Why do people care so much about standing ovations at film festivals?

We're right in the middle of film festival season, with Venice and Telluride having recently wrapped and TIFF currently ongoing, so we've been seeing tons and tons of news on social media about the length of standing ovations. But why does the tradition happen, and what does it really mean about the movies that get them?

Entertainment news has been abuzz with reports that acclaimed filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar's latest film – his English language debut – The Room Next Door received a gigantic 18-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival following its premiere. The film went on to win the Golden Lion award at the festival.

Standing ovations for performances like symphonies, plays, and operas are not a new thing at all, so when audiences started seeing movies knowing that the filmmakers and stars would be in attendance, it only makes sense that they'd want to honor them by giving their films a similar standing ovation.

Once entertainment news sources started measuring and reporting on the time that those standing ovations last, everyone wanted to have one, and soon, the show of politeness and respect turned into a marathon of who can stand up the longest and get the biggest headline.

According to GQ, though, the two films with the longest festival standing ovations are actually from around two decades ago.

In 2004, Michael Moore's anti-George-W-Bush and anti-war documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 got an epic 20 minute standing ovation at the Cannes film festival. But still, that's not the longest one recorded.

In 2006, also at Cannes, Guillermo del Toro received a whopping 22 minutes of standing ovation for his Spanish Civil War fantasy horror epic Pan's Labyrinth.

Most films that receive long standing ovations do receive critical acclaim, however, the length of the standing is not actually an indicator of the film's success or how it will be remembered in years to come. Films like Matthew McConaughey's Mud in 2012 got an 18-minute ovation while his other The Paperboy (2012) received a 15-minute ovation.

While today's films don't quite measure up to that level of applause, the trend of long standing ovations is unlikely to end any time soon...