Directors should make shorter films if they want their work screened in cinemas, the head of one of the UK’s leading cinema and distribution companies has said.

Clare Binns, the creative director of Picturehouse Cinemas, made the comments after being named the recipient of this year’s Bafta award for outstanding British contribution to cinema, amid concern over steadily lengthening film runtimes.

Recent blockbusters have pushed well beyond the three-hour mark, including Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon (206 minutes) and Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist (315 minutes), a trend festival chiefs have warned is creating substantial scheduling problems.

But directors need to ensure a comfortable viewing experience for audiences if they want to people to return to the big screen, Binns says.

“I talk to producers about this and say: ‘Tell the director you’re making the film for an audience, not the directors’,” she said. “There’s always exceptions, but I look at a lot of films and think: ‘You could take 20 minutes out of that.’ There’s no need for films to be that long.”

Picturehouse programmes intervals when they are built into a film – as with The Brutalist – but extended runtimes limit how cinemas can operate.

“It means you only get one evening show,” Binns said. “I think it’s a wake-up call to directors. If they want their films in cinemas, people have to feel comfortable about what they’re committing to.”

Clare Binns has led initiatives to embed cinemas in their communities. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

Over a four-decade career, Binns has built a reputation for championing diverse and independent film-making, working with directors including Danny Boyle, Steve McQueen, Charlotte Regan and Alice Winocour. She began as an usher at the Ritzy cinema in Brixton, south London, in 1981, later running Zoo Cinemas before joining Picturehouse in 2003.

Like much of the sector, Picturehouse has endured a turbulent few years. Cinemas were badly hit by Covid closures and the slow return of audiences, pressures compounded by the 2023 Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes, which disrupted release schedules.

This month, Leonardo DiCaprio questioned whether audiences still had an “appetite” for cinema after his critically acclaimed film One Battle After Another failed to break even at the box office.

Binns said cinemas were “in a much better place” than they were two years ago. “It’s been very tough for cinemas. During Covid, everybody got used to sitting on couches and watching streaming services. But that’s changing. We’re working with the streamers to bring people in.”

She pointed to repertory programming as evidence of renewed interest. “We’re seeing young audiences coming in to watch Hitchcock and Agnès Varda on the big screen.”

Concerns remain about industry consolidation, including Netflix’s bid to buy Warner Bros Discovery. “Any studio transformation is unsettling,” Binns said. “But people have predicted the end of cinema many times – when television arrived, when we went digital. We’re still standing.”

For cinemas to remain sustainable, she said, originality and commitment were crucial. “Anora, Hamnet, Marty Supreme were all original stories. And when film-makers engage properly, doing Q&As and working with cinemas, audiences respond.”

Binns has also led initiatives embedding cinemas in their local communities, including partnerships with Brixton Soup Kitchen and Poetic Unity. She warned that the closure of local cinemas was “definitely something to worry about” and called for VAT reductions.

Bromley Picturehouse in London, which closed permanently in August 2024 amid rising costs. Photograph: Andrew Sparkes/Alamy

“Local cinemas are fantastic resources. They get people out of their houses, they’re community hubs. If that disappears, it’s a tragedy,” she said.

Binns will receive her Bafta at the film awards ceremony on 22 February. Calling the award an “incredible honour”, she said it recognised the cultural and commercial importance of cinemas. “I’m one of many of an army of people doing the best they can to get great films into cinemas and keep cinemas working.”

Emily Stillman, the chair of the Bafta film committee, said: “Clare Binn’s impact on the British film industry is profound – she is a hugely talented and beloved visionary. [Her] unwavering commitment to bring a diverse range of storytelling to the big screen, her belief in the power of cinema and her ongoing work championing emerging independent filmmakers is inspirational.”