Featurette is a term used in the American film industry to designate a film usually of three reels in length, 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 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 to domestic productions within that country.