Short, medium-length or feature film: what makes the difference?

Is a 50-minute film a short or a medium-length feature? Both terms can be used for the same runtime. It all depends on the context: French regulations, a film festival and the Oscars do not necessarily use the same thresholds.

In France, Articles D210-1 and D210-2 of the French Cinema and Animated Image Code distinguish between two categories. A short-form work has a running time of no more than one hour in theaters; a feature-length work exceeds that limit. A film exactly 60 minutes long is therefore still a short-form work. The code does, however, provide for a special case: 70 mm films with at least eight perforations per frame are classified as feature films once they exceed eight minutes.

The “medium-length film” serves a different purpose. The Brive Film Festival, for example, is dedicated to films lasting 30 to 60 minutes. Its 2026 competition rules include both endpoints. The format therefore has its own programming space, without constituting a third category under the two articles of the code: under the general French criterion, films of these lengths still fall into the short-film category.

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At the Oscars, the limit is different. The 99th Oscars rules for live-action short films set a maximum runtime of 40 minutes, including all credits. Meeting this runtime limit is not enough to qualify: other eligibility requirements apply.

A 50-minute work of fiction can therefore be considered short under the general French criterion and qualify as a medium-length film at Brive, while being too long for the Oscars’ short film category. At exactly 40 minutes, it still meets the Academy’s running-time limit. When a programme uses these labels, the relevant rules and the stated running time make clear what they mean.

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