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IrelandJoey Engelman spotlights Cinématon, the movie still growing
Gérard Courant's vast collection of short filmed portraits gives Engelman's unfinishable-movie series a surprisingly intimate subject.
Joey Engelman
Story of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 124,276 views a day, 14 times a normal first day on this channel (8,812).
Movies You're Never Meant To Finish - Part 2
Joey Engelman has found a film that takes longer than a week to watch, but gives each person on screen only a few minutes. His new Short explores Cinématon, Gérard Courant's ongoing collection of unscripted portraits, where the subjects decide what to do with the camera's attention.
"Movies You're Never Meant To Finish - Part 2" drew about 86,000 views in its first 12 hours, already far beyond the channel's usual full-day audience for a Short. It follows Engelman's longer tour of durational cinema, which also includes The Clock, Paint Drying and 24 Hour Psycho.
Here, the curiosity isn't simply endurance. Courant's format gives each subject three minutes and 20 seconds, the length of a Super 8 reel, to do whatever they wish. Engelman's commentary runs alongside archival footage from the project: an enormous film assembled from small, individual encounters.
Engelman singles out the closing stretch of those portraits. "Without fail, I found the last 30 seconds to always be the most revealing," he says. That is his observation, and it gives viewers something more specific to look for than an extraordinary running time.
By the May 2026 milestone cited in the Short, Cinématon had passed 178 hours. The comments turn that scale in different directions: some imagine its value to future historians, others wonder what they would do if Courant pointed his camera at them. Among the practical questions is the obvious one for Engelman's movie discovery: where can you watch it?
Published on Trari
Where next?
What viewers say
Historians are gonna love this guy
@peopleandpeople377See it on YouTube178 HOURS? Thats 7 AND A HALF DAYS
@SALAZANDERRSee it on YouTubebeautiful stuff. It's a good thought exercise to think of what you would do/say if he filmed you.
@kcryrine5056See it on YouTube
7 more comments
A love letter to human nature.
@miserirkenSee it on YouTubeTo be filmed for this would be a dream come true. I hope I can make something as wonderful
@clippyforchangeSee it on YouTubeToday nobody making this would even think to call it a movie, it would be episodes in a web series
@PhillipRaymondGoodmanSee it on YouTubeIt's almost like the movie has a life of It's own at this point
@JacubWhite38See it on YouTubeThis is so beautiful… I dunno. There’s something so beautiful in the ordinary. And these people giving a piece of themselves to be immortalized forever.
@DeeGhostsSee it on YouTubeAliens show up and wanna understand humans? Give 'em this.
@DiverseCurseSee it on YouTubeWhere can I watch this
@KidneystonerkennySee it on YouTube
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- Channel
- Joey Engelman
- Subscribers
- 206,000 ▲ 1,000 this week
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 1,182,031
- Channel views, pace per day
- 217,331 (on a normal day: 160,455)
- Video published
- November 8, 2026
- Video views so far
- 85,642 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 124,276
The numbers
The Short has already exceeded the channel's usual first-day views. Its projected first-day total is roughly fourteen times the usual start.
💡 Test your knowledge
Which filmmaker is behind the ongoing portrait project Cinématon?
Courant created Cinématon as an expanding collection of short, unscripted filmed portraits.