Avatar 3's Runtime Officially Breaks 16-Year James Cameron Franchise Record

As the long-awaited movie’s release quickly approaches, Avatar: Fire and Ash‘s runtime has finally been revealed at a record-breaking length. James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash premieres in theaters on December 19, 2025, almost exactly three years after the 2022 box office record-breaking sequel Avatar: The Way of Water, which itself had a lengthy runtime of three hours and 12 minutes.

Now, AMC Theatres lists Avatar: Fire and Ash‘s runtime as three hours and 15 minutes long. While only three minutes longer than The Way of Water, that’s still enough to set the record for being the Disney franchise’s longest installment yet.

Avatar 3‘s 195-minute length also now comes in at over a half-hour longer than Cameron’s original Avatar movie, which boasts a sizable two-hour-and-42-minute-long runtime. Cameron had already teased back in March 2025 that Avatar 3‘s runtime would be longer than The Way of Water, but now we finally know by how much.

Furthermore, at three hours and 15 minutes, Avatar: Fire and Ash is also now tied with Titanic as James Cameron’s longest movie. Released in 1997, Titanic held onto that record for 28 years, with the Best Picture Oscar-winning epic now gradually losing more long-held records within the director’s filmography to Avatar beyond box office numbers.

The Avatar franchise also continues to well exceed the runtimes of Disney’s longest franchise blockbusters like Avengers: Endgame (three hours and one minute) or Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (two hours and 48 minutes). As the Avatar series continues to expand in stakes and scale, there’s now a question of whether future runtimes will continue to increase with each sequel or remain in the vicinity of Avatar 3‘s length.

The PG-13 sci-fi movie is just the third of Cameron’s five planned installments in the Avatar franchise, with Disney already having release dates lined up for the later sequels on December 21, 2029 and December 19, 2031. While the wait between the upcoming entries is nothing compared to the 13-year gap between Avatar (2009) and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), the increasingly long runtimes further justify the delayed releases.

With Avatar: Fire and Ash now officially setting a new record for the franchise’s runtimes, there are questions about which other Avatar records the 2025 sequel could also break. One of the most-discussed aspects of the lengthy film will be its box office performance, as Avatar (2009) and Avatar: The Way of Water are currently the first and third-highest-grossing movies in history, respectively, at $2.92 and $2.34 billion.

It’s still too early to accurately predict Avatar 3‘s box office opening next month, with opinions still varying on whether the third entry will fall short of or eclipse the 2022 movie’s haul. Though there may still be concerns that having the franchise’s longest runtime yet could hinder its success, Avatar: Fire and Ash has the benefit of relatively light blockbuster competition. The nearest big-name releases include the R-rated The Housemaid, PG The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants, the Timothée Chalamet-led drama Marty Supreme, and the Jack Black and Paul Rudd-starring action-comedy Anaconda.

Release Date

December 19, 2025

Runtime

195 Minutes