How Peetimes Are Found

No algorithm, no AI. A real person sits in a theater, watches the whole movie and takes notes as they go.

That has been RunPee's only method since 2008. Here's how it works.

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In the Theater

Our Peep goes to one of the first showings, usually opening night on Thursday. Peetimes need to be ready before most people see the movie, and they usually post that same night, often by about 11 PM Eastern. For some big movies we get in earlier, at a pre-release screening.

The seat is always near the back, off to the side. That's practical: you're taking notes for the entire movie, and from a back corner you won't bother anyone.

The clock starts when the movie actually starts, not at the showtime on the ticket. Ads and trailers run different lengths at different theaters and showings, so timing from the ticket could put every number off by ten or fifteen minutes. We start at a clear moment at the beginning of the movie, usually right after the first production credit ends, and the app tells you to start your timer at that same moment. That's how our times line up with yours, to within about 5 seconds.

The First Three Minutes

The opening few minutes get written up separately, in detail. That's First Three Minutes, for people who walk in late. Traffic, parking, the popcorn line: someone always sits down after the lights go out.

What Makes a Stretch a Peetime

We don't look for Peetimes in the first 30 minutes or so. After that, we aim for one roughly every 30 minutes through the middle of the movie. For a stretch to become a Peetime, it has to pass several tests at once:

It can be summed up completely. This is the big one. Not "this part isn't important," but "I can explain this part in a few sentences and you'll be caught up."
It has a clear starting signal. A distinctive line or an image you'll recognize instantly, so you know "now" in the dark without checking your phone. The signal itself can't be a spoiler.
It's long enough. Usually 2½ to 5 minutes.
It's spaced out. Two Peetimes close together don't help anyone.
It isn't near the ending. We don't mark anything in the last 20 to 30 minutes or so. That's where every thread comes together, and there's no minute in it you can afford to miss.

What Rules a Stretch Out

When a candidate gets rejected, it's almost always for one of four reasons:

An iconic moment. The kind of shot people talk about on the way out.
Emotional weight. The plot may not turn on it, but it's where a character really changes.
A new character shows up. Miss one introduction and you spend the rest of the movie wondering who that is.
Someone dies. No explanation needed.

If a stretch has even one of these, it's out, no matter how uneventful it looks.

The Hardest Genre: Mysteries

Mysteries are the toughest, for a specific reason: a detail that seems like nothing at the time is often the key to the reveal at the end.

On a first viewing, there's no way to know which detail is the setup. So a mystery can take a second viewing, sometimes a third: watch it through, learn the answer, then go back and work out which minutes are truly safe to miss.

An Example: The Odyssey

The Odyssey runs close to three hours, and it needs a usable Peetime in the middle. Otherwise there's a very long wait between Peetimes.

The stretch we picked looks, on the surface, like the last place you'd want to walk out: a giant attacks, everything is chaos, the pace is fast. But the test isn't "is this stretch good?" It's "can this stretch be explained?" That sequence is packed with action and light on information, and a few sentences cover it. The one moment in there that really matters, Odysseus reacting to a companion's death, comes after the Peetime ends.

So it works. Not because it isn't good, but because a Synopsis can bring you all the way back.

That's the point we most want to make: a Peetime has never measured whether a stretch is worth watching. It measures whether it can be retold. Those are two completely different questions.

The People Who Do This

It isn't an anonymous team. RunPee is a family business, and most Peetimes come from the family: Dan Gardner, who started RunPee, and his sister Christene Johnson (RunPee Sis) see most of the movies themselves. Other Peeps pitch in too. You can meet the team.

The most time-consuming part isn't watching the movie. It's choosing the times and writing the Synopses, weighing "detailed enough to get you back into the story" against "short enough to read in 30 seconds," over and over.