This Beauty and the Beast is truly lovely, even haunting. It is a feature-length animation of a quality I'd thought lost forever. The people at Disney have long thrown out the word "magic" entirely too carelessly; they should have saved it for this.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 16, 2024

Yes, it has the innocence that has become a Disney trademark, but there is also an intelligence, sophistication, verve, the kind of kinesis and crackle usually associated with a hit Broadway show.

| Dec 16, 2024

Beauty and the Beast arrives with a cartload of promises that it is a return to the great days of Disney, the art of animation, blah blah. It delivers in spades.

| Dec 16, 2024

The Little Mermaid told the world that Disney was back in the animation business. Beauty and the Beast tells us that Disney is back in the animation business to stay. It's an instant classic, in every way equal of the great Disney animations of the past.

| Dec 16, 2024

It's one of those rare treats that merits the illogical label of "instant classic."

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 16, 2024

It is a stunning movie whose audiences might even try to keep from blinking, lest they miss a split-second of the exquisite wit and artistry. Beyond animation, the Disney version may even be the most appealing narrative musical since West Side Story.

| Original Score: 10/10 | Dec 16, 2024

A triumph of animation and a celebration of a great new music, it may be the most artful and satisfying cartoon feature from Disney since the golden age of Pinocchio a half-century ago.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 16, 2024

Howard Ashman, the film's brilliantly lyricist, died of AIDS last March... While certain types of cleverness are exclusionary, Ashman's is the opposite, effortless effervescent and totally welcoming. We are going to miss his work. In fact, we already do.

| Dec 16, 2024

This is the Ben-Hur of film animation, wildly more ambitious than Disney's last animated outing, The Little Mermaid, with nary a blemish, flaw or misstep during its carefully-thought-out 84-minute running time.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 16, 2024

Directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise show themselves to be world-class moviemakers. Their film is genuinely romantic, terrifically funny and unrelentingly diverting. These aren't just cartoons -- they're absolutely believable characters.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 16, 2024

At the heart of it all, and there is plenty of heart there, is the timeless idea that love can change everything for the better... To resist all that, when it is as beautifully done as this, is to be beastly indeed.

| Original Score: A | Dec 16, 2024

This is family entertainment at its most pleasurable -- more vivid, moving and funny even than The Little Mermaid, the fairy tale that put Disney back at the top of the field it pioneered.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 16, 2024

Their growth, Menken and Ashman's score and the humor that buoys this handsomely realized creation makes Beauty and the Beast the most satisfying animated movie Disney has ever made.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 16, 2024

Beauty and the Beast is cause for celebration. By humbling male vanity and making the woman the indisputable hero of the story, the movie intelligently disrupts and confounds a sexual stereotype that has been a Disney trademark for half a century.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 16, 2024

It's rare enough that any movie has all the visual and plot elements in the right proportions. Beauty and the Beast, animated spectacularly, evens out beautifully. Disney can be forgiven its hubris; this movie is its best in years.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 16, 2024

It updates the timeless French fable with abundant wit, imagination, razzmatazz and poignancy, resulting in an extraordinarily captivating entertainment.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 16, 2024

With its gorgeous visuals, entrancing melodies, appealing characters and timeless story, it will sweep away all but the most curmudgeonly of viewers.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 16, 2024

Certainly, Beauty and the Beast is one of the best Disney animated "classics" to come along in recent memory. It's also arguably one of the best movies of the year.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 16, 2024

Yes, it's touching, exciting and wonderful to look at... But there's no one in it nearly as memorable as, say, Jiminy Cricket or even Cruella De Ville.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 16, 2024

"Beauty" hits the mark better than anything else in this genre and offers more bouquets, to children and adults alike, than many grown-up dramas.

| Dec 16, 2024