Jean Cocteau directed this 1946 version of the famous fairy tale – and his is the most beautiful, as well as the most adult, ever filmed. Josette Day plays Belle, the young woman who sacrifices herself to a beast of a man – or a man of a beast – in order to spare the life of her father. Jean Marais plays the Beast – and Cocteau’s photography is every bit as luminous and enchanting as the film’s leading lady.