Beauty and the Beast is a American animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation which premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood on November 13, 1991. The thirtieth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film is based on the fairy tale La Belle et la Bête by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont, who was uncredited in the English version of the film but credited in the French version as writer of the novel.

The film centers around a beast who keeps a beautiful young woman named Belle in a castle. The beast must win Belle's love or he will remain a beast forever. It is the only full-length animated feature film to ever be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. Heightening the level of performance in the era known as the Disney Renaissance (1989–1999, beginning with The Little Mermaid and ending with Tarzan), many animated films following its release have been influenced by its blending of traditional animation and computer generated imagery.

The film was adapted to an animation screenplay by Linda Woolverton and directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise. The music of the film was composed by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, both of whom had written the music and songs for Disney's The Little Mermaid. It was a significant success at the box-office, with more than $145 million in domestic revenues alone and over $403 million in worldwide revenues. This high number of sales made it the third-most successful movie of 1991, surpassed only by summer blockbusters Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. It was also the most successful animated Disney film at the time and the first animated movie to reach $100 million at the domestic box-office.