One of the best ways to get the hang of playing barre chords is to forget about the barre part at first. :)

That's because the barre chord requires a very specific hand-position. However, your barring finger doesn't have the required calluses to make the string sound very well. This causes you to sort of smush your fingers into an awkward position until it sort of sounds. That's not really the right way to play a barre chord.

So what you should do is to play THIS, instead of F major:

--0--
--0--
--2--
--3--
--3--
--1--

This will help your fingers develop the right position. Over time, your hand will get very used to this.

The next step is to lay your barring finger down on the strings, but DO NOT PRESS DOWN!!! Your finger first needs to develop calluses before it can play barre chords with ease. So just lay your finger on the strings, as if to mute the strings. So when you play those two top strings (the E and the B string) you'll hear a thud instead of a note.

--x--
--x--
--2--
--3--
--3--
--1--

You'll still want to hold down the first fret on the low E string though, that's important.

Now just let this settle for a few weeks. You'll develop a little callus on your finger while you're doing this. And eventually, you'll be able to lay your finger flat down and play the rest of the strings:

--1--
--1--
--2--
--3--
--3--
--1--

Hope this helps. :)