Breaking Bad is one of the most popular TV series of all time. I didn’t actually watch it until all the seasons had actually finished, but when I did finally get around to it, I binge watched it all over the course of a couple of months. But what if you wanted to watch it quicker? How long would it take you to finish Breaking Bad? Here’s what I calculated!
How long to watch Breaking Bad? If you continuously watched Breaking Bad with no breaks and no ads it would take you 61.3 hours from start to finish to watch all of the episodes in total (not including the mini-series). Each episode is around 47 minutes long on average.
But of course, who in their right mind would be able to sit down and watch all Breaking Bad episodes in one go? Believe it or not, someone actually claims to have done it and you can read more about that further down the page. Let’s just look at the calculations on the time it would take first though.
How long are Breaking Bad episodes?
There are 62 episodes. 60 episodes average 47 minutes in length, with 2 episodes in series 5 averaging 53 minutes in length.
Based on that you can now see how I then put together a breakdown of the timeline involved in watching all of Breaking Bad in total below.
How long to watch all of Breaking Bad without a break?
Are you crazy enough to accept the challenge of watching all 62 episodes of Breaking Bad without having any toilet breaks in one continuous sitting? If you are, this is how long I believe it would take to watch the entire series in one go.
This is how I worked out all the mathematics behind my answer given at the top of this page.
- Series 1: 7 episodes of 47 mins on average = 329 minutes in total.
- Series 2: 13 episodes of 47 mins on average = 611 minutes in total.
- Series 3: 13 episodes of 47 mins on average = 611 minutes in total.
- Series 4: 13 episodes of 47 mins on average = 611 minutes in total.
- Series 5A: 8 episodes of 47 mins on average = 752 minutes in total.
- Series 5B: 6 episodes of 47 mins on average plus 2 episodes at 53 mins = 764 minutes in total.
If you tally all those episode times together, and assuming you watch on a streaming service like Netflix with no ads, that equals 3,678 minutes in total.
How many hours long is Breaking Bad then?
If we take 3,678 minutes and divide it by 60, we get 61.3 hours. That means Breaking Bad is over 60 hours long in total.
We can then further divide those hours into days, by dividing by 24 hours. That means it would take 2.55 days to watch Breaking Bad, or to be precise; 2 days, 13 hours, and 12 minutes.
Let’s now put those all into some meaningful numbers depending on what time measurements you want to choose as your given metric…
- Minutes: Breaking Bad is 3,768 minutes long.
- Or hours: Breaking Bad is 61.3 hours long.
- Or days: Breaking Bad is 2 days, 13 hours, and 12 minutes long.
Someone already claims to have done it…
Let’s be realistic here; could you honestly sit down and watch all episodes of Breaking Bad in one binge watch sitting? Well, apparently somebody already has (if you believe the video footage below that is).
Brad Giovanine allegedly sat through a marathon Breaking Bad binge-watching session in December 2015 for the Iris YouTube channel. You can see how he got on in the video below which claims it took him 3 days to watch all 62 episodes.
He started on day 1 at 0855am and finally completely the mission on day 3 at 1247am. Whether you believe this or not is up to you – I can’t honestly see how someone could mentally cope with watching a TV screen for 3 days straight.
How long to watch Breaking Bad for a sane person?
Let’s get real… you aren’t going to sit down and watch all of Breaking Bad like that guy claims to have done in one monster binge sitting. If you are, then you are certifiably mad.
So, for the normal people amongst you, how long does it take to watch Breaking Bad on a more realistic timeline? I’ve put together some estimates below.
- If you watched 1 episode a day: If you watched just one episode a day, it would take you 62 days to watch all 5 series of Breaking Bad. That equates to nearly 9 weeks or just over 2 months.
- If you watched 2 episodes a day: If you watched two episodes a day, it would take you 31 days to watch all 5 series of Breaking Bad. That equates to nearly 4 and a half weeks or around 1 month.
- If you watched 3 episodes a day: If you watched three episodes a day, it would take you 21 days to watch all 5 series of Breaking Bad. That equates to 3 weeks or three quarters of a month.
I think you’ll agree that those are far more realistic timelines of how long to watch all of Breading Bad in total or on Netflix – and I recommend Netflix as you won’t have to put up with an ad breaks!
How long was Breaking Bad in real time?
This is a slightly different thing altogether, and actually relates to how long the characters would exist in real time, if the story was in real life.
I haven’t had the chance to calculate this myself, as it would mean I would have to go back and watch all 62 episodes of Breaking Bad again, I then have to attempt to give estimates on the timelines involved based on the story line.
But, the Fandom.com website has already done this. I am amazed at what a labor of love it must have taken to put this together, and here’s what they say:
How long is Breaking Bad timeline?
- Season 1: 56 days in total real time.
- Season 2: 110 days in total real time.
- Season 3: 57 days in total real time.
- Season 4: 93 days in total real time.
- Season 5: 368 days in total real time.
You can see the exact breakdown of the Breaking Bad timeline by visiting Fandom.com and doing a search on their website.
Related questions
Now that you know how many hours long Breaking Bad is and how long it might take you to watch all 5 seasons in total on Netflix, here are some more interesting time-related facts.
When did Breaking Bad start and end?
The series was originally shown on the AMC network, and ran from the 20th of January 2008 through to the 29th of September 2013.
How long did Breaking Bad take to film?
This answer is a lot harder to find any real data on. But what I did find interesting was an interview with Aaron Paul who played Jesse.
He recently told the Guardian.com that the producers would squeeze all of his scenes into just one day for almost every episode. He was earning around $600 per episode at this point, so in series one could have earned $4,300 dollars for what could have been 7 days work in total.
How long is breaking bad on Netflix?
Most people now watch or catch up on the series on the Netflix streaming platform. Based on my calculations, Breaking Bad is over 61 hours long on Netflix to watch in total.
Final thoughts
Breaking Bad is one of the world’s most popular TV series of all time, winning countless awards and plaudits. Whilst it will take you many hours to watch it in total, I really recommend you stick it out.
When my wife and I first watched it, we checked out the pilot episode first. It didn’t really grab our attention at the time, and it was another year until we finally got back into it.
Once we got past the pilot episode, we literally could not stop watching it. I hope you feel the same way!
