

After Paul D. finds his old slave friend Sethe in Ohio and moves in with her and her daughter Denver, a strange girl comes along by the name of "Beloved". Sethe and Denver take her in and then strange things start to happen...
Acting
Oprah's unhinged kitchen scene belongs in the Smithsonian.
Direction
Demme treats horror with documentary intimacy—deeply unsettling.
Production
The farmhouse feels lived-in and nightmarish simultaneously.

Director
Jonathan Demme
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Toni Morrison hand-picked Jonathan Demme after Silence of the Lambs, telling him he understood 'the texture of dread.'
The film's box office bomb ($22M budget, $8M gross) became a cautionary tale about Hollywood's fear of Black women's interiority—until recently reconsidered as misunderstood masterpiece.