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Belle Critic Reviews
83
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
positive
28 (90%)
mixed
3 (10%)
negative
0 (0%)
Showing 31 Critic Reviews
Jul 16, 2021
Belle is a beautifully observed, dazzlingly animated sci-fi fairy tale about our online-offline double lives – it’s Hosoda’s finest film since 2012’s Wolf Children, and perhaps his best to date.
Jul 16, 2021
Mamoru Hosoda’s cyber fairy-tale is basically wall-to-wall bangers, all backdropped by virtual worlds that wash over you in waves of world-building so detailed and epic, they’d make William Gibson’s eyes pop.
Feb 4, 2022
Between hidden depths and dazzling surfaces, home truths and virtual wonders, Hosoda’s tale of teenage anguish, connectivity and emotional salvation enraptures.
Jan 14, 2022
An aesthetically imaginative and affectingly breathtaking fairytale for our modern world, Belle envelops you first with its clever mechanics and youthful preoccupations. But as the reflective subtext comes to light, it extends an invitation to reconnect with others offline and to beware the comfort of these surrogate identities.
Jul 16, 2021
Perhaps the most ambitious film to date by Japanese animator Mamoru Hosoda.
Jan 13, 2022
Colors and hearts explode in Belle, and your head might too while watching this gorgeous anime.
Jan 15, 2022
As is often the case with Hosoda, it’s the extracurricular details that make his work so moving, the textures of the everyday lives of his characters that become something larger and more profound when placed in contrast to the genre elements at the center of his story.
Jan 15, 2022
Everyone has secrets, Hosoda posits, and the internet may play a role in our ability to process them, heal our wounds, and maybe find the person who can save us from ourselves. That he does that through a gorgeous SF-tinged version of a classic fairy tale is not simply a bonus (just those components would have made a memorable new version of Villeneuve's timeless story). It's a vital act of recontextualization, not ham-fisted revisionism.
Jan 12, 2022
Anime master Mamoru Hosoda makes movies that, even at their most elaborate, can reach such staggeringly emotional heights that they seem to break free of anything you’re prepared for in an animated movie — or in most kinds of movies, for that matter.
Jan 14, 2022
Oscar shortlisted for best animated film, this ravishing new gem from anime master Mamoru Hosoda is a knockout fantasia that cuts to the core of Gen Z lives that revolve around digi-tech and yet speaks an intimate universal language of love and loss.