Beauty and the Beast may have been released twenty years ago but this Disney classic still remains one of the greatest animation movies of all time.
Beauty and the Beast was the first animation movie to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars - and we had to wait until 2009 to see a second, which came in the form of Up.
Belle, whose father is imprisoned by the Beast, offers herself instead and discovers her captor to be an enchanted prince.
The enduring legacy of Beauty and the Beast is the movie's heart and soul, the telling of a simple fairy story with unforgettable characters who deliver the message that the greatest thing that you will ever learn is to love and be loved in return.
And for an animation to deliver so profound a message in so convincing a way is, even to this day, an amazing achievement, the ballroom scene is one of the best moments ever committed to film.
And despite the advancement in animation technology since the film's 1991 release no film since then has come anywhere close to achieving the same effect.
Like Gone With the Wind and Casablanca Beauty and the Beast has not just become a timeless piece of romantic cinema but cinema itself and stands as one of the best pictures ever made.
The message of love someone for who they are not what they look like it a message that still resonates with an audience today and will in the years to come.
Throw in some great characters, the support characters in particular being larger than life, and some great musical numbers and a Disney classic was born at the beginning of the nineties.
Buy one get one free on over 30 amazing Disney Blu-Ray and DVD titles 26 September - 31 October 2011
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
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