A Marathon for Meryl

How I made my Sophie's Choices

Nov 24, 2022

One True Thing I know - without a Doubt - is that I’m in my Prime. Friends, I’ve decided to complete a marathon, one that will require endurance, stamina and a few boxes of Kleenex.

The length of a standard marathon is 26.2 miles, so I decided that the length of a standard Merylthon is 26.2 hours of Meryl Streep movies. Which means a half Merylthon is a somewhat manageable 13.1 hours in front of the TV (or the dream = sitting in a movie theater I rented out for the day)

786 minutes.

The curatorial bones in my body started to ponder: What movies would I program?

The Rules:

I can pick freely from her various film IMDB acting credits.
I have to use the IMDB official running time number.
Every minute of each movie’s official run time counts towards the total.

Which movies should we watch?!?

Now, a warning.

Go any further and you’ll have to make some hard decisions…

First, I’ll break this couch fest up into two days. Over the span of one Lost Weekend, we will achieve a true cinephile milestone: a full Merylthon.

If you’re reading this, you’re invited! Bonus points if you arrive in Meryl costume, or if you are actually Meryl.

Half Merylthon Day 1

The Devil Wears Prada 110 minutes
Doubt 104 minutes
Adaptation 115 minutes
The Prom 130 minutes
Into the Woods 125 minutes
Marvin’s Room 98 minutes
Death Becomes Her 104 minutes
= 786 minutes

Program Notes:

I started with Devil Wears Prada and Death Becomes Her on the list. Once you throw in the Prom and Into the Woods - the other run times make the decisions for you.

Day 1 is full of pop culture hits and would probably draw the biggest crowd. There’s so many iconic moments in this bunch: The Cereulean Rant, Meryl as Susan Orlean stoned looking at her toes, The red cape work in the It’s Not About Me number, the pathos of the Witch, any moment with Leo in Marvin’s Room and, of course, the iconic line reading of “NOW a warning?” It’s almost unfair to the movies programmed for Day 2.

Half Merylthon Day 2

Manhattan 96 minutes
She-Devil 99 minutes
The Hours 110 minutes
Dancing at Lughnasa 95 minutes
The French Lieutenant's Woman 124 minutes
Kramer vs Kramer 105 minutes
Sophie’s Choice 157 minutes
= 786 minutes

Program Notes:

My strategy this time was get one of her longest films Sophie’s Choice along with her first Oscar win, Kramer vs. Kramer.

This is the day where the die hard Meryl fans will show up: the Heartburn ride-or-dies, the people who actually saw Dark Matter. I confess, I have yet to see Dancing at Lughnasa or The French Lieutenant’s Woman. And I haven’t seen Manhattan or Kramer vs Kramer since the mid-90s. But The Hours? One of my all time favorite movies. The Meryl moment I constantly hear in my head is from the scene with Claire Danes on the bed where she gives this line reading: “Such a sense of possibility.”

Which half Merylthon will you attempt?

Pop Art Meryl Streep running a Marathon, illustrated by a robot.

Here are other films and their running times to calculate your own Merylthon.

This is not an exhaustive list, but it is an exhausting one.

Dancing at Lughnasa 95 minutes

The Laundromat 96 minutes

Manhattan 96 minutes

The Giver 97 minutes

Marvin’s Room 98 minutes

She-Devil 99 minutes

Postcards From the Edge 101 minutes

Doubt 104 minutes

Death Becomes Her 104 minutes

Kramer vs Kramer 105 minutes

Prime 105 minutes

Prairie Home Companion 105 minutes

The Iron Lady 105 minutes

Suffragette 106 minutes

A Series of Unfortunate Events 108 minutes

Mama Mia 109 minutes

Heartburn 109 minutes

The Hours 110 minutes

The Devil Wears Prada 110 minutes

Florence Foster Jenkins 111 minutes

Defending Your Life 112

River Wild 112 minutes

Mama Mia, Here We Go Again 114 minutes

Adaptation 115 minutes

The Post 116 minutes

Julia 117 minutes

A Cry in the Dark 120 minutes

It’s Complicated 120 minutes

August: Osage County 121 minutes

The Homesman 122 minutes

Julie & Julia 123 minutes

The French Lieutenant's Woman 124 minutes

Into the Woods 125 minutes

One True Thing 127 minutes

The Manchurian Candidate 129 minutes

The Prom 130 minutes

Marry Poppins Returns 130 minutes

Silkwood 131 minutes

Bridges of Madison County 135 minutes

Little Women 135 minutes

Don’t Look Up 138 minutes

Ironweed 143 minutes

Sophie’s Choice 157 minutes

Out of Africa 161 minutes

The Deer Hunter 183 minutes

Lastly:

Two Streepers - siblings Alexis and Oscar - produced the Merylthon podcast during lockdown. If you love Meryl, you have found your people. Check it out.

Please send me a list of the films you’d program for you own Merylthon!

— Evan