This Should Have Won Best Picture, And Not Just Get Nominated.

Rating: 10/10 (2 April 2020)

In the 70s and 80s, Disney's animated movies were considered good but not at the quality of Walt's features. To give you an example, The Rescuers and The Black Cauldron were not on par with Snow White and Cinderella. Even critics did not like these as much as their predecessors.
Then in 1989, a game changer came out-and that film was The Little Mermaid. From then, a "Disney Renaissance" was born, and Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King proceeded.
While I haven't seen some of these in a while, I love Beauty and the Beast the most. After Hunchback, this is my next favorite Disney movie. In fact, it was my favorite movie when I was 17, and I had a brief obsession with it then.
Anyways, it's clear that this movie has been beloved by many for the last 29 years. In fact, it's quite surprising if you haven't seen this movie, since it's such a classic.
If you live under a rock and have never seen or heard of this movie, it's about a bibliophile named Belle, who is rejected by everyone in her town for how strange she is, except for a snobbish and selfish man named Gaston, which SHE rejects not only as a date, but as a husband.
Her father is later locked away by a beast-a prince who's castle is cursed for his own selfish heart, and Belle takes his place and lives with the beast. Then they must love each other before a rose fully wilts to break the castle's spell.
This is simply one of Disney's finest movies. One reason why is how beautiful the animation is. Take the Be Our Guest scene. With the colors, it's a gorgeous sight. From the food, to the dishes, to the setting, the musical number is astonishing. Forks are even animated to kick-line near the end of that song!
Another beautiful musical number is the title sharing Beauty and the Beast, which was drawn to look like a real camera was filming the 2 of them dance. That is much more impressive when you are an adult!
Even non-musical parts can be awe-inspiring, like the Beast becoming human again. Every shot, every scene, and every part of Beauty and the Beast is simply gorgeous. As an animated film, it's perfection.
This movie was so acclaimed when it came out that it made history in the Oscars. In 1992, it became the very first animated movie ever to get nominated for Best Picture. Let me re-phrase that: Hollywood said that this animated movie was among the best movies of the year, along with the live action ones!
This was the only animated feature to do this for 18 years, then Up was nominated for 2009 and Toy Story 3 was nominated a year later. Sadly, they all lost. In fact, back to BATB, it ended up losing to...of all movies...THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS!
Don't get me wrong, SOTL is not a bad movie, but this movie is so much better. Being animated aside, it's a great love story and musical, and it was a bigger box office success than Lambs. Therefore, BATB had more Oscar qualities. It's a travesty that it lost to a movie about a cannibal.
I have given Beauty and the Beast lots of praise, and I could give it more. As an animated movie, or movie in general, it's a masterpiece. No matter if you are young or old, this is a movie to always cherish. This "tale as old as time" will forever be timeless.