10 Amazing Movies Under 90 Minutes Long

6. The Wall

The Wall Aaron Johnson
Roadside Attractions

Runtime: 89 minutes

It's not clear how a thriller directed by Doug Liman and starring John Cena and Aaron Taylor-Johnson flew so far under the radar, but The Wall did just that when it came out in 2017.

The two actors star as American soldiers who are pinned down by an Iraqi sniper, with only a crumbling wall between them and certain death. The entire movie is set behind the wall, but Liman's expansive frame makes the movie feel much more epic and grand than it had any right to be.

It's tense as hell, too; there's no shortage of inventive situations for our two lead characters to navigate their way through as they get closer and closer to locating the sniper, and thankfully, The Wall never devolves into melodrama. Johnson and Cena are smart soldiers, and they keep their heads level and their composure intact, which only makes them easy to root for.

The ending is a bit abrupt, but looking back, you'll realise that's the point; war is hell, and there's rarely an easy way out. This is an impactful message delivered in a tight, enjoyable package.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!