Years in the making: Iconic films that take place over long stretches of time

In a way, not much time is covered in “Groundhog Day.” We see, what part of two days and then one full day? Of course, there’s the rub for Phil Connors. He finds himself living the same day over…and over…and over. No official amount of time has been given for how long Phil was trapped in his time loop, but director Harold Ramis gave estimates of 10 years and 30 years at different times in his life, and apparently, in the original screenplay, the estimation was that Phil was there 70 to 80 years.

“Cloud Atlas” is a fiasco. It features several actors playing multiple races. You can’t claim it isn’t ambitious, though. Coherent? Not so much, but ambitious to be sure. “Cloud Atlas” also covers several generations, with the actors playing different people in these different generations.

Sometimes, Richard Linklater feels like making a movie about people chilling. Sometimes, he wants to do something more experimental, though, and “Boyhood” is certainly that. The movie focuses on a boy named Mason between the ages of six and 18, and also his parents who deal with the fallout of their divorce. What makes “Boyhood” stand out is that it was shot piecemeal over 11 years, allowing the actors, particularly the child actors, to actually age. Patricia Arquette won an Oscar for the film as well.

In a way, any “cradle to grave” biopic, or biopics of fictional people, could span decades. However, many of them flit in here and there, maybe jumping right from a childhood opening stanza to their heyday. “Forrest Gump” does more beat-by-beat covering Forrest’s life, though. Additionally, Robert Zemeckis’ film is really dedicated to feeling the passage of time, hitting notable event after notable event. That makes it feel like an accurate fit for this list.

Alright, so “Citizen Kane” is a cradle-to-grave movie. Well, grave-and-then-back-to-cradle-then-to-grave movie. We meet Charles Foster Kane at the end of his life, then it’s off to his childhood, his young adulthood, his downfall in middle age, and then, once more, the “Rosebud” of it all. “Citizen Kane” has been considered one of the best movies ever made for decades, though. If we are going to have a movie of this ilk, it should be one of the foremost examples of such a movie.

Sure, a vampire could be, you know, 34 years old. They could be new to vampiring. However, the whole being immortal unless you run into a stake or a sunny day means a vampire can be around for a long time. Brad Pitt’s Louis, the vampire being interviewed, was turned into a vampire in 1791 by Tom Cruise’s Lestat, who has already been a vampire for some time. The story takes us all the way into the present, allowing for centuries of time to pass for both Louis and Lestat.

Another dose of Brad Pitt! To the best of our knowledge, there is no story covering a long stretch of time in the same way as “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” The whole hook of the story is that Benjamin Button ages backward. We watch him go from an old man to a baby, as opposed to the other way around.

The movie that basic cable turned into a piece of cultural wallpaper (in a good way). Andy Dufresne arrives at Shawshank Prison for two consecutive life sentences in 1947. Twenty years later, he escapes. One year later, Red is paroled after 40 years and the two longtime friends unite. Granted, 20 years of time is not as vast a span of time as some of these movies, but 20 years in prison is a different thing.

Steven Spielberg picked up from where Stanley Kubrick left off to bring “A.I.” to life. The story focuses on David, a prototype version of an android child who is abandoned by the woman he is brought to. That sends him on a journey. This is a spoiler but…hard cut to finding out David spent 2,000 years under the sea waiting. He gets what he was waiting for but, even so, few movies feature a time jump of two millennia.

Park Thomas Anderson’s masterpiece (which is saying something, given his directorial skills) begins in 1898 with a young, scrappy version of Daniel Plainview. After seeing him gritting it out in search of the American dream for a few years, we cut to a successful version of Daniel in 1911. After a couple of years spent at that point in his life, we move to 1927 for the denouement. Milkshakes are drunk. Bowling pins are used unconventionally. What a film.

Yes, the de-aging doesn’t really work. We still think “The Irishman” is an underrated work from Martin Scorsese. It’s a film about Frank Sheeran, Jimmy Hoffa, the mob, commerce, but most of all, aging. Thus, while the de-aging was a little dodgy, the brutal frankness of the end of life for Frank and his fellow gangsters is compelling, and that makes the decades depicted worth it.

“The Tree of Life” is experimental and vibes-heavy even for Terrence Malick. The story is told non-linearly and while it mostly takes place in the 1940s through 1960s, the film also steps into 2010 as well. Oh, also for a minute there the movie jumps back to the birth of the universe, the formation of Earth, and the life and death of the dinosaurs.

Mel Brooks's movies are often practically sketch comedies, so it makes sense he finally just went ahead and made a sketch movie. “History of the World, Part I” delivers what it promises. There are set pieces running from the Stone Age to the French Revolution. Like all sketch comedy, it doesn’t all hit, but like all Mel Brooks projects, there’s still plenty of good in the mix.

Darren Aronofsky’s “The Fountain” is overly dense. It doesn’t all hang together. Honestly, we only think we get what’s going on. There are two people who are connected through time by love…maybe? We see different people played by Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz who are maybe the same people. Or maybe it’s just thematic? What we know is that the time span of these stories covers about 1,000 years.

Christopher Nolan used his “The Dark Knight” cache to make “Inception.” That was a huge hit. He then used his “Inception” and “The Dark Knight Rises” cache to make “Interstellar.” It didn’t work as well as “Inception,” which means people forget that it made $705.2 million worldwide and got good reviews. Nolan isn’t afraid to be overly dense and to just do his thing, and “Interstellar” is a bit heady. What’s clear is that due to wormholes 20 years disappear in the blink of an eye, and in total about a century of time passes.

Basically all of “2001” takes place in a short period of time. However, it has perhaps one of the most famous introductory scenes in movie history. Prehistoric hominins discover tools, which quickly becomes a discovery of weapons. One bone toss later and we are jumping forward millions of years. Also, it’s possible that the end of the movie takes place over a lot of years as well.