How long does a movie need to be to be called a feature?
Just where exactly is the line between a short film and a full-blown feature?
Sure, we all have a gut idea. One watch of surrealist Luis Buñuel’s eyeball-slicing Un Chien Andalou or La Jetée’s dystopian time travel over thirty years later—providing the source material for Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys—leaves even the cinema layman under no doubt where such film gems should be filed under. But, is there a defined mark? Could Paul Thomas Anderson, should he want to, dream up his next intense character ensemble within a 20-minute work that’d do the rounds at your local Showcase Cinema?
The general distinction of a feature was established pretty early on. While only finally petering out around the end of the 1970s, a trip to the picture house from the 1910s would include newsreels, adventure serials, a cartoon or two, and even documentaries to really offer value for money, attendees losing hours of their time in the new and novel motion picture marvel. Such add-ons would serve as a visual entrée, starter, and several snacks before the main event, or ‘feature’, if you will.
Decades later, ‘B-movie’ would enter the cinema lexicon. A tag used to describe any movie broadly in the sci-fi, horror, or exploitation genre that was made on a shoestring budget, silver screen frightfests like Attack of the Giant Leeches or Teenagers from Outer Space would be shown before the major draws, such as Ben-Hur, the B-movies shown before the grade-A box office ticket guzzler.
Not long after Georges Méliès’ rocket struck the creamy satellite’s eye in the fantastical A Trip to the Moon, features were starting to demand serious time and several film reels. As early as 1897, Enoch J Rector’s 90-100 minute coverage of James J Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons’ boxing match in Nevada’s Carcer City would set a precedent for just how long a film could be, generally credited as being the first true feature.
How long does a movie need to be to be called a feature?
While various films had been produced as separate episodic segments and occasionally viewed in one go, the first real dramatic feature designed for a single showing was Australia’s 1906 bushranger thriller, The Story of the Kelly Gang, running at a brisk 70 minutes. By the end of the decade, every corner of the world was eagerly crafting new motion pictures for the public who couldn’t get enough of the projected magic that 24 frames a second could inspire.
Both the industry and ticket holders knew what a feature ‘meant’ over a century ago. But what’s the definition? While shifting over the years, and with contrary criteria from the US’ Screen Actors Guild and France’s Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée agency, the general consensus states that 40 minutes is the deciding factor between a short film and a proper feature.
While there may be wiggle room in other film organisations and companies around the world, 40 minutes is what’s agreed between the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the American Film Institute, and its British equivalent. So if you’re after that coveted ‘Best Feature’ Oscar or Bafta, keep your passion project at least 11 minutes longer than The Wrong Trousers.
