A French version of La Belle et la Bête was made in 1946, directed by Jean Cocteau, starring Jean Marais as the Beast and Josette Day as the Beauty. This version adds a subplot involving Belle's suitor Avenant, who schemes along with Belle's brother and sisters to journey to Beast's castle to kill him and capture his riches. When Avenant enters the magic pavilion which is the source of Beast's power, he is struck by an arrow fired by a guardian statue of the Roman goddess Diana, which transforms the dying Avenant into Beast and reverses the original Beast's curse. In 1994, Philip Glass wrote an opera, "La Belle et la Bête", based on Cocteau's film. Glass's composition follows the film scene by scene, effectively providing a new original soundtrack for the movie.

A 1962 version directed by Edward L. Cahn, starring Joyce Taylor and Mark Damon, had the Beast as a prince who transformed into werewolf at night, with makeup by Universal's Jack Pierce.

In 1979, a heavily horror-influenced film entitled Panna a Netvor (The Virgin and the Monster) directed by Juraj Herz, was produced in Czechoslovakia. This film is notable for presenting the Monster as a bird-like creature, both attended to and tortured by gremlin servants. Julie, the virgin of the title, is forbidden from seeing her captor's face. Nonetheless, the two fall in love, and The Monster is bewildered to realize that, bit by bit, he is literally being transformed by that love.[citation needed]

In 1987, The Cannon Group and Golan-Globus Productions released a musical live action version, directed by Eugene Marner, starring John Savage as Beast, and Rebecca De Mornay as Beauty, with original music by Lori McKelvey. It was released on VHS in 1988 by Cannon Video, and on DVD in 2005 by MGM Home Entertainment. The plot of this adaptation is more comparable to the authoritative Beaumont version than others.[citation needed]

In 1991, Walt Disney Feature Animation produced a musical animated film adaptation of Walt Disney's Beauty and the Beast, directed by Kirk Wise & Gary Trousdale, with a screenplay by Linda Woolverton, and songs by Alan Menken & Howard Ashman. Like the 1946 version, the Disney version also names Beauty "Belle" and gives her a handsome suitor (here named Gaston) who eventually plots to kill the Beast. Other aspects of the story are changed or added as well: In the Disney version, Belle's father (here called Maurice) is an inventor, not a merchant, and Belle is his only daughter. Belle is befriended by the Beast's servants, who have been transformed into household objects. There is also an element of Bluebeard in it, in the sense that she is told, early on in the Beast's castle, not to go in a certain chamber, but disobeys him out of curiosity.[citation needed] Beauty and the Beast won Academy Awards for Best Song and Best Original Score, in addition to becoming the first animated film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. It was also one of only two animated films included in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions list, which announced the 100 greatest love stories of all time, and is now considered one of the Walt Disney Company's classic animated films.

Children's film producer Diane Eskenazi produced an adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, directed by Masakazu Higuchi and Chinami Namba, for Golden Films in 1993. The film, which relied on moderate animation techniques but was mostly faithful to the original tale, featured classical compositions as opposed to an original soundtrack, featuring the works of many well-known popular composers.

A 2003 Viking period film directed by David Lister was alternately known as Beauty and the Beast and Blood of Beasts.

A dark version of the fairy tale updated to modern times, director Robert Beaucage's 2008 film Spike was described (at its premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival where it was chosen as part of the Best of the Fest) as "Angela Carter rewriting La Belle et la Bête as an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

Another modern take on Beauty and the Beast is Beastly, starring Alex Pettyfer as the beast (named Kyle) and Vanessa Hudgens as the love interest (named Lindy). Directed by Daniel Barnz and based on the novel by Alex Flinn, it will be released on March 18, 2011. The story places the basics of the original fairy tale in the context of a contemporary American high school, and also features co-stars Neil Patrick Harris as a blind man and Mary-Kate Olsen as a goth girl.