The Total Runtime of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch Footage Is Much Longer Than You Think

Netflix's creepy choose-your-own-adventure tale Black Mirror: Bandersnatch has become one of the first big pop culture moments of 2019. With a huge number of permutations and several alternate endings, the possibilities for storytelling seem endless. Because of the unique nature of the "episode," though, it doesn't exactly have a typical hard-and-fast runtime. If you're sitting down to play through the story, how long should you set aside?

As you might guess, that depends on which options you take over the course of the story. If you take the most straightforward path, without any choices that double back to an earlier part of the story, you can watch through the entire thing in about 40 minutes. The average viewer, the creators told Variety, takes around 90 minutes to get through the story. The runtime is based not just on which choices the viewer makes, but also on whether or not they take advantage of opportunities for do-overs or just go straight through without looping back.

It's possible, however, for some permutations to run much longer than that: two hours or more! Reportedly, there's around five hours of footage total, although it can't all be accessed in one run-through. Whether you end up choosing one of the short paths or take the long way around, the one thing that's for certain is that Bandersnatch will take you on quite the roller coaster ride.