The title “Beast” can refer to several different films , but the one that is currently getting the most attention in cinephile circles is the 2023 French film “The Beast” (La Bête) , a science-fiction romantic drama by Bertrand Bonello starring Léa Seydoux and George MacKay. Below is what that film is about, plus a quick note on the other “Beast” movies you might mean.

Quick Scoop: What is The Beast (2023) about?

Core idea:
In a near‑future where artificial intelligence controls society, human emotions are treated as dangerous “defects,” and people undergo a procedure to “purify” their DNA and remove strong feelings.

The film follows Gabrielle , who agrees to this purification process so she can have a better, safer life and job prospects. During the treatment, she is forced to relive past lives across three time periods – 1910, 2014, and 2044 – where she keeps encountering the same man, Louis, and the same looming sense of catastrophe (“the beast”).

Main plot in simple terms

  • Near future (2044):
    • AI is in charge, and intense emotions are seen as a threat to social stability.
* Gabrielle goes to a DNA “purification” center that will erase her strongest feelings by immersing her in memories of past lives.

* She meets Louis, another candidate, and they feel an eerie, immediate connection, as if they’ve always known each other.
  • Past lives & time jumps (1910, 2014, 2044):
    • The film jumps between:
      • 1910 Paris – a doomed, romantic melodrama set around a looming catastrophe (echoing the Seine flood and old‑world tragedy).
  * **2014 Los Angeles–style setting** – a tense, thriller‑like storyline involving incels, online misogyny, and a sense that violence is about to erupt.

  * **2044 dystopia** – the sterile, AI‑run future where emotions are being “edited out.”

* Across each period, Gabrielle and Louis are drawn together but also shadowed by fear, fatalism, and a sense that disaster will strike if they surrender to love.
  • The “beast” itself:
    • The “beast” is not a literal monster; it is the fear that something terrible is destined to happen if she gives in to love , adapted from Henry James’s novella The Beast in the Jungle.
* The movie uses genre elements (sci‑fi, thriller, melodrama) to show how that fear destroys connection across lifetimes.

Themes and tone

  • Love vs. emotional sterilization:
    • The film asks whether a safe, pain‑free life is worth it if you have to sacrifice deep love and feeling.
  • AI and dehumanization:
    • By letting AI define emotions as a “threat” and push people into purification, the future world becomes efficient but cold and dehumanized.
  • Fate, fear, and missed chances:
    • Like the original Henry James story, it’s about someone so haunted by their fear of disaster that they end up missing the very life and love they were meant to live.

Stylistically, it’s slow, cerebral, and dreamlike , mixing romantic drama, psychological horror, and speculative sci‑fi rather than being an action‑driven movie.

Other movies called “Beast”

If you meant a different “Beast,” here are the main ones people often ask about:

  • “Beast” (2022, American survival thriller)
    • Idris Elba plays a widowed doctor on safari in South Africa with his daughters when they are hunted by a rogue lion that turned man‑killer after poachers wiped out its pride.
* It’s a tense, grounded survival film about family, guilt, and human–nature conflict.
  • “Beast” (2017, British psychological thriller)
    • A troubled young woman on a remote island falls for a mysterious outsider who may be a serial killer, blurring the line between romance, danger, and her own darkness.

If you tell which year or actor you have in mind (e.g., Idris Elba, Léa Seydoux, Jessie Buckley), a more tailored breakdown of that specific “Beast” can be given.