Answer: Gods and Generals

While movie theaters and the greater movie culture are still going strong after all these years, there’s one part of the movie going experience that has gone the way of abundant ushers and cheap popcorn: the intermission.

Once a commonplace practice in the movie industry, by the 1970s the concept of cinema intermissions was on its way out. By the 1980s, very few movies had them, only a handful of movies in the 1990s included them (typically only in very long films like Gettysburg), and by the 2000s they were practically dead.

Although modern cinemas can insert an intermission if they feel it necessary (some inserted an intermission into the lengthy Lord of the Rings films), the only major Hollywood film to ship with an actual intermission included in the film itself in recent years was the 2003 Civil War film Gods and Generals.

As a rather notable aside on the topic of intermissions in American cinema, it’s worth noting that the two biggest Hollywood films in recent memory to have a director-included intermission were both lengthy Civil War films, Gettysburg and Gods and Generals, and both directed by Ronald F. Maxwell. Clearly the man knows something about directing a good Civil War film, lengthy story telling, and the importance of a bathroom break in the middle.