Cinema praised for giving toilet break half way through film

On my recent but rare trip to the cinema, I felt like my bladder was about to explode simultaneously with Oppenheimer's atomic bomb.

Oppenheimer was three hours long and to not go on a single toilet break is one of my more impressive accomplishments to date.

Now, the king of gangster movies - and very long films - Martin Scorsese has just dropped a three and a half hour dark crime drama called Killers of the Flower Moon.

Set in 1920s Oklahoma, an investigation follows the brutal murders of the oil-rich Osage tribe.

As the investigation gets underway, Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) finds himself at the centre of the drama as the nephew of power-hungry rancher William Hale (Robert De Niro).

Killers of the Flower Moon features an all-star cast including John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser, and Jesse Plemons.

The film, soon to be available on Apple TV+, came out in cinemas on Friday (20 October) and hundreds of fans up and down the country flocked to see it on the big screen.

Apple TV+

However, given the length of the movie - three hours and 24 minutes to be exact - one cinema chain has been praised for giving viewers a 15-minute interval to use the loo.

Vue cinemas said in a statement: "If you have chosen a screening that displayed 'Interval', please factor a further 15-20 minutes into the running time of this screening."

Taking to X (Twitter), one grateful cinema-goer said: "An actual interval for #killersoftheflowermoon (I’m nearly 50, my bladder is grateful)."

Another person wrote: "My screening of Killers of the Flower Moon has a 15 minute interval which is interesting."

While someone else said: "Watching Christine at the cinema tonight and got Killers of the Flower Moon booked for Sunday, which has an interval.

"Not had an interval for a film since the third Pirates of the Caribbean film, which was definitely necessary in that film's case."

X/@jamieeast

At the time of writing, Killers of the Flower Moon is off to a great start as it sits with an impressive 92 percent critic score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Ben Rolph from Discussing Film said: "There’s some serious Oscar potential here as Leonardo DiCaprio delivers one of his best performances of all time, along with a top-notch Robert De Niro."

David Ehrlich from IndieWire added: "The best performance of Leonardo DiCaprio’s entire career... His nuanced and uncompromising turn as the cretinous Ernest Burkhart mines new wonders from the actor’s long-standing lack of vanity."

While The Ringer's Manuela Lazic wrote: "Martin Scorsese’s three-hour Western features a throwback performance from Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio at his best in a film that mirrors aspects of classics like Goodfellas."

The official synopsis for Killers of the Flower Moon reads: "Members of the Osage tribe in northeastern Oklahoma are murdered under mysterious circumstances in the 1920s, sparking a major BOI (which became the FBI in 1935) investigation directed by a 29-year-old J. Edgar Hoover and former Texas Ranger Tom White."