Somewhere between a film’s final scene and the exalted audience’s first clap at either the Venice or Cannes film festivals, cinema loses its dignity. We have entered a standing ovation arms race. What ...

When “Joker: Folie à Deux” premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday, the audience erupted into a standing ovation that lasted 11 minutes, according to Variety. The Hollywood Reporter clocked ...

The practice of clapping to signal approval goes back at least as far as Roman times, if not earlier. But at some point, we decided we needed another, better way to say “Yes, that was good”—a kind of ...

The applause at premieres like “Mission: Impossible” or “The History of Sound” is often timed and reported breathlessly. But there’s more to the story. By Kyle Buchanan For decades, the Palme d’Or was ...

If standing and clapping for more than 15 minutes sounds a bit tiring then you might want to steer clear of film festivals, where standing ovations are becoming increasingly epic affairs. The Venice ...

Every year we do it, without fail, even though fans and critics moan about it, and it’s quite clearly a reductive way of measuring a movie’s impact. However, we simply just can’t seem to help ...