Featurette is a term used in the American film industry to designate a film whose length is usually three film reels, or about 24–40 minutes in running time - thus longer than a two-reel short subject but shorter than a feature film. Hence, it is a "small feature" (the ending "-ette" is a common diminutive suffix derived from French). The term was commonly used from before the start of the sound era into the 1960s, when films of such length such as the Hal Roach's Streamliners and several French films of that length ceased being made or were made as experimental or art films and subsumed under the more general rubric of short. Its use outside the USA is unknown, although it was as commonly applied to foreign imports as domestic productions within that country.