--- title: "The Beast" year: 2024 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-beast" fi1m_id: "the-beast" imdb_id: "tt14407336" tmdb_id: 914206 wikidata_id: "Q112054817" fi1m_score: 76 critics_score: 79 critics_reviews: 19 published: "2026-09-09" updated: "2026-09-18T08:37:59.221513+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # The Beast (2024) Directed by Bertrand Bonello · 2h 26m · MPA NR · Science Fiction, Drama, Romance ## Identity The Beast - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/the-beast - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** the-beast - **IMDb ID:** tt14407336 - **TMDB ID:** 914206 - **Wikidata ID:** Q112054817 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14407336/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/914206, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q112054817 **Fi1m score: 76** · Critics 79 from 19 reviews *In a sentence:* Léa Seydoux is frightened in 1910, 2014 and 2044, and she is right every time > Bertrand Bonello turns a Henry James novella into a three-era romance about a woman who wants to stop being afraid, and Léa Seydoux carries all of it. It is bold, handsome and too long, and the Los Angeles stretch nearly sinks it. We recommend it anyway. ## Synopsis Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) lives in Paris in 2044, in a city run by artificial intelligence that treats emotion as a liability. She is offered a procedure that will purge her DNA of feeling by sending her back through past lives. In 1910 she is a pianist married to Georges (Martin Scali), who owns a doll factory, and at a party she meets a young man, Louis (George MacKay), and tells him she expects a catastrophe. In 2014 she is an actress minding a house in Los Angeles while a stranger films speeches in his car. Bertrand Bonello directs, working loosely from Henry James, with Guslagie Malanda, Dasha Nekrasova and Elina Löwensohn. ## Review Henry James wrote a short novel about a man who waits all his life for a catastrophe and lets everything else pass while he waits. Bertrand Bonello has taken that idea, given it to a woman, and spread it across three lifetimes. Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) is a pianist in Paris in 1910, an actress minding a house in Los Angeles in 2014, and a woman in Paris in 2044 who is offered a procedure that will clean the fear out of her DNA, and everything else with it. In each life she meets Louis (George MacKay). *The Beast* is bold, handsome, well acted and about half an hour too long, and we recommend it to anyone with the patience. It opens on a green screen. Seydoux stands in a plain dress while a voice off camera tells her where the beast is, how it moves and when to scream, and she screams at nothing. Josée Deshaies holds her in a flat green space with no floor and no horizon, and the shot goes on long enough to stop being a joke and start being frightening. Gabrielle knows something terrible is coming, and so do we, and neither of us knows what it is. The 1910 section is the one most people will like. Gabrielle is married to Georges (Martin Scali), who makes celluloid dolls, and she meets Louis at a party where the couturier Paul Poiret (Pierre-François Garel) is showing gowns. Katia Wyszkop’s factory, with its rows of blank faces and its vats, is the best set in the film, and Pauline Jacquard puts Seydoux in dresses she seems to be carrying rather than wearing. MacKay plays Louis in French, gently, as a man who wants to be told he is needed. Seydoux plays Gabrielle as someone who would like to be in love if she could stop bracing for the blow. Then the film moves to Los Angeles and changes shape. Gabrielle is minding a glass house, with a friend, Dakota (Dasha Nekrasova), on the phone, and Louis is now a young man filming himself in his car, explaining what women owe him. The speeches are taken from the manifesto of a real killer, and MacKay delivers them flat and reasonable. We were frightened, more than we wanted to be: there is a long stretch of Gabrielle alone at night, with alarms and cameras and wide black windows that Deshaies refuses to light, and we noticed we had stopped breathing. The trouble is that this is a stalker thriller, and Bonello knows how those are shot, so he shoots one, and for forty minutes the film does what other films do. 2044 is the coldest part and the truest. Paris has been handed to machines, which have decided feeling is inefficient, and Gabrielle is issued a companion doll, Poupée Kelly (Guslagie Malanda), polite, patient and impossible to like. Bonello and Anna Bonello score it with low synthesiser and long silences, and one Roy Orbison song keeps surfacing across the eras like a tune the film cannot shake off. Anita Roth’s cutting lets the periods leak into one another, so a glance in a ballroom is answered by a face in a laboratory. Bonello has been here before. *Nocturama* was about young people who could not say what they believed, and *Saint Laurent* was a biography that declined to explain its subject. Here he has more plot than usual and is less sure what to do with it. At 146 minutes the film could lose most of the Los Angeles middle and be stronger; most critics, who like it a little more than we do, have said as much more kindly. Nobody disputes Seydoux, who makes the same fear read differently in a corset, a swimming pool and a machine. The last quarter of an hour pulls the three lives together; we will not describe how. It made us sit still, and the final scene is the strongest thing in the film. See it in a cinema if you can, because at home the middle hour invites the phone. And listen for the Orbison song. You will not hear it the same way afterwards. *Fi1m score 76, published 9 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews lean firmly positive. Most critics take Bonello’s century-hopping Henry James adaptation as a large and deliberate gamble that mostly comes off, and the praise gathers around Léa Seydoux, whose performance across three eras is singled out repeatedly as the thing holding the film together. George MacKay is admired alongside her. The mixing of costume drama, sci-fi and thriller is treated as the point rather than a muddle, and several critics reach for Lynch to describe its dream logic and steady unease. The reservations are about length and shape. A number of critics find that the film loses momentum after its first hour, with Time Out arguing the final third turns slack and generic, and Sight and Sound faulting a routine middle stretch and a lack of heat between the leads. The Hollywood Reporter thinks it more intriguing than involving. The spread is narrow, though: no critic dismisses it, and even the doubters credit its ideas and its craft. ## Straight answers **Is The Beast worth watching?** *The Beast* is worth watching for anyone with the patience for a slow three-era romance, and we scored it 76. Léa Seydoux carries it, the 1910 section is handsome and the final quarter of an hour is the strongest thing in it, but at 146 minutes the Los Angeles stretch turns into an ordinary stalker thriller for forty minutes and nearly sinks it. **How long is The Beast, and what is it rated?** *The Beast* runs 2h 26m and is rated NR by the MPA in the US. It is a science fiction and drama film. **Where can I watch The Beast in the US?** *The Beast* is available to rent from Amazon Prime Video from $3.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **What should I watch after The Beast?** After *The Beast*, try [*Holy Motors*](https://film.one/film/holy-motors) (2012, Fi1m 84): One actor, many lives, Paris at night; the same pleasure in not being told what it means. Then [*Under the Skin*](https://film.one/film/under-the-skin) (2013, Fi1m 81): A star made strange, a synthesiser score, and dread that arrives before anything happens. ### Reviews we read (28) - **The AV Club**, Matthew Jackson (A): Bonello's film is an ambitious, compelling monster of a movie powered by two tremendous central performances that deliver emotional urgency and depth. It rewards viewers with a haunting, thought-provoking experience despite its length and complexity. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-beast-review-an-ambitious-compelling-monster-of-a-1851442968) - **Slant Magazine**, Chuck Bowen (3.5/4): Bonello crafts a shattering vision that interweaves time periods with insight and agitation, culminating in a powerful, original finale. The film's speculative elements and performances create a uniquely affecting experience. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-beast-review-lea-seydoux-george-mackay-bertrand-bonello/) - **Empire**, Steph Green (85/100, inferred): The critic calls it a wholly original work that pulses with prescience, praising Bonello's exploration of technology's impact on human emotion and anxiety across eras, anchored by a standout performance from Léa Seydoux. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/the-beast-2024/) - **IndieWire**, David Ehrlich (B+): Bonello delivers a magnificent sci-fi epic that reimagines the source material as a sweeping, star-crossed love story across centuries with strong performances from Seydoux and MacKay. It stands out for its bold genre-blending and emotional resonance. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/the-beast-review-lea-seydoux-george-mackay-1234902052/) - **Little White Lies**, Hannah Strong (3/4/4): The critic calls it a mind-boggling, sprawling romantic epic with excellent performances from Seydoux and MacKay and strong recurring motifs that tie the timelines together, though the initial period section drags slightly; overall an imaginative big swing that pays off. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/the-beast) - **Vulture**, Bilge Ebiri (80/100, inferred): Bonello's unsettling film stands out for its unique blend of genres and timelines, functioning closest to a horror movie about doomed lovers across lifetimes. Seydoux's versatile performance anchors the haunting, off-balance narrative. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/article/the-beast-review-theres-really-nothing-else-like-it.html) - **Evening Standard**, Maddy Mussen (75/100, inferred): The critic describes a spellbinding yet suffocating voyage, highlighting the acting masterclass from Léa Seydoux and George MacKay in this visually striking Lynchian film while noting its discomforting atmosphere and lengthy runtime. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/the-beast-2024-review-movie-lea-seydoux-george-mackay-b1160829.html) - **Los Angeles Times**, Tim Grierson (75/100, inferred): The film paints AI anxieties in muted colors through a love story spanning past lives and future selves, ultimately about the terror of being alive and fear of deep feeling. It critiques dehumanization across eras with strong performances from Seydoux and MacKay, proposing we destroy ourselves from within. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2024-04-04/the-beast-review-george-mackay-lea-seydoux-bertrand-bonello-ai) - **The Telegraph** (75/100, inferred): The review describes Bonello's time-hopping fable as creepy and authentically dreamlike, with a self-fracturing structure that recalls Lynch. Seydoux's recurring encounters with MacKay across eras are highlighted as dangerous and compelling in this loose James adaptation. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/the-beast-review-lea-seydoux-george-mackay/) - **Film Comment**, Adam Nayman (70/100, inferred): The critic finds Bonello's time-hopping adaptation strange and provocative rather than agreeable, praising its momentum, striking images, and daring use of source material like Elliot Rodger's manifesto while noting it mostly succeeds as a viewing experience. [Read](https://www.filmcomment.com/animal-style-nyff61-bertrand-bonello-the-beast-harmony-korine-aggro-dr1ft-review/) - **Time Out**, Olly Richards (3/5): The critic finds the sci-fi epic thought-provoking, handsomely made and appealingly weird with teeming ideas and strong central performances, but notes that the final third becomes slack, generic and thriller-like, diluting the elegance of the earlier sections. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-beast-review-2024) - **RogerEbert.com**, Glenn Kenny: Bonello delivers a potent horror-tinged sci-fi epic spanning multiple eras that warns of inescapable personal and societal cataclysms born of fear and disconnection. The film stands out for its visceral depiction of digitization's dual nature as both ravishing and nightmarish. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-beast-film-review-2024) - **Screen Daily**: The review highlights the film's daring hybrid of thriller, dystopian futurism and heritage drama, its hot-button themes like AI and incel culture, and the strong appeal of Seydoux and MacKay in an uncompromising exploration suited to cerebrally receptive audiences. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-beast-venice-review/5185101.article) - **Sight and Sound**: The critic praises the film's ambitious narrative scale and conceptual boldness across three eras but finds it overstuffed with ideas, lacking chemistry between the leads, and weakened by a generic middle segment, though it has a strong ending and solid production values. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/beast-bertrand-bonellos-most-ambitious-film-date) - **The Guardian**, Wendy Ide: The critic finds the century-spanning Henry James adaptation ambitious and eccentric, with a bewitching dream logic that casts a spell despite its elliptical structure. Seydoux's shape-shifting central performance across three eras is singled out as mesmerizing and central to the film's uneasy fascination with fear and emotion. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/jun/02/the-beast-review-a-mercurial-lea-seydoux-is-three-times-a-lady-in-wildly-ambitious-sci-fi-romance-bertrand-bonello-henry-james) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Jordan Mintzer: Bonello's ambitious time-tripping adaptation mixes genres and eras but lacks strong dramatic momentum and forward drive. The film impresses with its craft and conceptual connections across timelines but feels more intriguing than consistently involving. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-beast-review-lea-seydoux-george-mackay-bertrand-bonello-1235576746/) - **The New York Times**, Beatrice Loayza (Critic's Pick): Bonello’s audacious interdimensional romance blends sci-fi thriller and noir elements across three eras, held together by delicate emotional threads amid themes of collapse and retribution. The prologue's uncanny green-screen scene sets an unsettling tone sustained throughout the shifting time periods. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/04/movies/the-beast-review.html) - **The Times** (★★★★☆): The critic recommends feeling rather than understanding this big-screen Henry James adaptation, praising its ingenious structure that places eras in conversation. Seydoux is singled out for dominating every frame with proper screen acting that conveys emotional urgency. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/the-beast-review-lea-seydoux-dominates-every-frame-t0kxtcsmh) - **Collider**, Chase Hutchinson (9/10): The critic praises the film's monumental scope, disquieting dread, and Léa Seydoux's astounding performance across timelines, calling it a formidable work with a striking conclusion despite being unwieldy. [Read](https://collider.com/the-beast-review/) - **Eye for Film**, Anne-Katrin Titze (90/100, inferred): The film powerfully explores Henry James’s themes of egotism and fear of love across time periods, leaving the viewer breathless with its relevance and cinematic variations. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/the-beast-2023-film-review-by-anne-katrin-titze) - **Polygon**, Siddhant Adlakha (90/100, inferred): The critic hails the film as the purest science fiction experience, praising how Bonello binds three timelines aesthetically and emotionally through dread, longing, and Seydoux's vulnerable performance. [Read](https://www.polygon.com/23912037/the-beast-review-henry-james-sci-fi-time-travel/) - **HeyUGuys**, Linda Marric (85/100, inferred): Bonello delivers a mesmerising and thought-provoking blend of sci-fi, romance and thriller with spectacular visuals and compelling performances from Seydoux and MacKay. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/the-beast-review/) - **The Playlist**, Rafa Sales Ross (B+): Bonello crafts a non-conventional epic sci-fi warning about AI and emotional numbness, anchored by Seydoux’s career-defining performance, though it could use trimming. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/the-beast-review-lea-seydoux-leads-bertrand-bonellos-epic-time-spanning-sci-fi-warning-about-a-i-venice-20230903/) - **The Skinny**, Eilidh Akilade (★★★★): The critic describes the film as violent, psychiatric, and rather beautiful, praising the authentic performances of Seydoux and MacKay across timelines while noting it is lengthy, sometimes overcomplicates itself, but ultimately instinctual and gorgeous. [Read](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/new-releases/the-beast) - **Deadline**, Damon Wise (70/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a provocative, Lynchian sci-fi that spans three eras in a surreal examination of human relationships and is compelling for those who accept its oddities. Seydoux's performance is singled out as a revelation that anchors the story's sense of fear and artifice. [Read](https://deadline.com/2023/09/the-beast-review-bertrand-bonello-trippy-sci-fi-lea-seydoux-george-mackay-1235535250/) - **Film Stories**, James Harvey (60/100, inferred): The film offers an intriguing philosophical sci-fi setup in its first hour with strong performances but loses momentum and fails to sustain interest in the second half. [Read](https://filmstories.co.uk/reviews/the-beast-review-an-intriguing-sci-fi-romance-that-runs-out-of-steam/) - **Digital Spy**, Mireia Mullor: The critic calls it one of the best and most unexpected films of 2024, praising Bonello's genre-blending, philosophical depth, and soul-touching love story across timelines while noting it is long and demanding but ultimately worthwhile. [Read](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a60921999/the-beast-review/) - **Paste**, Jesse Hassenger (6.7): The critic finds the film distended and misshapen with an undercurrent of restlessness, praising Seydoux's magnetic performance and some arresting images but noting it struggles to fully transport the viewer. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/bertrand-bonello/the-beast-review) ## Details - **Director:** Bertrand Bonello - **Director:** Bertrand Bonello - **Writer:** Bertrand Bonello, Guillaume Bréaud, Benjamin Charbit - **Cinematography:** Josée Deshaies - **Editor:** Anita Roth - **Music:** Anna Bonello, Bertrand Bonello - **Production design:** Katia Wyszkop - **Costume design:** Pauline Jacquard - **Producer:** Justin Taurand, Bertrand Bonello - **Cast:** Léa Seydoux as Gabrielle; George MacKay as Louis; Guslagie Malanda as Poupée Kelly; Dasha Nekrasova as Dakota; Martin Scali as Georges; Elina Löwensohn as La voyante; Marta Hoskins as Gina; Julia Faure as Sophie - **Runtime:** 2h 26m - **Certificate (MPA):** NR - **Release (the US):** 5 April 2024 - **Genres:** Science Fiction, Drama, Romance - **Budget:** $8 million - **Box office:** $760,979 - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxjTAeaCWQc ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, sd *Checked 2026-09-10.* Also available in: AE, AR, AU, BE, BR, CL, CO, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, IE, IN, IT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PT, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Nocturama* (2016): Bonello’s earlier film: beautiful, frightened young people in a department store, saying nothing about why. - *Holy Motors* (2012), Fi1m 84: One actor, many lives, Paris at night; the same pleasure in not being told what it means. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/holy-motors.md) - *Under the Skin* (2013), Fi1m 81: A star made strange, a synthesiser score, and dread that arrives before anything happens. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/under-the-skin.md) - *Cloud Atlas* (2012): The same souls across centuries, done with far more money and far less restraint. - *La Jetée* (1962): Twenty-eight minutes of still photographs about a man sent back to a face he remembers. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/the-beast