The 1991 film Beauty and the Beast won two Academy Awards: Best Original Score and Best Original Song for the title song, written by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman.
The Disney animated classic received six Oscar nominations overall, including Best Picture, making it the first animated film ever nominated in that category. It lost Best Picture to The Silence of the Lambs and Best Sound to Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
The film’s other Best Original Song nominees were “Belle” and “Be Our Guest,” an unprecedented achievement at the time because one film supplied three nominees in that category. Only “Beauty and the Beast” won, with the award recognizing Menken’s music and Ashman’s lyrics.
The movie was also notable for its groundbreaking computer-assisted production, especially the ballroom sequence. It later became the first Disney film adapted into a Broadway musical, which opened in 1994.