B-movie

American  

[bee-moo-vee] / ˈbiˌmu vi /

noun

1. a low-budget movie made especially to accompany a major feature film on a double bill.

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B-movie British  

noun

1. a film originally made (esp in Hollywood in the 1940s and 50s) as a supporting film, now often considered as a genre in its own right

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Etymology

Origin of B-movie

First recorded in 1945–50

Example Sentences

A re-recorded Rock Lobster became a minor hit, followed by similarly danceable, subtly transgressive, B-movie party classics like Dance This Mess Around, Give Me Back My Man and Mesopotamia.

From BBC • Mar. 17, 2026

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays Simon Williams, who as a child became a fan of a B-movie superhero called Wonder Man — not a “real” superhero, in this reality, merely a fiction.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 26, 2026

And it made a lot of money, albeit as a critical sensation rather than a sensationalist B-movie.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 30, 2025

Among his contemporaries was Ed Meese, a recurring figure in the conservative movement and a close ally of a certain B-movie actor turned archconservative governor of California: Ronald Reagan.

From Slate • Oct. 21, 2025

The entertainment Tagoe delivered with his B-movie scripts, like Canary Clown and the Carnival of Doom and Snake Taxi—though Substitute Doctor was just so bad, even for a bad movie.

From "They Both Die at the End" by Adam Silvera