Oh, I took OPs comments to mean several sittings per movie. While Lawrence of Arabia is an outlier imo, most Indian movies have an intermission (and make up the majority of what I watch)
That’s really interesting. Is running length generally more common in Indian cinema?
Yes (and it's probably also good for snack sales.)
Yeah, most movies hit almost 2.5 hours. For me, many movies build up really well to the intermission and then take some time to get back to that intensity and setting up for the climax. Then how well the climax is done determines where it ends up, rating wise.
It's also standard to spend money on snacks during the intermission.