Theme: TV Movies

TV Movies refer to films specifically made for television as opposed to theatrical release. These can range from original self-contained dramas to pilots for potential tv series, which may or may not be picked up. This also includes the British tradition of the tv play, self-contained televised works (often adapted from plays) usually for arts audiences. For more long-form televised works, which are self-contained stories split into multiple episodes, see TV Mini-Series.

The Golden Age of TV Movies was during the 1970s, which produced a number of classic works, some of which received theatrical release outside the USA. US TV Movies tended to be tamer than theatrical releases due to being made for public broadcast audiences. This is not the case in the UK and its tv plays, which often contain more adult content

The notion of the tv movie has been largely erased by the advent of cable and streaming services where it becomes difficult to tell the dividing line between a work intended for theatrical, video/dvd or televised release where in many cases a film’s intended destination may have nothing to do with the way it is eventually released. There are still some works that can be regarded as made-for-tv, notedly a number of psycho-thrillers made for the Lifetime network.