Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic

Returning from the Third Crusade, Dante arrives home to find his servants slain, his father dead and his beloved fiancée Beatrice dying of a stab wound to the stomach. As she dies, Lucifer plucks Beatrice into the gates of Hell and Dante gives chase. Virgil appears and offers to guide him through Hell. They board Charon, a demonic, living ferry that takes souls to the First Circle of Hell. Charon commands demons to attack Dante, as no living being is allowed to enter. Dante fights them off, kills Charon, and steers him into the first circle, Limbo.

In Limbo, Dante learns Beatrice was pregnant with his child while he was away, but miscarried. Attacked by demonic children, he and Virgil escape into a large building; they enter a hall of great rulers, philosophers, and thinkers. Moving on, they battle King Minos, whose task is to send condemned souls to their sin’s corresponding circle of Hell.

In the second circle, Lust, Dante is reminded that he was once unfaithful to Beatrice. Upon hearing this, Beatrice begins to lose faith.

The pair come to a grotto where men and women who had lived their lives in gluttony are devoured by Cerberus, the great hound of Hell. Virgil tells Dante that the only way to the next circle is from within the beast, so Dante allows himself to be eaten. He encounters Ciacco, a man from his village, who confesses to gluttony; Dante tells him to be free and blesses him with his cross. Dante attacks and destroys the hound’s heart to escape.

In the fourth circle, Greed, Dante confronts his father Alighiero di Bellincione. The pair trade barbs with each other and Dante kicks his father into a vat of boiling gold.

In the fifth circle, Wrath (shown as Anger in the movie in a subtitle and spoken by Virgil), Dante recognizes Filippo Argenti who taunts him, only to be brought down by other wrathful spirits. Dante sees Lucifer in the city of Dis; he announces to the city’s damned souls his intent to marry Beatrice.

In the sixth circle, heretics do forever burn in fire and are tortured. Dante meets and kills his rival Farinata and overcomes the Minotaur.

Upon entering Violence and given passage through the Phlegethon by Nessus, Dante descends into the Forest of Suicides upon hearing a familiar cry, soon finding his mother growing from the sapling of a tree. Believing that she had died of a fever, Dante is overwhelmed with sorrow; he uses his cross to free her soul. Afterwards, he has to fight his brother-in-law, Francesco, who has been sent to hell for his participation in the Crusades.

In the realm of Fraud, Dante begins to reflect upon his own sins and realizes that he inadvertently caused the death of all his loved ones by angering the husband of the women he slept with during the Crusades. Beatrice weds Lucifer and becomes a demon. She attacks Dante, forcing him to look into the ninth circle of Treachery, where he sees his greatest sin: allowing her brother to take the blame for his slaughter of the heretic prisoners. Overwhelmed with grief, he gives Beatrice her cross and pleads with her to accept the love of God. She forgives him and promises that they will be together soon, but in order to escape Hell, he will need to face Lucifer alone. Before doing so, he parts ways with Virgil.

Dante realizes that he cannot stop Lucifer on his own; he begs for divine forgiveness. An explosive beam of light emanates from Dante, and Lucifer is frozen solid.

In the final scene, Dante dives into the chasm that leads through the earth to Purgatory to be with Beatrice, now “neither completely living, nor completely dead”. He rips off his tapestry, which then disintegrates and transforms into the Hebrew serpent, slithering away, as Lucifer laughs, implying that he is biding his time for revenge.

Last Updated: September 26, 2025 at 20:18