The Last Unicorn began as Peter S. Beagle's 1968 fantasy novel and became a widely loved animated film in 1982, telling the story of a unicorn who learns she may be the last of her kind and sets out to find the others. Its gentle, melancholic tone and distinctive animation have kept it alive with new generations online, where short clips are shared as shorthand for rarity, innocence, and bittersweet nostalgia, long after the film's original release.