I love this movie so much

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I'm slightly shocked at a few reviews who imply that this film remains in any way faithful to Anna Sewell's excellent book. It absolutely does NOT. Nothing remains of the book but a few character names and the fact that Beauty is black with a white blaze on his forehead. It's misleading to even associate Sewell's name with this movie. It's quite obvious that several reviewers have either forgotten everything they ever knew about the book, or (more likely) never read it at all. If you are looking for a movie version of the book to watch, look elsewhere. So, it's just a film about the life of a horse, and as such, it is so-so. The beginning of the movie does have some beautiful shots, set as it is in the British countryside somewhere. But it pretty much goes downhill after that, becoming a series of vignettes about Black Beauty's various owners, with little in the way of real depth, and even less focus on the horse himself. It's reasonably entertaining for a rainy day. Older children would likely enjoy it most. I am personally unlikely to watch it again, and will be checking out the other versions in the hopes of finding something resembling a reasonably faithful adaptation.

A truly sensitive and quite a beautiful lost epic, The film is a biopic of Black Beauty's life, original in the sense that the tale is told of the horse's life seen through his own sad, profound and wizened eyes. Forget about "If walls could talk..." this film makes you wonder "If animals could talk..." and there is no need to wonder here since Black Beauty's story is told with empathy and is a real adventure through many terrains. From Black Beauty being a circus performer to a war hero to a whipped and maltreated work horse...the film shows a rather fateful and often disturbing life of this beautiful and sensitive horse... the cinematography is wonderful, It really does try to present some rugged images of the English countryside, I think that the hunting scenes evoke a sense of cruelty and violence in a subtle manner since the film shows the squire and landowners in an unflattering light. I would have liked to see some scenes played out a little longer but there is a lot to fit in this film and ultimately the film is about Black Beauty's life and not so much the people he is thrown with by fate.

1st watched 11/26/2004 - 2 out of 10(Dir-James Hill): Lazy telling of celebrated novel about the adventures of an almost completely black horse. The adventures are huge, but they are played out very un-magnificently with some scenes being so bad that the movie's almost worthy of turkey status especially during a couple silly love scenes. It all works out in the end with the horse coming back to his starting location with his grown-up original owner but the only good thing this movie does is make you feel bad for the horse. The problem is that at points in this movie even he looks bewildered and fatigued at being a part of this slow-moving fiasco.

This internationally-produced version of the oft-filmed Anna Sewell classic about the adventures and misadventures of a horse that is seperated from its original owners is the best of several films based on the timeless tale. Mark Lester stars as the young boy who longs to be reunited with his beloved horse. The film rarely strays from its source, and I believe this is superior to the 1994 remake.