If The Little Mermaid gave Disney animation a heartbeat again, Beauty and the Beast lent it spirit. A show-stopping tour de force courtesy of musical wunderkinds Alan Menken and Howard Ashman — who provides golden lyrics like 'I use antlers in all of my decorating!' for the oompah barroom carouser ''Gaston'' — it's the film's quiet moments of spiritual yearning that may resonate the most: Belle in her village bookstore imagining far-off lands, then finding her own adventure to be unlike she'd ever imagined it when taking her father's place in the Beast's dungeon, and finally seeing humanity in her captor's eyes before a climactic, snatched-from-death transformation that touches upon the divine. Unlike previous Disney heroines who needed to be rescued by a prince themselves, Belle not only saves the Beast's life, she saves his soul. Is that powerful stuff or what? —Christian Blauvelt