one-reeler

[wuhn-ree-ler]

noun

1. a motion picture, especially a cartoon or comedy, of 10 to 12 minutes' duration and contained on one reel of film: popular especially in the era of silent films.

Word History and Origins

Origin of one-reeler¹

1915–20; one reel + -er ¹

Example Sentences

The debris left satellites in its path malfunctioning “along the lines of the old Saturday matinee one-reeler,” the 1982 report said.

Read more on Seattle Times

With such past films as “Step Brothers” and “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” and, more recently the fact-based dramedies “The Big Short” and “Vice,” McKay has proved adept at a form that, in an age of binge-streaming and never-ending sagas, feels as archaic as a Charlie Chaplin one-reeler.

Read more on Washington Post

Ken’s project then was “Tom, Tom the Piper’s Son” — a feature-length movie created through the refilming and microanalysis of a 1905 one-reeler.

Read more on New York Times

In 1912, the silent one-reeler Saved from the Titanic was released just one month after the foundering of that unsinkable ship, and starred an actress who had been onboard.

Read more on Time

But there have been many other film versions, including “Saved From the Titanic,” a 1912 one-reeler starring Dorothy Gibson, who had actually survived the disaster and is credited as a co-writer, and a German propaganda film from 1943 that did not please Joseph Goebbels and was quickly banned.

Read more on New York Times