never end. The wedding scene that felt like someone’s unedited home movie. I remember waking back up during the Russian roulette scene and thinking, ‘Whoa, this movie really took a turn.’ My friend swore that the movie had been good and I eventually rewatched it.
Don’t ask me. I have no idea how I was able to fall sleep during this movie. But I did. Multiple times.
R.I.P. Gene Hackman. I remember this movie was not at all what I was expecting at the time. I thought it was going to be a cool snappy crime movie and instead it felt extremely slow and everyone talked sort of under their breath and I had no idea what was going on and ZZZZZ I woke up for the famous car chase scene and remember thinking the one in Bullitt was better and falling back asleep. There is no denying Popeye Doyle is an amazing character but honestly I’ve never had much of an urge to revisit this one.
Another memory of carpet smushed into the side of my face. I was visiting my family and we watched this and I almost instantly hated it and chose uncomfortable sleep over comfortably watching it.
I do not get this movie. I thought it was dumb. I do not regret my slumber.
Postscript / A Personal Revelation?
Conclusions one could draw from this list:
I don’t like any James Cameron movie after True Lies
If your movie doesn’t have any women in it, I might fall asleep
If your movie is at night or in a dark environment, I might fall sleep
If your movie is an epic from the 1970’s I might fall asleep
Seriously, I don’t like James Cameron after True Lies
I eschewed any type of furniture for sitting in my teens and 20’s and chose the floor over a chair 100% of the time.
One of the most noteworthy feats of my life. Considering having it on my tombstone.
THIS: If your movie doesn’t have any women in it, I might fall asleep
And I agree with you on most. But not Blade Runner.
Finally, a situation where I might be able to offer helpful suggestions! I am someone who has seen every film you've listed, plus much slower fare- specifically, I have watched nearly every extant film by Yasujiro Ozu; two films by Tarkovsky; multiple films by Bergman; three films by Luchino Visconti; several Fellini films; and countless silent films (including 1920s-era Soviet propaganda films, four-hour epics from D.W. Griffith, and experimental films like "L'Age D'Or" and "Limite"). I sat through "Wavelength," which is 40 minutes of looking at a wall. I am currently on a mission to view "Satantango," which I have been warned is the end boss of boring cinema.
I love these films- I'm not disparaging any of them. But they're slow for my hyper-modern tastes, my attention span whittled down to that of a hummingbird by the cheap, rapid thrills of social media. So I have to treat myself accordingly. I'm coping with the disability of a short attention span, as it were.
My advice is as follows:
1. You don't have to watch the whole film in one sitting. Anyone who feels otherwise should try watching an 8-hour film serial like "The Human Condition" or "Les Vampires" in one go, with no meal breaks or bathroom breaks. A lot of old movies have intermissions built into them for a reason; where they don't, I'll take my own. Watching movies is supposed to be entertaining and elevating of the human spirit- it's not a paid job for me. I'm not a surveillance officer making $13 an hour to stare at security camera footage all day. Watch them in 10-minute spurts, then go do something else. Watch 20 minutes, walk the dog, watch 10 minutes, watch a different movie, watch 30 more minutes, cook a meal. There's no need to fall asleep watching something slow. Take a break.
2. It's okay to read a plot synopsis. If the film is too confusing, I'll read something about it on Wikipedia or elsewhere. It's not like I'm spoiling a twist ending by reading about the beginning of a film to confirm I understand everything and get all the relationships between the characters. See #1- it's not my job to watch films from 1923 and pretend that they're exactly the same as films from 2023. They're not, they're much better. But they also demand more from me, and I'm not always able to give as much as contemporary audiences could have. I'm watching these at home with 10,000 distractions cropping up. I might not catch every nuance of character development or subtle implication of camera framing, and I'm okay with that.
3. Enjoy yourself. Slow films are often very rewarding (I love Ozu, Bergman and Tarkovsky!), but that doesn't mean I have to slog through every snoozefest I turn on. I refuse to watch any more films by Eric von Stroheim. He's okay as an actor, but as a director he has the worst impulses of an auteur combined with the base sexism of a Harvey Weinstein. (He was so bad, even his chauvinistic contemporaries called him out on this- Louis Mayer once punched him in the face for saying an incredibly sexist thing.) I don't like sitting through his films, and I applaud Irving Thalberg for cropping as much from them as he did. I sat through "Foolish Wives," hating every second of it; I stopped watching "Greed" about halfway through. And I'm okay with that. I'd do the same thing with modern directors I hate- either shut their movies off or avoid them in the first place. I have no qualms about this.
Hopefully, this perspective is helpful!