Beautiful Beings

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson directs. Sturla Brandth Grøvlen behind the camera. Kristian Eidnes Andersen scores. Anders Skov cuts. Produced in Czech Republic, Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands, Sweden. Dialogue in Spanish, Icelandic.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

• 1Released 4 years ago.
• 2Dialogue crosses 2 languages: Spanish, Icelandic.
• 3International production across 5 countries: Czech Republic, Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands, Sweden.
• 4Directed by Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson, shot by Sturla Brandth Grøvlen. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
• 5Original score by Kristian Eidnes Andersen. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
• 6Editor Anders Skov shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
• 7Birgir Dagur Bjarkason and Áskell Einar Pálmason and Viktor Benóný Benediktsson carry the top of the cast.
• 8Marketing tagline: "Friends. Family. Sacrifice.".
• 9IMDB entry: tt13845660 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
• 10Only 70 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.
• 11Classified under 13 themes, including "rape", "therapist", "bullying", "iceland".
• 12Released under 13 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography

Sturla Brandth Grøvlen

Original score

Kristian Eidnes Andersen

Editing

Anders Skov

Production design

Hulda Helgadóttir

VFX supervisor

Michal Křeček

Stunt coordinator

Jón Viðar Arnþórsson

Runtime

123 min · 2h 3m

Aspect ratio (typical)

1.37:1 (Academy)

Status

Released

Original language

IS

IMDB

Beautiful Beings (2022) ↗

Rotten Tomatoes

82% 🍅 Fresh

Metacritic

58/100

IMDB rating

7.3/10 · 2,610 votes

MPAA

Unrated

Also by

Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson

• 
  Hidebound

  2005 · ★ 10.0
• 
  Heartstone

  2016 · ★ 7.2
• 
  Whale Valley

  2013 · ★ 6.8
• 
  Artun

  2014 · ★ 5.9
• 
  Jeffrey & Beth

  2008

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

Wallpaper Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

• 

  ▶
  US Trailer

  Trailer · Official
• 

  ▶
  International Trailer

  Trailer · Official

Community reviews

What people are saying

• CinemaSerf2025-12-06
  ★ 7/10

  After “Balli” (Áskell Einar Pálmason) is badly beaten up by some violent bullies, he arrives at school looking more like the lead in “Phantom of the Opera” than a pupil at a standard Icelandic comprehensive, and that attracts the teasing of “Addi” (Birgir Dagur Bjarkason) and his two friends “Siggi” (Snorri Rafn Frimansson) and “Konni” (Viktor Benóny Benediktsson). Quite quickly, though, all of these boys realise that the drug-fuelled broken homes that most of them come from suggest they have more in common than not, and soon “Balli” is taking them back to the fairly squalid home he shares with his mother and his sister for some mushroom-induced fun with an hoover! These boys aren’t perfect, by any means, and “Konni” loves nothing more than a good fist-fight. That skill might come in handy as the story also happens to touch on the ability of “Addi” to tap into what his mother calls the “subconscious”. It’s during one of his fairly vivid dreams that he guesses that a regular visitor to the home of “Balli” and his family is something of a brute, and that the boys are going to have to intervene. This doesn’t quite go to plan, though, and so has ramifications for all four as the consequences impact on each with varying degrees of profundity. I haven’t seen a lot of Icelandic cinema and this film certainly isn’t one that would have the tourist board queuing up to invest, but the efforts from all four teenagers here really do present a gritty and realistic vision of life in poorly maintained public housing, where society largely left them to their own devices and where any senses of discipline and loyalty were borne out of their own experiences rather than any sense of traditional family structure and behaviour. There is actually quite a sense of the inevitable about their path for much of the film, and that bleakness is illustrated clearly by some intimate photography and some very dark humour as well as being delivered by the sparing but potent dialogue from both voices and baseball bats. Essentially it is a powerful story about friendship and inter-reliance, but there’s isn’t even a sniff of cheese or sentimentality at any point in these proceedings and despite the pervading culture of bad is as bad does, perhaps there might be some well deserved light at the end of the tunnel for them, after all?

  Read full review ↓

Production companies

Who made it

• BA

  Bastide Films

  NL

• 

  HOBAB

  SE

• 

  Join Motion Pictures

  IS

• 

  MOTOR

  DK

• 

  Negativ

  CZ

• 

  Film i Väst

  SE

Key crew

• ProducerAnton Máni Svansson
• EditorAnders Skov
• Production DesignHulda Helgadóttir
• Stunt CoordinatorJón Viðar Arnþórsson
• Visual Effects SupervisorMichal Křeček
• EditorAndri Steinn

Themes & keywords

What it's about, really

• rape
• therapist
• bullying
• iceland
• coming of age
• rape of a male
• bully
• youth gang
• teenage boy
• lgbt
• gay pornography
• mother son relationship
• gay theme

Release history · US

When it landed

• Theatrical (limited)2023-01-13· New York City

Also known as

International titles

• Chicken BoyUS
• Красиви създанияBG
• Prekrasni stvoroviHR
• Ilusad olendidEE
• Όμορφα πλάσματαGR
• Csodálatos teremtményekHU
• Făpturi de visRO
• Čudovita bitjaSI
• 뷰티풀 비잉즈KR
• KâbusTR
• 冰島少年三加一TW
• 美丽的生物CN
• Beautiful BeingsDE