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A television movie (also known as a TV film, TV movie, TV-movie, feature-length drama, made-for-TV movie, movie of the week (MOTW or MOW), single drama, telemovie, telefilm, or two-hour-long drama) is a film that is produced for and originally distributed by a television network.

Origins and history

The term "made-for-TV movie" was coined in the United States in the early 1960s as an advertising gimmick to encourage even larger numbers of the cinema-going audience to stay home and watch television, on the premise that they were going to see the equivalent of a major, first-run theatrical motion picture in the comfort of their own homes. The first of these made-for-TV movies is generally acknowledged to be See How They Run, which debuted on NBC on 7 October 1964. The Killers, starring Lee Marvin, was filmed as a made for TV movie, although it was decided to be too violent and switched to cinema release instead.

These events originally filled a 90-minute time slot (including commercials), later expanded to two hours, and were usually broadcast as a weekly anthology series (for example, the ABC Movie of the Week). Most TV movies featured major stars, and some were accorded even higher budgets than standard series television programs of the same length, including the major dramatic anthology programs which they came to replace.

Today the advent of cable television has served to increase the number of venues for the broadcast of TV movies as well as their form. Budgets may be higher and the constraints of writing to fill fixed-time slots while accounting for commercials have been eliminated on the subscription-based cable stations. Conversely, the dispersal of the audience for TV-movies among numerous cable channels with a penchant for "original programming" has resulted in lower budgets, lesser-known performers, and even cheaper effects and settings, along with formulaic writing, on commercial-driven channels. Some networks have also recently streched the definition of a "TV movie" as counting what would normally be a hour long special, as a movie.

Notable examples

One very popular and critically acclaimed TV movie was 1971's Duel directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Dennis Weaver. Such were the quality and popularity of Duel that it was released to cinemas in Europe and later the US. Another was Brian's Song, which also saw theatrical release. However, many 1970s TV movies were a source of controversy, such as Linda Blair's movies Born Innocent and Sarah T. - Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic, as well as Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway and Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn, which were vehicles for former Brady Bunch actress Eve Plumb.

Read more at Wikipedia.org