B-movie

American

[bee-moo-vee] / ˈbiˌmu vi /

noun

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

B-movie British

noun

a film originally made (esp in Hollywood in the 1940s and 50s) as a supporting film, now often considered as a genre in its own right

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of B-movie

First recorded in 1945–50

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

B-movie

Wednesday in the Oval Office was so off-the-wall bad I thought I was watching a B-movie about a minor mobster.

From Salon ● Sep. 4, 2026

The next likely contender for the award is “The Lost Boys,” a spectacle-heavy, bloated stage version of the B-movie from the 1980s about young vampires marauding in a California beach town.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026

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

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

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023