In the film industry, a feature film is a film made for initial distribution in theaters and being the "main attraction" of the screening (as opposed to any short films which may be screened before it). The term is also used for feature-length direct-to-video and television movie productions. After initial screening in theatres, the film may be available to private homeowners or be screened on Television. Some feature films are never screened in theatres. They are usually produced by entertainment companies, which then screen it on their channel. Disney Channel and Nickelodeon have produced feature films.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,79th Academy Awards Rules, Rule 2: Eligibility. the American Film Institute,The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures. and the British Film InstituteDenis Giford, The British Film Catalogue. all define a feature as a film with a running time of 40 minutes or longer. The Centre National de la Cinématographie in France defines it as a 35 mm film which is longer than 1,600 metres, which comes out to exactly 58 minutes and 29 seconds for sound films, and the Screen Actors Guild gives a minimum running time of 80 minutes.Screen Actors Guild Letter Agreement for Low-Budget Theatrical Features. Today, a feature film is usually between 80 and 210 minutes; a children's film is usually between 60 and 120 minutes. An anthology film is a fixed sequence of short subjects with a common theme, combined into a feature film.

The term evolved from the days when the cinema-goer would watch a series of short subjects before the main film. The shorts would typically include newsreels, serials, animated cartoons and live-action comedies and documentaries. These types of short films would lead up to what came to be called the "featured presentation": the film given the most prominent billing and running multiple reels. There was no sudden jump in the running times of films to the present-day definitions of feature-length; the "featured" film on a film program in the early 1910s gradually expanded from two to three to four reels.