[ForresterW]

Can anybody tell me the official minimum runtime for feature length film?

Thank you

[Scott Weinberg]

Sixty minutes = a feature film. I'm looking for an online source to back this up, but I'm fairly certain I'm right.

[Mark Philp]

Somewhere in the dark archives of my brain I seem to recall reading that back in the early days of movies a feature was considered any film that ran five reels or longer. A reel in those days was about 10 minutes so we're talking 50 minutes or so. Back then when the studios were cranking out a lot of "B"s many of them only ran between 50 and 60 minutes so I guess that makes sense. I don't know who decided this or how "official" it was.

[ChrisBEA]

For some reason I thought it was a weird number like 72, but I can't remember where I remember it from.....

[george kaplan]

Oddly enough, it appears that the Academy Awards defines feature length as over 40 minutes.

See rule 2a

a) feature length (defined as over 40 minutes)

[Ray H]

I know Dumbo's only 64 minutes. Probably the shortest movie I've ever seen.

[ForresterW]

Sundance say...

70+ minutes for movies

50+ minutes for documentaries

[Ernest Rister]

The obscure Disney animated feature Saludos Amigos is *I think* 47 minutes long. If the Academy defines a "feature" as a film that runs over 40 minutes, that might be why Saludos Amigos is listed as an "animated feature" by Disney, one of the few that was nominated for three or more academy awards.

[MatthewLouwrens]

Quote:

it appears that the Academy Awards defines feature length as over 40 minutes

That would explain the presence of films like Sherlock Jr on the AFI 100 Laughs list, despite having a running time of only about 45 minutes.