Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Measured
- Intensity
- Extreme
- Complexity
- Labyrinthine
- Violence
- Brutal
- surreal
- anxious
- grotesque
- late night arthouse viewing
- surreal cinema marathon
What critics said
Critics broadly agreed that the film is strikingly ambitious, surreal, and visually inventive, though its extreme length, narrative excess, and self-conscious abstraction divided opinion.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
Beau’s paranoia and fears reshape the situations he encounters, repeatedly blurring what is real and imagined.
The film combines panic, death, sexuality, and family trauma with absurd comic escalation.
Ari Aster stages Beau’s odyssey through exaggerated urban danger, theatrical spaces, surreal imagery, and animation.
Beau’s journey home after his mother’s death is driven by an intensely fraught mother-son relationship.
Films like Beau Is Afraid, and why
The Lighthouse
shares psychologically oppressive surrealism, family trauma, dark comedy, and escalating dread
Mother!
shares maximalist surreal imagery, anxiety-driven subjectivity, and an unstable boundary between reality and nightmare
After Hours
shares an absurd odyssey structure, grotesque humor, parental anxiety, and nightmarish fantasy
Hereditary
shares surreal psychological horror, inherited trauma, and disturbing family dynamics
Movie Details
- Director
- Ari Aster
- Release Date
- 2023-04-14
- Runtime
- 179 min
- Rating
- 6.8 / 10 (1416)
Cast
- Joaquin Phoenix
- Patti LuPone
- Amy Ryan
- Nathan Lane
- Kylie Rogers
- Denis Ménochet
- Parker Posey
- Zoe Lister-Jones
- Armen Nahapetian
- Julia Antonelli
Where to watch in United States
- Rent
- Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Fandango At Home, Spectrum On Demand, Plex
- Buy
- Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Fandango At Home
Streaming options come from TMDB and change over time.
Common questions
- What is Beau Is Afraid about?
- A catastrophically anxious son’s journey home becomes a grotesque, surreal expedition through guilt, grief, and maternal control.
- What is Beau Is Afraid like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of Beau Is Afraid as measured, its intensity as extreme and its storytelling as labyrinthine.
- Is Beau Is Afraid violent?
- Yes. Ember rates the violence in Beau Is Afraid as brutal.
- What did critics think of Beau Is Afraid?
- Critics broadly agreed that the film is strikingly ambitious, surreal, and visually inventive, though its extreme length, narrative excess, and self-conscious abstraction divided opinion.
- Which films are like Beau Is Afraid?
- Films with a similar feel include The Lighthouse, Mother!, After Hours, and Hereditary.
- How long is Beau Is Afraid?
- Beau Is Afraid runs 179 minutes.
- Where can I watch Beau Is Afraid?
- In United States, Beau Is Afraid is available to rent or buy from Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Fandango At Home, Spectrum On Demand, Plex.
