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Beau Is Afraid
Beau Is Afraid
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Beau Is Afraid

Beau Is Afraid

2023
Comedy, Drama
2h 59m
Following the sudden death of his mother, a mild-mannered but anxiety-ridden man confronts his darkest fears as he embarks on an epic, Kafkaesque odyssey back home.

Beau Is Afraid

2023
Comedy, Drama
2h 59m
Your probable score
Avg Percentile 53.35% from 695 total ratings

Ratings & Reviews

(695)
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Rated 24 Apr 2023
68
48th
O Mother, Where Art Thou? This Odyssey of the mind plays on the same vaulted fantasy-reality as BRAZIL, but tuned to the wavelength of a malignant narcissist. Every detail leans in to Beau’s constant victimization, ultimately all vanity, an attempt to find agency and identity outside his somehow vainer and victimier and bitchier mother. I bet there will be lives saved by viewers realizing their own immolation by “loved ones”’ gaslighting. In the meantime, will someone please give Aster a hug?
Rated 11 May 2023
71
69th
I'm Thinking of Ending Things with Ari Aster. Not as in Ari Aster's I'm Thinking of Ending Things. I mean, I personally am thinking of ending things with Ari Aster.
Rated 30 Jun 2023
85
86th
Every filmmaker should be allowed to wrestle with their demons at least once in their filmography to thrust upon us. Beau is Bonkers.
Rated 19 Apr 2023
94
91st
Ari Aster described it as "Jewish Lord of The Rings if Frodo just had to go to his moms house" and it's the best way to think of this baffling, dense, ambitious epic. The comedy is dark and potent, the family backstop contains many layers and all of the surreal worlds he moves through are immaculately detailed. This movie swings for the fences and knocks it out of the park most of the time though theres ONE pretty bad strikeout towards the end. Nathan Lane is at his funniest here
Rated 17 Jun 2023
90
92nd
What if your anxiety actually manifested the worst case scenario in every situation? Fine, I will say it. I think Ari Aster works through some mommy issues in this one. I am shocked, SHOCKED, that opinions of this film are divided, and that some people hatttted this.
Rated 28 Apr 2023
29
25th
Charlie Kaufman for Rick and Morty fans, basically, but if it blows the minds of a few 14-year-old neophyte film bros, there are worse things.
Rated 03 Jan 2024
83
83rd
Gleefully absurd. Joaquin "Long Balls" Phoenix is fantastic, as is the rest of the cast. I thought for sure teenage Beau was some kind of weird deep fake; shocked to learn that's an actual kid. Ari Aster really swung for the fences with this, and he might have actually overshot the fences and brained a passing pedestrian, but that still counts as a home run (I think, I don't know sports, this was the wrong metaphor to choose)
Rated 27 Jun 2023
75
81st
3 hours is a lot of commitment to ask these days, especially when it's more like 6-9 to get behind what's even going on. Aster literally shows giant balls with this, he's one of the few interesting directors around with some kind of pull among audiences. Like its "plot", this movie is wildly unstable, but when it's good, it's bloody brilliant.
Rated 09 May 2023
10
6th
Absolutely garbage, self-pitying, one-dimensional Freudian take on a depressed man and his inability to deal with his childhood traumas. Despite building a seemingly grandiose and Odyssey-like narrative around Beau, Aster belabors the same point while offering us nothing more than an evil mom that sexually represses her son. Beau is one-dimensional and almost caricature-like in his despair. Yes, some good scenes like the theatre in the forest, but the story is so shallow that those add nothing.
Rated 24 Apr 2023
70
46th
Hot mess maternal guilt anxiety freak-out, but make it AFTER HOURS. Overlong for what it ultimately accomplishes (or doesn't), but undeniably visceral, memorable, and gut-churningly hilarious.
Rated 19 Feb 2024
70
65th
The first act is gloriously too much. The rest of the movie is bloated, unwieldy and sometimes tedious but as a whole it's an interesting peak into an anguished mind. My biggest complaint is that if Aster hadn't gone for a darkly humorous tone and some pretty wild plot development I think the core story and Phoenix's performance could easily have created a more compelling drama.
Rated 08 Jan 2024
94
97th
Best movie I‘ll never watch again
Rated 27 Dec 2023
99
97th
Outstanding and insidiously uncomfortable - like a jagged, ugly gumbo of all of Aster's anxietal concerns, shot through with the oppressive invasiveness of Aronofsky’s MOTHER (all the more ironic given the source of “evil” here). Phoenix’s sad, wounded, panic-stricken warrior is a career-best performance; Aster’s casting of comic actors in support as taunters and redeemers give the film an extra jolt of discombobulation, while amping up the jet-black humour (Kind has never been used so well).
Rated 09 Dec 2023
70
59th
Here's the thing about surreal horror, or whatever you want to call it. It's all fun and games (a lot of fun, a looooot of games in 3 hours) until you have to give the audience a key to the plot. And then some of us will go "...oh, you remade Carrie." and hate ourselves for reducing this to the actual plot, because while this is messy and cringy and awkward and bloated and doesn't always work, you've got to admire Aster's and Phoenix' balls.
Rated 07 Nov 2023
58
14th
Was the working title for this Jewish Mothers! Beau is Afraid is a surrealist adventure from destitution to denigration that oscillates between indulgent and pretentious. There are moments that are obviously intended to be funny, but being worn down by the film's excessive runtime and languished pacing, they just didn't land for me. The performances are good; Aster's material much less so.
Rated 02 Nov 2023
10
2nd
Oh my God, what a disappointment coming from Ari Aster. This movie is terribly slow, almost torture. The symbolism it tries to evoke falls flat because the message is so obvious from the beginning: mommy issues made the protagonist a broken man. I will forever despise this movie as I dragged my work colleagues to the cinema to watch it.
Rated 22 Oct 2023
60
27th
Beau Wassermann: "I really thought I was gonna die, my whole life."
Rated 12 Aug 2023
85
92nd
Not everything works, but when it works, it’s mindblowing. 80% of the film refuses to retrace the steps of other directors and i can nothing but applaud that awesome creative energy. The last explanatory act feels out of place as smart viewers have already figured out the themes. The half-animated 3rd act is Synecdoche-esque in its circular meta narrative. Moving and visually beautiful, an artistic triumph underscored by another brilliant score by Krlic. And the last scene-to-credits, just wow
Rated 05 Aug 2023
5
22nd
Where we find out that Mr. Aster desperately needs the confinement of a genre to keep him from following his astoundingly bad instincts.
Rated 24 Jun 2023
66
64th
An elaborate caricature of familial dysfunction. Aster again shows an aptitude for discomfort, high anxiety, and horror, proving that these panicked episodes are in line with his other features. He sees degradation as comedy and his films as a revue. There is hardly an inner reality to his characters - they are just pawns in a nightmarish game. But let's note that when the nightmare is all exterior, we get the incredibly bizarre first act, one of the great shorts of this year's cinema.
Rated 16 Jun 2023
40
28th
(OEDIPUS DRECK)
Rated 28 Apr 2023
30
13th
I enjoyed a few parts and aspects of it, and maybe there are deeper meanings and symbolism that I didn't catch, but it felt very one-note to me - what I had gleaned from the first twenty minutes hadn't really changed or evolved much by the end. But the biggest problem I had with it was that it was just boring and borderline nonsensical for the majority of the way-too-long runtime. I appreciate that it was trying to do something different, but it just wasn't for me.
Rated 24 Apr 2023
84
51st
If Woody Allen took acid and directed a movie written by Sigmund Freud while heaving a bad trip, this would be it. To me, its mistake is that it explains itself too much at the end, the first scene already explains enough.
Rated 23 Apr 2023
58
33rd
Adult Swim x Tim and Eric x I Think You Should Leave x Mommy Issues. Pitch black comedic brilliance at times, but overall the package is a little derivative and a lot way too much. I'm glad it exists tho.
Rated 22 Apr 2023
80
83rd
Excruciating. Also, exactly the kind of nightmarish absurdist existential-horror trip that I have a sick obsession with. Not sure if this quite has the depth or profundity of Charlie Kaufman’s exploits in similar surreal territory, but Ari Aster certainly matches his ambition.
Rated 19 Apr 2023
70
58th
Beaufadeeznutz
Rated 16 Apr 2023
58
9th
While it is a visually striking and audacious film, its narrative shortcomings and excessive reliance on shock value significantly undermine its potential.Its boldness is commendable, but its lack of coherence and narrative discipline ultimately results in a film that is as frustrating as it is intriguing."Beau Is Afraid" is a film that promises much, but sadly delivers little. It is a film that, like its protagonist, is lost in its own labyrinthine narrative, desperately searching for a way out
Rated 10 Nov 2024
75
80th
As an italian mama's boy, i can confirm: beware of motherly oppressive love. This film is crazy, and I loved it. A lot of Lynch, a lot of Freud, a bit of Kafka. A character entrapped in his own psyche, always looking at himself: in the water, in the tv screen. An entertaining nightmare.
Rated 25 Jun 2024
40
35th
Interesting premise, but ultimately this could have been a short film. 3 hours is way too much.
Rated 28 May 2024
71
58th
Dark comedy kind of like A Serious Man crossed with Barton Fink and All My Friends Hate Me, stretched out into a bizarre semi-abstract odyssey. I'd put this in the lately-expanding genre of "anxiety horror", making all of your most exaggerated social anxieties into excruciating realities.
Rated 23 May 2024
50
7th
My friend said, “why did I pay to be this anxious when I was already this anxious for free” and yes ditto
Rated 06 May 2024
80
63rd
There's not enough foreshadowing. Forces you to watch it a second time, which is cheap.
Rated 15 Mar 2024
67
52nd
It's certainly ambitious and Aster takes a lot of risks that pay off in really interesting, unique ways. At the same time, he takes a lot of risks that totally fall flat for me. So, the end result is largely a mess, albeit often an enjoyable one.
Rated 10 Feb 2024
92
64th
Weird (:
Rated 01 Feb 2024
55
37th
Kaufman meets Fellini but without the brains of the former or the imagination of the latter. A harsh judgement perhaps, and the first act certainly was promising, but it's far too long, and the final act makes literal what should have remained implicit in terms of themes and psychology.
Rated 31 Jan 2024
66
70th
good movie
Rated 30 Dec 2023
60
63rd
Composed of 4 parts: the first 3 are inventive, impressive, affecting and interesting, but the last is slightly underwhelming and leaves a sense that the length is not quite justified. Aster is at least really trying, and there are also mysterious details that I am yet to piece together, which means that further viewings could lead to a significantly more favourable judgment, but it’s debatable whether it’s really worth the effort of attempting to find out. Protagonist is just a bit too passive.
Rated 29 Dec 2023
75
56th
Quite fascinating with tons of scenes that are brilliantly conceived and executed and very creative, but the whole thing doesn't quite come together as a cohesive film. It's still pretty good and interesting and you'll see a ton of really cool stuff and scenes and ideas but it feels like a missed opportunity to make a true classic. Admirably ambitious, but doesn't quite come together. Might almost be enjoyed more if you approach it as an anthology of loosely connected scenes starring Beau.
Rated 28 Dec 2023
85
78th
One-of-a-kind type of movie that didn’t feel nearly as long as its runtime for the first half or so of the movie, but dragged a bit from there. If you’re looking for a trippy movie, this is it.
Rated 18 Dec 2023
75
68th
The first half is great, the second half not so much. Phoenix is awesome.
Rated 14 Dec 2023
76
55th
it could be shorter. beside of that it was one hell of a mushroom badtrip. my wife and me still watching the credits with awe. It reminds me magus from john fowles. Not for everyone's taste.
Rated 25 Nov 2023
60
28th
This is a too weird, bizarre film - not an entirely easy/enjoyable watch, a film too complicated with symbolism to fully follow, this may be worth a watch if you study films etc. but I wouldn't go out of your way to see it as such, no, though Joaquim gives a remarkably good performance. He's convincing as the permanently dazed and confused titular character Beau, his muddled facial expression, his whole demeanour as someone unbalanced, somewhat dazed etc. is very convincing, I'll give you that.
Rated 19 Nov 2023
95
89th
Starts out very strong, but the 3rd act drags.
Rated 10 Oct 2023
79
69th
Charlie Kaufman would be proud, but I wish that Joaquin Phoenix was about 20% less mumbly.
Rated 04 Oct 2023
65
42nd
A wonderfully weird, polarizing film that stretches the outer limits of neurotic self-indulgence. It’s both too abstract yet packed with clunky metaphors and overt symbolism, but it strikes gold and finds success more often than not.
Rated 28 Sep 2023
80
14th
At times, I could really get behind the way that Ari Aster uses dream-like visuals to bring us inside the mind of a neurotic and chronically anxious man. Sadly, the film's Divine Comedy-like journey is pretty meandering and, at three hours long, it often feels like it's moving at a snail's pace. Joaquin Phoenix gives himself to the role as he always does and his sympathetic portrayal gives the film a good heart. Editing Aster's vision probably would have yielded a more compelling result.
Rated 23 Sep 2023
98
96th
one of the best three-hours Cinema!
Rated 16 Sep 2023
73
67th
Weird, indulgent, chaotic and wild. If that's for you? Buckle up. I'm giving it a 7.3. My wife gave it a 2. Lol, it's going to be wildly divisive. Some people have bad trips and others have great ones while on the same stuff. That's this movie in a nutshell. Kudos to Phoenix. Great stuff.
Rated 15 Sep 2023
40
3rd
Thewrongmovietokindastoppayingtoforabitlool+there'spartsofagoodmovieinitliketheromance+DOODOODOO-aystartsitoverlool-bustedthroughcondomlol-diedlool+momrecordedallhistherapyabouther:P+killsmomlol
Rated 10 Sep 2023
3
69th
I have nothing positive to say about this film, except that I couldn't take my eyes off it for three hours.
Rated 10 Sep 2023
50
60th
The apartment part: top tier. The surgeon's house part: weaker but kind of keeps the momentum of the first part. The forest part: beautiful but I feel the only thing it adds to the movie as a whole is the runtime. The explaining everything at the end of Psycho part: I actually liked this part; I get that people like to feel smart by figuring themes out themselves, but this part was hilarious and jaw dropping.
Rated 30 Aug 2023
64
17th
Fucking batshit.
Rated 26 Aug 2023
85
97th
This is the true becoming of the director for me. I understand it takes a special mood to have the suspension of disbelief. I was immersed through the 3 hours. There have been merely a few films like it in my 5k+ watch list. Joaquin is an actor of a generation. Indie queen Parker is back.
Rated 21 Aug 2023
70
53rd
Drowning in traumas, Beau is even incapable of seeking a way out. Aster’s greatest skill is that he manages to make you laugh exactly in the moments that the character is experiencing his most dreadful lapses.
Rated 18 Aug 2023
90
96th
Honestly it reminded me of a bled of PTA films mixed with obvs Ari Aster. It was a great dark fast paced comedy at the start and turned into some very messed up scenes. The sex scene is one that will stand out to me because the events are so unexpected. While I have my own interpretation of the film, I do need to watch it again to understand what the director was going for. While some may feel like it drags due to pacing, the first and second act are absolutely stellar.
Rated 11 Aug 2023
55
63rd
One part fantasy, one part comedy, and one part every other genre in existence. I am intruiged, mystified, and flabbergasted all at the same time. It's a one of a kind Oedipal journey to the loony bin. I don't think I will ever revisit it, for the simple fact that it's three hours long with little narrative thrust, but I respect Ari Aster and his swollen balls.
Rated 09 Aug 2023
30
5th
Epic boredom.
Rated 28 Jul 2023
0
0th
Ungradeable. There were some good moments and cool visuals, great lead performance but it feels like someone's handed their homework unfinished. If this was edited down in to a properly paced and structured film I'd give it a score.
Rated 24 Jul 2023
90
87th
I never had even the slightest clue what was going to happen next. So may films are dull and predictable. I deeply admire the fact that Aster just went out on a limb and resisted making the horror film everyone expected. I'm not sure exactly how much I like this one, but I know I'll revisit it.
Rated 16 Jul 2023
70
96th
...I mean, I like weird...but... nah, I like weird.
Rated 09 Jul 2023
75
83rd
Way too long and it drags quite a bit in the third hour, but still highly recomended for it's unique approach. Joaquin Phoenix is great as always and you really suffer with him while laughing simultaniously at the absurdity of all the horrible things that are happening.
Rated 09 Jul 2023
51
6th
Dafuq? Psychoanalysis shroom trip: The movie
Rated 25 Jun 2023
80
64th
Watching Beau being afraid for three hours was a bit too long, but it was entertaining nonetheless.
Rated 25 Jun 2023
60
33rd
Very interesting and gripping first half, but then both the story and the pace lose the momentum. Starting from the forest part. That was a boredom fest. Similar style to "Brazil", but not as good structure. Joaquin Phoenix was on fire as usual. I wish Aster hadn't tried too hard to add more to the story, but stick to the structure and the storyline of the first half. Had the potential to be a better movie. Overall, not too bad, but nothing special.
Rated 24 Jun 2023
100
96th
Beau Is Afraid is the perfect horror film. An endlessly chaotic, borderline schizophrenic nightmare from start to finish, Ari Aster's latest flick covers an array of uncomfortable themes both overtly and implicitly from personality/anxiety disorders to surveillance culture to intergenerational trauma/gaslighting to the ethics of reality tv to the corruption of wealth, all through the career-topping eyes of Joaquin Phoenix looking through the lens of Aster's unfathomable Kafkaesque imagination.
Rated 21 Jun 2023
65
65th
Overlong and has pacing issues, but has a lot of things going for it. Aster's previous films were more straightforeward horrors with flourishes of over-the-top silliness. This one is a fantasy from the get-go, which finally lets him go really wild without it ever being jarring. Aside from the great J.Phoenix I appreciated seeing Parker Posey albeit in a very minor role.
Rated 20 Jun 2023
85
82nd
Funny Games NY
Rated 19 Jun 2023
72
62nd
3 saat boyunca ağzımıza şı*tı Ari abimiz. Anksiyeteli gözünden bir Kafkamsı yolculuk :) ama her anı ile :) Yani bizi realiteye çekebilecek bir ikinci kişinin bakış açısı filmde yok. Bunu böyle kabul edersen seyredilir, ancak ya burada ne oluyor diye sorgularsan izlerken sürekli saate bakarsın :)) Phoenix abimiz döktürmüş ,her anı ile filme çok inandığı, yönetmen ile kanka olduğu belli. Yönetmen açısından bence çok kişisel hikaye, bu nedenle arkadaşlarıyla çekip kendi aralarında seyretselermiş.
Rated 17 Jun 2023
70
41st
I was gonna write a serious critique about the pacing and everything but then that thing appeared and I realised it would be feeding the troll so never mind
Rated 17 Jun 2023
86
80th
Nunca vou esquecer um meme que vi certa vez de como a família do Aster veria seus filmes. Se eu fosse a mãe dele estaria bem orgulhosa, mas cheia de culpa também. YTS.
Rated 15 Jun 2023
75
54th
It's the Hereditary slow build for 2 1/2 hrs instead of 1. I love his directing and his usage of metaphor, along with Phoenix's performance, so much so that I wasn't bored even though this did not need to be 3 hours. This is heavy. Bad stuff gets piled onto Phoenix to the point it threatens your enjoyment sometimes. Also, there's some corniness. But I loved the ending. I loved how it made me piece things together. I'm torn and don't love it as a whole but it's a good movie.
Rated 22 May 2023
73
28th
Been a long time since I’ve been this stumped by what to say. I both never want to revisit this and also feel like I need to.
Rated 22 May 2023
45
25th
Sadly I didn’t really care for this that much. Ari Aster’s filmmaking and performances are top notch as usual, but after the first hour I just got bored and confused. Beau just ends up being really repetitive and kinda annoying with his mommy issues and moping personality. I didn’t care what was real or fantasy by the end or what happened to Beau. Just a slog, far too long and self-indulgent in a bad way.
Rated 21 May 2023
74
57th
I felt like I was going insane with the film as it went along. Ari Aster wanted to make a nightmarish comedy, and boy, did he repeatedly hit the bullseye again and again. I see why Aster doesn't want to talk about it for ten years. Because that may be the minimum time needed to process it with it all means.
Rated 15 May 2023
50
27th
Beau is in an passive state of constant shock; a cypher where others can reflect their neuroses.Beau's victim status is vanity.He tries to escape from the shadow of a more victimized and bitchier mother.Aster shows Beau's fantastic sense of inner life, but we don't care because we have no baseline understanding of a realistic inner life.So when bad things happen we don't care about his plight.A less sensational reality does not interest Aster, only what he makes Beau and us suffer on his journey
Rated 13 May 2023
87
87th
The more I think about it, the more I realise "this is my story!" This is clearly a personal movie, and a very pained and lacerated one, yet it indulges far more in humour than misery. There's moments of incredible introspection that reflect on the inside and outside, and on the fantasy, reality, and memory, and although the whole home sequence is where the film gets very tiresome, the final scene is audacious and so nasty, makes me glad someone like Aster is telling it how it is.
Rated 12 May 2023
87
76th
A beautiful addition to Aster's filmography. I think this is a film a lot of people aren't ready for, but will become much more appreciated as time goes on. It is really interesting to see how people perceive the meaning of the film. I see it as a perspective piece on anxiety, paranoia, and schizophrenia... but in typical Aster fashion he finds a way to make you question what is reality. I look forward to rewatching this in the future
Rated 07 May 2023
63
53rd
Overwrought and taxing
Rated 01 May 2023
50
13th
Unfortunately the film felt underwritten/reverse-engineered after the fantastic rework of his short film sprinted to exhaustion. The subsequent "Odyssey" and whatever truth it was trying to convey was so buried beneath junk comedy it was impossible to care about. Most notably the climactic forest scene which triggered feelings of boredom I hadn't felt since grade school. Still, worth sticking around for the Parker Posey scene.
Rated 29 Apr 2023
48
12th
audiovisual 70 acting 65 overall feeling 10 avg 48
Rated 24 Apr 2023
82
42nd
Well made, has a great cast, fails to have an actual ending. I can appreciate this movie yet I'm not sure I got it, and it felt like three movies shoved into one flick.
Rated 23 Apr 2023
35
11th
It might have the right idea at the end (or not) but it's such an asinine borefest until that point that I don't really care.
Rated 22 Apr 2023
30
22nd
Incomoda-me o desejo de criar sentido (e sentido indisputável) a partir de elementos metafóricos e textuais que parecem não ter nenhum interesse em usar a planificação, a composição de cena como uma linguagem a ser explorada também na direção de se alcançar o sentido. Prefere-se o simbólico, mas é um simbólico aqui completamente desinteressante, que se dá pela via do significado já resolvido.
Rated 20 Apr 2023
35
54th
Beau is Afraid is a dark comedy that expertly blends laughter and despair. The protagonist, Beau, is a broken man whose experiences blur reality and fear. The film showcases Phoenix's intense, clownish performance and is full of inventive, often bitingly funny, yet exhausting moments. Director Aster, known for horror films Hereditary and Midsommar, explores new ways to evoke discomfort. Though viewers may lose patience or wish for the film to end, its impact lingers long after the credits roll.
Rated 11 Apr 2023
7
47th
Ari Aster's "Beau Is Afraid" boasts excellent performances by Joaquin Phoenix and Patti LuPone, captivating visuals, and a nerve-wracking soundscape. However, its excessive runtime and pacing issues detract from the experience. The film could have benefited from some creative restrictions to reduce repetition and improve engagement.

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