What are the hardest movies to find Peetimes for?

One of the most common questions I’m asked is, “What was the hardest movie to find Peetimes for?” When I get to the #1 answer—below—I’m sure you’ll say to yourself, “Yeah, that makes sense.” (Are you trying to guess the answer now? Remember, RunPee launched in 2008, so it’s a movie that has come out since then.)

Here’s a list of some of the more difficult movies to do Peetimes for and why. I think it will give you a great peek behind the curtain.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

I expected it to be hard to do Peetimes for this movie, but sheeeesh! It was nearly impossible.

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The first thing I do when looking for Peetimes is jot down the cue and the time it happens. Then I start adding notes about what’s going on. Sometimes something happens in the movie that makes me think, “Nope, no one will want to miss that.” So I have to stop that Peetime and start looking for another.

By the end of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse all I had to work with were Peetimes that I had rejected. Actually, there was one Peetime that wasn’t too bad, but the rest were horrible. Peetimes I didn’t want to add, but the whole point of the RunPee app is to give you options, even bad ones are better than no options at all. So we try our best to find a Peetime about every 30 minutes or so during the movie, good or bad. Then we can at least warn you about the bad ones, recommend the better ones, and hope that your bladder gives you a choice.

1917

Every scene of this movie has some value, but I think I found 3 scenes that are easy to visualize from the synopsis without taking too much out of the story.

Aside from great acting and a riveting story, the thing that made this movie outstanding was that it was shot in one continuous take. Or so it seemed. The action and drama never let up. Consequently, the opportunities for good Peetimes never presented themselves. There was one nice Peetime near the end when the soldier was floating in a stream. Other than that it was a crap shoot.

Killers of the Flower Moon

I have five Peetimes, but that still doesn’t seem like enough for this epic movie.

This movie was hard to do Peetimes for a different reason: it was soooooo long. Doing Peetimes for 3 1/2 hours straight is hard, even if it’s not a difficult movie to find Peetimes for. Doing Peetimes for a movie is work and it’s never fun. It’s hard to keep up with the story and take notes and doing it for 3+ hours gets to be a bit much.

Top Gun: Maverick

There’s no question: this is one of the most difficult movies I’ve done Peetimes for. There’s not a single Peetime that I’d like to recommend. But, that’s the mission, so we do our best.

This was another incredibly stressful movie to find Peetimes for. Every scene was filled with purpose. The only Peetime that I was really happy with was the last one. It involved Maverick getting suited up and in his fighter for the attack on the military base. It’s easy to say that nothing much happens because, really, all that happens is he has a poignant goodbye with his crew chief followed by the takeoff from the aircraft. But wow, the tension was thick. I would hate to miss that scene, but if my bladder was full I’d rather take care of that so I could enjoy the exciting ending without being distracted.

Knives Out

Mysteries are by far the hardest genre to do Peetimes for. I did my very best to provide the important information in each synopsis, but that makes the synopsis longer than average.

Any movie that is hard to understand is going to be hard to do Peetimes for. What makes mysteries more difficult than other genres is we might think we’ve found a great Peetime only to find out thirty minutes later that some trivial thing that happened in the Peetime is crucial to solving the mystery. Knives Out is one of the few movies that I’ve gone back and rewatched again just to make sure that my Peetimes were spot on.

Barbinheimer

Two movies, back-to-back, and five hours of doing Peetimes.

On the occasion that we have to do Peetimes for two movies on the same day it’s nice if the showtimes line up nicely. For Barbenheimer it was perfect, I went from the opening show of Oppenheimer to Barbie with just enough time to use the facilies in between. But that meant five consecutive hours of doing Peetimes. Barbie was difficult to do Peetimes for, but not crazy hard. Oppenheimer was much more difficult to find Peetimes. As I mentioned in the RunPee app: It was a real chore to find good Peetimes. Most of the movie is a sequence of short scenes, few of which last more than a minute.

Avengers: Endgame

As expected, this was a difficult movie to do Peetimes for. The last Peetime is at more than an hour from the end of the movie, and believe me, there’s nothing to be missed after the last Peetime.

Do you remember that scene in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie where Rocket says, “You’re making me kick grass!” That’s sort of how I felt making Peetimes for this movie. There was one decent Peetime in this 3-hour movie. Do you remember the scene right after they all return from time-travel? That’s everyone except Black Widow. I had to use that as a Peetime, and I was kicking grass the whole time I wrote that Peetime. My meta-note about this particular Peetime is: It’s easy to summarize this Peetime, but there’s a lot going on, with multiple scenes and character interaction.

So it’s easy to summarize the Peetime, but man, it’s everyone morning over Black Widow. But it was either that or no Peetime for two hours of movie. So I made the hard call and sacrificed Black Widow’s mourning scene.

Inception

I had to watch this movie three times in a row before I finally understood the movie enough to create good Peetimes.

This is the benchmark for hard movies to do Peetimes for. It’s long, at 2h 28min. It’s a bit of a mystery, which we’ve already established is the hardest genre to do Peetimes for. There’s the visual specticals that are iconic to this day. And there’s the exposition scenes that explain what’s going on, or at least try to. Quite ofter exposition scenes are decent Peetimes. The movie might spend a few minutes going over the details of some MacGuffin that essentially boils down to something simple, like they have to disarm the bomb before everyone dies. 

But the exposition in Inception was critical to having any hope of understanding the movie. And the exposition was way, way, more complex than what most movies have. Originally my mother did the Peetimes for this movie on opening night. She had Peetimes but told me that she had no idea what was going on and if the Peetimes were in fact any good. I went and saw the movie the following night and completely understood. Then I went back the next day and saw the movie back-to-back and then I felt like I understood enough to recommend the best Peetimes. Not that they were great Peetimes. This movie didn’t have any of those. But the best options available.

Honorable Mention

I can think of a few movies that came out before RunPee was a thing, in 2008, that would have been very difficult to do Peetimes for.

Shawshank Redemption
I remember rewatching this movie with my mother a few years after RunPee came out and we were glad we didn’t have to do Peetimes for this movie. Every scene is poetry. It would be sacrilage to miss anything.

Jaws
Another classic. There are some slow scenes but they build tension so expertly that it would be a shame to miss any of them.

Star Wars
We actually added Peetimes for this movie just for kicks. The only decent Peetime I could find is when they leave the Death Star and have to shoot down the Tie fighters. Again, it’s a classic scene, but what scene from this movie isn’t? 

What do you think? Are there some old movies that you think would be really hard to add Peetimes for?