Every Walt Disney Animation Studio Film, Ranked

“Chicken Little” (2005)

The mid-2000s was a difficult time for Disney, as Pixar’s rise to prominence and the slow death of traditional 2D animation left the studio without much identity of its own. The films the company produced during this time didn’t pioneer new developments in animation as much as they aped others, biting off the style and tone of Dreamworks films to keep up with trends. Of all the movies from this era, none have aged worse than “Chicken Little,” which remains one of the shrillest, ugliest animated feature films ever made.

Loosely inspired by the classic folk tale of a chicken who believes the sky is falling, “Chicken Little” updates the story to a setting filled with animals living in a small Americana town, and changes things up so the paranoid chicken (here a pre-teen boy turned local laughingstock) is right about the imminent disaster: it’s just that the “sky” is actually a UFO scouting the town as the first stop of an alien invasion. It’s a zero-to-hero story that has a deeply unpleasant streak of nastiness at its core, between its toothlessly snarky humor and its cast of horrifically unlikable jerks; the main storyline, a father-son journey that sees Chicken Little reconcile with his embarrassed father Buck Cluck, is doomed before it starts because Buck is such a deeply repugnant person who never earns redemption. The film’s other flaws, from rendering issues that have made the 3D animation age like sour milk to a celebrity voice cast led by Zach Braff that gives uniformly unremarkable performances, could be forgiven if “Chicken Little” had a story worth caring about. Instead, it’s the only Disney film that has zero joy behind the drawings. —WC

“Home on the Range” (2004)

Is there a single person on planet Earth who has watched “Home on the Range” since 2004? For a company like Disney, where its films from 90 years ago remain childhood staples to this day, that’s a pretty damning indictment of just how forgettable and bland this mid-2000s misfire is. The last traditionally animated film from the studio before “The Princess and the Frog,” the southern-fried film went through significant rewrites through its production, transforming from the story of a ghostly cow rustler into a bland comedy about three cows (voiced by the wildly mismatched trio of Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench, and Jennifer Tilly). The animation is barely a step above TV levels, and the humor is too childish for even kids to enjoy. Some decent enough original songs — still among the most forgettable in Disney history — barely keep it out of the bottom slot. —WC

“Make Mine Music” (1946)

The Walt Disney Studios was in desperate financial straits in the first half of the 1940s: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” had been the single highest-grossing film released between “The Birth of a Nation” and “Gone with the Wind,” true, but Uncle Walt immediately invested his new fortune into building a sprawling studio campus in Burbank (still the Disney HQ to this day). And then the hits stopped coming: “Pinocchio,” “Fantasia,” and “Bambi” all but bombed — 1942 audiences were known to laugh at the scene of Bambi’s mother’s death — and were extremely costly to produce. Only “Dumbo” was a hit during this period. 

So Disney had to retool, first by taking government contracts to make films related to the war effort. And then by collecting the various other projects in the works into “package films.” (Bank of America had a seat on the Disney board at this time and insisted on this.) Basically, these would be collections of shorts released as a feature film. And each would be simply the sum of its parts. In the case of the first of these not explicitly related to the war effort (as the Good Neighbor Policy films “Saludos Amigos” and “The Three Caballeros” were), “Make Mine Music” puts the word “scrap” in scrapbook filmmaking. It’s an underwhelming hodgepodge of undercooked shorts that had nowhere else to live and probably didn’t deserve to see the light of day in the first place.

One segment, “Blue Bayou,” is just a cut sequence from “Fantasia” that features two egrets slowly flying over a marsh. Yes, it’s as riveting as you’d think it is. Some shorts like “The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met” and “Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet,” a literal love story between two hats in a store display, are more creepy than creative. There’s not even joy in Mudville with “Casey at the Bat.” The only two highlights are the Benny Goodman-scored teen hepcat tribute “All the Cats Join In,” a revealing look at ‘40s youth culture that even featured brief female nudity (censored on all the home releases), and, of course, “Peter and the Wolf.” Luckily, better package films were ahead. —CB 

“Dinosaur” (2000)

A film hamstrung by production retooling, “Dinosaur” was conceived in 1986 by visual effects wizards Phil Tippett and Paul Verhoeven (yes, really). Rewrites transformed it from a dark, naturalistic, documentary-inspired project looking at the lives of dinosaurs into a more child-friendly tale of a dino family searching for a new home after a catastrophic meteor strike. Disney’s first computer-generated animated feature, “Dinosaur” mixed CG dinosaurs with real-life background locations across the Americas and Asia. The result cost $127.5 million and was cutting-edge for the time; you can still see the details and effort in the animation today. However, the mediocre story and jarring voice acting kill the vibe entirely and plunge the film straight into the uncanny valley. It’s more impressive as a tech demo than a film that makes you feel something. —WC

“Wish” (2023)

There is some irony in the fact that all 100 years of Walt Disney Animation Studios get celebrated in a film that is already seen as forgettable. Still, there are a lot of components to this fantasy that, on paper, should draw in a cinephile. First being Ariana DeBose voicing a Disney princess fresh off her Oscar win for “West Side Story.” Then there is hitmaker Julia Michaels (who started her career by co-writing a Disney Channel series theme song as a teenager) signing on for her first soundtrack alongside Benjamin Rice. Finally, there is a villain voiced by Chris Pine, the thinking man’s Chris, and a cute goat voiced by Alan Tudyk. The mix of all these things together does not reach its potential, and the references to the films that built Disney Animation into the powerhouse do not serve the project, but the film isn’t a complete waste of time for anyone watching to be a completionist about the films on this list. —MJ

“Fun and Fancy Free” (1947)

The package films from the wartime era of Disney are often dismissed as inessential by fans and critics. It’s a reputation that isn’t entirely fair for some of them, which contain some unique and stunning moments of artistry and experimentation you couldn’t find in most of the company’s narrative efforts. That stigma is entirely accurate when you’re talking about “Fun and Fancy Free,” however. The 1947 feature packages together two shorts: “Bongo,” an adaptation of a Sinclair Lewis short story about a circus bear who escapes to the zoo, and “Mickey and the Beanstalk,” which transplants the Disney mascot and his friends Donald and Goofy into the “Jack and the Beanstalk” fairy tale. The Mickey segment is better, but either way, both are padded, slow, and boring efforts all around. —WC

“Moana 2” (2024)

There is a proud(?) legacy of Disney direct to video “films” that are clearly just three episodes of a canned TV show spinoff awkwardly stitched together: “Belle’s Magical World,” “Cinderella II: Dreams Come True,” “Atlantis: Milo’s Return,” and some other bargain bin releases polluting landfills as we speak. “Moana 2,” the sequel to one of Disney’s best releases of the last decade, breaks new ground by bringing this great cinematic tradition to the big screen. Originally announced in 2020 as a TV show series following the lead of the original 2016 Polynesian adventure on a new quest, the continuation was revealed to have been retrofitted into a theatrical feature in February 2024 — notably, coming after Disney had experienced some crushing bombs in “Wish” and “Strange World” and really needed a win.

However the production timeline went, the seams of the rework are readily obvious all over “Moana 2,” a follow-up that drops most of the marquee names of the original creative team (Lin Manuel-Miranda on songs, Clements and Musker on directing) and feels like a first draft in almost every possible way. The ensemble is teaming with fun characters and slickly designed sea monsters that are given little in the way of a real spotlight. The middle chunk of the runtime includes a digression from the main plot that feels perfect for a 20-minute TV episode. Moana’s big epic journey that takes her away from her island and onto the open seas gets hastily wrapped up before it ever seems to truly begin. And, with the explorer’s central character arc neatly wrapped up in the first film, the sequel mostly has her amble through the motions of fulfilling her duty and her destiny rather than finding new internal shades to explore. “Moana 2” can often be fun — there’s some beautiful animated creations, some spiffy musical numbers, a killer sight gag or two. Watching it though, you can’t shake the sense that it’s a project that belongs on Disney+. —WC

“Brother Bear” (2003)

Every so often, someone on Twitter or TikTok will make a viral post pointing out how odd it is that Disney has multiple movies about people of color getting transformed into animals (see “The Emperor’s New Groove” and “The Princess and the Frog.”) Those movies still have plenty of virtues worth commending, but of this odd trilogy of films, “Brother Bear” is easily the most cringeworthy, a rote and boring tale of a young Inuit hunter (Joaquin Phoenix) transformed by spirits into a bear as punishment for unnecessarily killing a mother in retaliation. There’s a compelling message about getting back into touch with nature buried somewhere, and the visuals in the transformation scene are stunning, but the wobbly anachronistic tone and sugary sweet, found family story don’t hold much weight. On the upside, if you liked Phil Collins’ “Tarzan” songs, you’ll get a kick out of some of the songs he wrote for this film. —WC

“Strange World” (2022)

After years of Disney’s numerous “first gay characters” becoming memes online, the best quality of “Strange World” is how casually it treats its LGBT representation. The story of an adventurer family traversing a subterranean land, the throwback pulp fiction–inspired story’s token kid among the adults is Ethan (Jaboukie Young-White), a 16-year-old yearning for adventure and to kiss a cute boy at his school. The film gives Ethan a fleshed-out character arc and never shies away from his queerness in a way that’s commendable, even if it made “Strange World” the target of alt-right online types who blamed the film’s bombing at the box office on “wokeness.” In reality, the reason it bombed is because the small queer rep is all the stale adventure film has going for it: The animation is frequently stunning but curiously empty, and the story of three generations of a family arguing and reconciling across one swashbuckling adventure feels curiously dry of emotional stakes and as dusty and well-trodden as the serial fiction it apes. Despite the title, there’s nothing intriguingly strange about “Strange World.” —WC

“Frozen II” (2019)

It was always going to be hard to follow up “Frozen,” a sleeper hit that became one of Disney’s most instantly iconic films upon its 2013 release. While it’s not a flawless masterpiece, the original works thanks to its tight story and focus on the sisterly bond between its leads, which left the characters with little to expand upon once the central conflict was resolved. Still, you wish that “Frozen II” provided something more interesting than this. There are positives: “Into the Unknown” is a worthy follow-up to “Let It Go,” and the animation is better than ever. Still, the sequel to the adventures of Anna and Elsa is the definition of diminishing returns and a hot (cold?) mess, a hodgepodge of tangled story threads that struggles to balance the characters (why is Kristoff even here anymore?) and reconcile the very weighty themes it raises. In taking the intimate original story and blowing it up into a fantasy epic, “Frozen II” just dilutes everything into a watery mess. —WC

“The Sword in the Stone” (1963)

Nobody would say this ‘60s Arthurian riff is the worst Disney film ever, but is there anybody who would call it their favorite? A resolutely middling entry into the canon (notably the last Walt Disney Animated Pictures film released during the man’s life), “The Sword in the Stone” feels cheaply made and dreary, curiously unimaginative for a story about magic – one breathtaking duel between Merlin and antagonist Madam Mim aside. The film attempts a “wisdom is the real power” moral that never really comes together when young Arthur, in his journey to greatness, is such a reactive protagonist, and the film gives him less an arc than some weird digressions as Merlin transforms him into various animals and sets him loose in the wilderness. As far as tellings about King Arthur’s exploits go, “The Sword in the Stone” never feels particularly legendary. —WC

“Bolt” (2008)

Memory-holed pretty spectacularly as the last Walt Disney Animation Studios film released before its 2010s renaissance that included beloved films like “Wreck it Ralph” and “Moana,” “Bolt” would probably still have been forgotten if it came out at another time. The story of a dog actor who believes his superhero series (and his larger-than-life powers) are completely real and gets lost trying to save his “kidnapped” owner, “Bolt” is mostly just a cute retread of “Homeward Bound,” as Bolt (John Travolta, in a particularly wild casting choice) gets joined in his quest by a cynical cat (Susie Essman) and an excitable hamster (Mark Walton). You can close your eyes and picture where everything is going with pretty much pinpoint accuracy, which would be fine if “Bolt” added anything of substance to the formula. It’s most interesting for its depiction of the ruthless churn of child stardom via the subplot of Bolt’s owner Penny, which is halfway approaching scathing — even if it’s a bit hypocritical when it’s coming from Disney, and Penny is voiced by Miley Cyrus circa her Hannah Montana era. —WC

“Fantasia 2000” (1999)

Famously, Walt Disney conceived of the original Fantasia as a sort of living film, one that would be updated with new animation, music, and segments almost yearly as an anthology that never truly ended. The high budget and World War II sadly killed that, but it did become the first Disney film to receive a true, theatrically released sequel in 1999 when then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner was convinced that more “Fantasia” could succeed after the original film became a hit on home video. Released almost 60 years after the original masterpiece, “Fantasia 2000” is also notable as the first major Hollywood film released in IMAX, which blew up its stunning visuals to incredible heights. Two of the sequences — New York City tableau “Rhapsody in Blue” and epic closer “Firebird Suite” — are must-sees, but the rest of the 75-minute film proves unfortunately disposable. It doesn’t help that too many of those minutes are taken up by “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” back from the original as a remnant of Disney’s original designs for “Fantasia” in a way that feels wildly unsatisfying. —WC

“Saludos Amigos” (1943)

The making of “Saludos Amigos” is far more interesting than the film itself. Facing the financial ruin of his studio, Walt Disney accepted a government contract to go on a weeks-long trip to South America with 17 of his animators as a form of cultural diplomacy (the documentary “Walt and El Grupo,” on Disney+ goes into even more detail about this extraordinary trip). And out of it, the studio was to make two films. The first, “Saludos Amigos,” is as much a live-action film as an animated one, with documentary sequences showing various aspects of the animators’ trek through Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Peru. Those segments are said to have had a profound impact on U.S. viewers’ perception of South America as a vibrant, modern continent and stoked widespread interest in Latin American culture —much as Brazilian import Carmen Miranda was also doing with her series of hit films for 20th Century Fox at the time.

The reverse was even more important: This cultural outreach showed the leaders of these countries that their fortunes would be better served by aligning with the U.S. in World War II rather than the Axis. If this all makes it sound like “Saludos Amigos” was a hit, it absolutely was — and Disney didn’t even have to put up any of the money to make it. This was a key film for ensuring the studio’s future solvency. And it delivered two great animated segments: “Aquarela do Brasil,” which is like a trippy “Fantasia” segment but set to a legitimately sensual samba groove, and “Pedro,” an adorable story about a family of anthropomorphic airplanes who fly the mail over the Andes. Think of an animated version of “Only Angels Have Wings”! —CB

“Oliver & Company” (1988)

Arriving in theaters at the tail end of Disney’s ’80s rut, “Oliver & Company” has been aggressively overshadowed throughout history by the historic success of “The Little Mermaid,” which singlehandedly ushered in a golden age for the studio a year later. Watching the film, a loose “Oliver Twist” riff about an orphaned kitten taken in by a gang of street hounds, it feels both incredibly of its time — its grimy New York City setting, its stereotypical Latino chihuahua character, and the presence of Billy Joel and Bette Midler in the cast — and rather modern, in its very early use of computer-generated imagery, its pop rock soundtrack, and its down-to-earth sensibility. Like many of the company’s lesser efforts, it suffers from a rather predictable plot and underdeveloped characters that give the plot little bite, but its songs (especially the banger “Why Should I Worry?”) are great, and it still sticks out today as a surprisingly adventurous effort from the company. —WC

“The Fox and the Hound” (1981)

One of a not inconsiderable amount of Disney films that use tension between animals as a metaphor for real-world prejudice, “The Fox and the Hound” is one of Disney’s darker offerings, playing the story of the broken friendship between an orphaned fox (Kurt Russell) and a hunting dog (Mickey Rooney) as a straightforward tragedy. The issue is that it’s a rather maudlin and treacly tragedy, with underdeveloped characters, songs, and comedic relief that jarringly clash with the more mature tone and a lot of padding for an 80-minute film. There’s still some grace and beauty in the film’s story of friendship, and the ending can still provoke some tears. On the whole, though, the film today is notable less for anything that happens in it and more for the passing of the torch it represented behind the scenes. The first film made without any involvement from Disney, it was also the last movie led by Disney’s veteran team known as the Nine Old Men. On the film’s team was a younger staff that would grow in the coming years to guide the medium’s future, including John Musker, Ron Clements, Brad Bird, Chris Buck, Glen Keane, Tim Burton, and Henry Selick. —WC

“Zootopia” (2016)

A critical and commercial success, “Zootopia” is one of Disney’s highest-grossing films and one of the few to win the Best Animated Feature Oscar. And there’s a lot to enjoy about the film’s gorgeously constructed and imaginative world, a modern-day metropolis inhabited by animals where their interactions are defined by old prejudices of predator versus prey. The main plot, too, is an enjoyable treat, a kiddie buddy cop comedy with sharply drawn characters in stick-in-the-mud rookie bunny cop Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and a sly con artist fox Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman). However, once you think about “Zootopia” for more than a minute, its metaphor for prejudice falls apart pretty spectacularly, likening marginalized groups (in particular and most obviously Black people and other people of color) to…carnivores who eat their fellow citizens. It’s an uncomfortable subtext that mars the entire film, which has a copoganda sheen that makes everything more unpalatable. —WC

“The Black Cauldron” (1985)

For decades “The Black Cauldron” was the most notorious film in Disney history, undergoing a troubled production process and losing so much money that it jeopardized the entire company’s future in animation. Its colossal failure at the box office and significantly darker tone than the average kids film (it was notably the first film from the company to receive a PG rating) makes the fantasy adventure of a young farmhand fighting to stop the evil Horned King (John Hurt) an easy target for reevaluation and cool kid “this is underrated” thinkpieces. And there is a lot to like about “The Dark Cauldron,” which boasts beautiful animation and one hell of a villain in the genuinely terrifying Horned King. But the heroes are deeply unrootable — our lead Taran is among the whiniest of children ever seen on film — and it wobbles uncertainly in tone between its more serious action and its grating comedy. It’s not as bad as its reputation suggests, but it’s not really a diamond in the rough either. —WC

“Meet the Robinsons” (2007)

Another of those widely ignored late 2000s Disney films that aren’t as bad as their reputation might suggest, “Meet the Robinsons” boasts a heartwarming story, some funny moments, and a spiffy space-age Jetsons aesthetic that helps circumvent how dated the CG animation looks. The story of a young orphan whisked away into the future by a young time traveler is pretty predictable, with some twists you can easily see coming. But it’s sweet and fun, and when you compare it to the disasters like “Chicken Little” and “Home on the Range” that came before, “Meet the Robinsons” looks like a downright masterpiece. —WC

“Ralph Breaks the Internet” (2018)

“Ralph Breaks the Internet” looked like a complete disaster when its first trailer released. After the triumphant success of the first film, which successfully married arcade video game nostalgia with an original and thoughtful story about finding your own place in the world, here was a sequel that seemed to have no creative vision beyond stranding the film’s two leads in tired bits referencing memes and repackaging nostalgia via some Disney Princess cameos. And “Ralph Breaks the Internet” is a significant step down from the original, with a far less timeless story that feels immediately dated to 2018 and a slight stank of brand marketing that mars the magic a wee bit. That said, the film has its virtues, including inventive design of the internet world that Ralph and Vanellope explore that captures the hyperactive information overload of online spaces. And its moral, about letting loved ones go when necessary, is one that feels truly unique for a children’s film and complementary to the original story, making for one of the rare Disney sequels to justify its existence. —WC

“The Rescuers” (1977)

The sequel is better, but “The Rescuers” is plenty enjoyable in its own right. Based on kids books by Margery Sharp, the film features delightfully earnest vocal performances from Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor as Bernard and Miss Bianca, two mice who travel the world to save kids in danger. Their adventure brings them to a gloomy swamp where the vicious Madame Medusa kidnaps a young girl as an accomplice to help her track down a missing diamond. Made as Disney was going through a significant passing of the torch between its original animators and a new generation – it’s a surprisingly grim adventure, one that takes the child endangerment seriously. Still, Bernard and Bianca’s double act is a delight, and the film’s animation is stunning. —WC

“Alice in Wonderland” (1951)

She’s not one of the four credited directors on the film, but you can thank animator Mary Blair for translating the surreal world of Lewis Carroll’s classic absurdist novel into such stunning form. Blair created the concept art for the adaptation, and the film’s Technicolor style and vibrantly off-kilter world is a perfect translation of Alice’s trip down the rabbit hole. Some of Disney’s most unforgettable characters hail from the Carroll adaptation — from the vicious Queen of Hearts to the violet-hued Cheshire Cat — and the movie manages to serve as one of Disney’s more faithful movies when compared to its original source material. That said, the end result feels a bit slight compared to other Disney offerings and the original text, and while you can’t blame a movie released 60 years before it, it’s the reason we have Tim Burton’s execrable 2010 sequel. —WC

“Tarzan” (1999)

Say whatever you like about the dated animation that appeared awkwardly stuck between 2D and 3D filmmaking or the curious format that utilized songs without quite committing to a musical format, but there’s no denying that “Tarzan” boasts one of the best soundtracks in the modern Disney canon. It deserves a spot in the pantheon on the strength of Phil Collins’ songwriting alone, with modern classics like “You’ll Be in My Heart” and “Strangers Like Me” remaining entrenched in our heads decades after the film’s initial release. Even if the storytelling isn’t as strong as some of its predecessors from the ’90s Disney renaissance, “Tarzan” is always worth revisiting for its musical nostalgia and eye-catching vine-swinging sequences. —CZ

“Raya and the Last Dragon” (2021)

A stunning action-adventure film, “Raya and the Last Dragon” features some of the best 3D animation in the company’s history, creating a vivid and lush world in the Southeast Asian world of Kumandra. Warrior princess Raya (voiced by a perfect Kelly Marie Tran) and her adventures to save her clan from evil spirits that have petrified the land makes for a rollicking and fun ride through this evocative environment, with some stunning swordplay and setpieces that make the film a better action flick than most of the live-action slop that has invaded theaters for the past decade. It’s also a slightly more mature production than your average Disney film, a movie that feels aimed for teens rather than their younger siblings, although that does make the overbearing moralizing — about the importance of trusting even those that have once wronged you — stick out like a sore thumb. It’s that moralizing that makes the film’s final act, which attempts a redemption storyline without much substance, fall disappointingly flat. —WC

“Big Hero 6” (2014)

Loosely, loosely adapted from an extremely obscure Marvel comic book, “Big Hero 6” was released at a time when superhero fatigue was just beginning to set in and the MCU had its claws in popular culture. Thankfully, “Big Hero 6” feels so fresh and clever that even the most superhero-agnostic are bound to be won over by its vision of a futuristic San Francisco (San Fransokyo), stunningly constructed as one of Disney’s great CGI film accomplishments. And the main characters — teen prodigy Hiro (Ryan Potter) and his super-cuddly robot companion Baymex — are lovely and impossible not to root for. The whole thing does peak a bit too soon emotionally (its first 20 minutes or so are the best parts of the film), and the characters outside of Baymax and Hiro are a bit forgettable, but the duo is enough to carry any film on their own. —WC

“Frozen” (2013)

Disney’s blockbuster 2013 animated musical offered the studio’s most feminist princess fairy tale, acting as the centerpiece of its Renaissance era under John Lasseter. The post-modern refashioning of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” becomes a sister bonding story between the free-spirited Anna (Kristen Bell) and the repressed Elsa (Idina Menzel), who learns to proudly accept and take control of her icy powers. Iceman Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), his reindeer Sven (Jonathan Groff), and the snowman Olaf (Josh Gad) provide engaging side support. Screenwriter Jennifer Lee (Disney’s first woman director, who later succeeded the controversial Lasseter as chief creative officer) and Chris Buck (“Tarzan”) expertly helm the film, finding the right balance between drama, comedy, and musical spectacle (with memorable songs by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, especially the Oscar-winning showstopper, “Let It Go”). The Scandinavian-influenced kingdom of Arendelle was beautifully designed by art director Michael Giaimo and the art department, the animation team provided hand-drawn warmth and expressiveness to the CG, and the effects team created new tools for the unique properties of ice, snow, and snowflakes. —BD

“Encanto” (2021)

There was something slightly surreal about watching “Encanto” blow up on Disney+ over Christmas 2021 if you were one of the few who showed up to the theaters for it a month before. Suddenly, this animated charmer that got roundly ignored by pandemic-conscious audiences and seemed destined to be one of Disney’s more forgotten titles was going viral on social media, posting impressive viewership on streaming, and propelling its standout song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” to the No. 1 spot of Billboard as the studio’s biggest music hit since “A Whole New World.” It makes sense, looking back, that the fantasy and its warm story of community and family would resonate with a populace reeling from a uniquely lonely and isolating public health disaster.

“Encanto” and its portrait of a loving but slightly dysfunctional Colombian family with magic gifts (minus one powerless teen who feels like a misfit) doesn’t shy away from heavy topics, gently guiding its young audience through lessons of generational trauma and toxic family expectations. On the whole, though, it’s a soothing comedic balm that posits magic and adventure can be found within the walls of your own home (the vibrantly colored Casita is quite literally a character in itself), sending lead Miribal (Stephenie Beatriz) not on a far-reaching quest across the land but on a domestic mission to save her family from themselves. If the redemption comes slightly too easily, well, that’s just part of the movie’s wish fulfillment: it’ll have you wanting to be a member of La Familia Madrigal yourself. —WC

“Treasure Planet” (2002)

The story behind “Treasure Planet” goes that directors John Musker and Ron Clements — who are also responsible for “Aladdin” and “Hercules” — pitched the film at the same meeting where their most iconic feature “The Little Mermaid” was born. The film, an adaptation of Robert Lewis Stevenson’s adventure novel “Treasure Island” that trades the open sea for the expanse of space, became a white whale for the directors across the ‘90s, as Disney executives rejected it time and time again. When they were finally allowed to make it in 2002, it became one of the biggest bombs in the company’s history, grossing $109 million on a $140 million budget. That’s depressing enough, but it’s even sadder considering the film didn’t deserve that fate at all — it’s a stunning visual wonder, experimenting with a combination of 2D-animated characters and CGI environments that is never less than gorgeous. The story, an earnest retelling of the original novel, works thanks to poignant voice acting from Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jim Hawkins and Brian Murphy as the cybernetic Long John Silver. Shame that Martin Short is so irritating in the sidekick role, though. —WC

“The Aristocats” (1970)

“Which pets’ address is the finest in Parree?” Maurice Chevalier sings over the title sequence in what was his final contribution to any film before his death. Having the French legend involved absolutely set the tone for Wolfgang Reitherman’s charming Belle Epoque trifle. Like Chevalier, “The Aristocats” is more about personality and joie de vivre than anything deeper. But that’s part of the appeal, and what makes it seem like it’s from an entirely different universe than noisy, overplotted 21st-century animation: This is a quiet little caper, more about character than plot, where, as much as anything, the story concerns itself with its characters getting to know each other a little bit better.

Edgar the greedy butler spirits a mama cat and her three kittens off to the French countryside, so he can attempt to inherit their owner’s estate rather than them, and they walk back, meet some fussy English geese, and groove at a jazz club. Somehow, two dogs from the American South get involved as well and force the movie to take a bit of a hixploitation turn. Don’t question it. This is Disney operating in Howard Hawks “hangout movie” territory — a comparison Quentin Tarantino would probably love since he told Uma Thurman to imitate Duchess’s paws-down dance moves for the Jackrabbit Slim’s sequence in “Pulp Fiction.” —CB

“Hercules” (1997)

What’s so great about Disney animated films is the history they carry; each one couldn’t be possible without the ones that came before it, and John Musker and Ron Clements’ “Hercules” is a prime example. After the decade of knockouts that included “The Little Mermaid,” “The Lion King,” “Aladdin,” and “Beauty and the Beast,” the studio tackled Greek gods in this poignant, irreverent triumph of a film. Kidnapped as a baby from Mount Olympus, young Hercules (Josh Keaton, Tate Donovan) is raised as a mortal and embarks on a quest to become a true god and “go the distance” with the help of his trainer Philoctetes (Danny DeVito). The monster concepts alone would be an animator’s dream, and then there’s god of the underworld Hades (James Woods), his demonic followers Pain and Panic (Bobcat Goldthwait and Matt Frewer), and the Fates (Amanda Plummer, Carole Shelley, and Paddi Edwards), who share one eyeball between the three of them (an exceptionally powerful one, but still).

And where would Hercules be without its women? Of course there’s the dry and tortured Megara (Susan Egan), custodian of the anthem “I Won’t Say I’m in Love” — but Lillias White, Cheryl Freeman, LaChanze, Roz Ryan, and Vaneese Thomas as the Muses are an especially inspired touch, both musically and as visualized. There’s nary a dull moment in “Hercules,” where every frame is packed with detail and chaos. It’s an entire vibe, epitomized by the showstopping “Zero to Hero.” Who’da thunk? —PK

“Cinderella” (1950)

The first full-length feature made by Disney after the war ended, “Cinderella” was a triumphant return to form for the studio, once again adapting a classic fairy tale into an animated marvel that did gangbusters at the box office and helped set the company back on track after years of debt. Like “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” it’s a straightforward (if sanitized) retelling of a fairy tale so firmly embedded in popular culture that it doesn’t need to be recapped. That straightforwardness does dim the magic of the film a tad, but it doesn’t erase what an achievement the film is from an artistic viewpoint: the dress transformation remains enchanting over 70 years later, the “Sing, Sweet Nightingale” sequence is a multi-colored marvel, and the character designs are the first things anyone thinks of when they think of Cinderella or Prince Charming. —WC

“The Great Mouse Detective” (1986)

The directorial debut of John Musker and Ron Clements (they co-directed this with Burny Mattinson and Dave Michener), the duo that would kickstart a golden age of animation with “The Little Mermaid,” “The Great Mouse Detective” was a far more modest success. But coming on the heels of “The Black Cauldron,” a modest success was exactly what Disney needed. And while “The Great Mouse Detective” is now one of Disney’s more obscure productions, it’s a memorable and imaginative little movie in its own right, adapting a children’s book series called “Basil of Baker Street” that itself imagined the classic Sherlock Holmes formula in a mouseified world. The lead is Basil (Barrie Ingham), a genius mouse detective who teams up with Watson copycat Dr. Dawson (Val Bettin) to solve the case of a kidnapped toy maker. The mystery leads them through the seedy underbelly of mouse London (with crime, murder, and a rat stripteasing, this is one of Disney’s more adult films) and into the orbit of the terrific villains, Moriarty riff Professor Ratgin (a brilliant Vincent Price) and his bumbling henchman Fidget the Bat (Candy Candido). Children and Sherlock nerds alike can get a kick out of the film, which takes its mystery fiction premise seriously and crafts a satisfying narrative outside of simple pastiche. —WC

“Robin Hood” (1973)

Anybody who says they love Wolfgang Reitherman’s and David Hand’s riff on “Robin Hood” has impeccable taste. The film cheekily cribs its set pieces and general flow of its plot from the incomparable 1938 “The Adventures of Robin Hood” and melds these with the animals from the classic French “Reynard the Fox” allegories. But the movie is elevated into something wholly original through its music — a set of effortlessly cool, folky, funny songs that all somehow have the vibe of playing out in the woods on a long summer’s day. You already know that Robin (Brian Bedford), Little John (Phil Harris), and Friar Tuck (Andy Devine) will run capers to frustrate the Sheriff of Nottingham (Pat Buttram) and rescue the (canonically!) foxy Maid Marian (Monica Evans) from the inept King John (Peter Ustinov). But only this version of the myth features woodland critters partying to the incredible jazz-country combo that is “The Phony King of England.” Oo-De-Lally, what a film. —SS

“Pocahontas” (1995)

Don’t like “Pocahontas”? We must sound the drums of war! Frame for frame, this might be the most beautiful of the ‘90s Disney Renaissance classics, with the fusion of CGI and hand-drawn animation, something Disney had been pursuing since “The Great Mouse Detective,” at its most fluid. The “Colors of the Wind” montage sequence couldn’t be more daring, with Pocahontas and John Smith laying their heads together on a small rock outcropping in a river that dissolves into the iris of an eagle’s eye, the camera seeming to pull out of it. Incredibly dynamic as a piece of filmmaking and imbued with a (possibly misguided) utopian “can’t we all just get along?” liberalism that shows how full of pie-eyed optimism these ‘90s films were. Of course, there are problems: Mainly, the issues inherent in the Pocahontas-John Smith romance itself, from their age gap to the metaphor for cultural assimilation that many Indigenous viewers rightly resent. As well as the choice to design Pocahontas as a veritable supermodel.

To Disney’s credit, this is a film, though, where Pocahontas ultimately chooses her people over the handsome colonizer voiced by Mel Gibson. (The mix of affection and apprehension surrounding contemporary takes on “Pocahontas” was captured well in a 2023 New York Times article.) And the contours of its story and filmmaking are shockingly similar to what Terrence Malick himself would do in “The New World,” down to casting Pocahontas voice actress Irene Bedard as Pocahontas’s mother in that film. From the very opening song, the sea shanty-tinged “The Virginia Company,” the movie also has a blistering critique of capitalist exploitation of the impoverished settlers who did try to start a new life in the New World — and how the powers that be stoke their racist resentments as a way to distract from their own plight. All of which is to say that, imperfect as it may be, give Disney a hand for not just repeating their previous successes and for making a movie that really had something to say. —CB 

“Winnie the Pooh” (2011)

As of this writing the last traditionally animated film from Walt Disney Animation Studios, “Winnie the Pooh” was a revival of one of the company’s most beloved and recognizable properties. At only 63 minutes, it’s a slight but delightful little film that packages together three stories from the original A. A. Milne that involves the entire familiar 100 Acre Wood gang, including a hilarious finale that has them join forces to save Christopher Robin from the monster known as “Backson.” The animation is spectacular, evoking the old Winnie the Pooh audiences know and love with just a little refinement. That’s the best part of the 2011 “Winnie the Pooh” — it never attempts to modernize or subvert the classic Pooh Bear, instead trusting in the breezy charm that’s made Milne’s character such a beloved figure. —WC

“Aladdin” (1992)

It may not hold up to a lot of cultural criticism, but ask any millennial with MENASA roots which animated movie they saw themselves in as a child, and the answer is Aladdin. John Musker and Ron Clements’ rom-com adventure (with a brief sojourn at “the ends of the Earth” and with a giant snake) is rooted in the folk tale “One Thousand and One Nights” and more, but its indelible magic carries the Disney stamp. The film is rife with recognizable voice talent, from “Full House” guest star Scott Weinger as Aladdin to Broadway’s Lea Salonga to Gilbert Gottfried as Iago — and of course, the masterful work of Robin Williams as the genie. It’s one of those voice performances that clearly fueled the creative team, while the animated medium lets Williams loose at new heights.

From the energetic opening number that is “One Jump” to Aladdin and Jasmine’s meet-cute to the terrifying but aptly named Cave of Wonders and Aladdin’s transformation into Prince Ali, the film is bursting with memorable sequences, toe-tapping numbers and vibrant visuals (the live-action didn’t come close despite its best efforts — but do they ever?). Jafar (voiced by Jonathan Rhys-Davis) still ranks as one of the all-time movie villains, a ruthlessly ambitious illusionist who will stop at nothing for ABSOLUTE POWER. Also, apart from Williams’ absence from “Return of Jafar,” the sequels deliver! —PK

“Peter Pan” (1953)

Many directors, from Steven Spielberg to David Lowery, have attempted to put their own stamp on J.M. Barrie’s classic story of a boy who flees from the stress and the pain of growing up. But no film version can hold a candle in iconic status to Disney’s “Peter Pan,” which remains one of the company’s most recognizable fantasies. Tinkerbell is practically a secondary mascot to the company after Mickey Mouse, Captain Hook is one of the most mincing and purely entertaining villains in the canon, and the soaring flight sequence remains one of those sublime moments of (to get a little cheesy) Disney magic the company isn’t quite capable of producing anymore. What makes this swashbuckling fantasy special, though, is its moral of keeping the magic of childhood within you even as you grow up. That said, the film is unforgivably hobbled by the execrable “What Makes a Man Red?” sequence, which ranks up there as possibly the single most racist and inexcusable moment in any Disney film. —WC

“The Rescuers Down Under” (1990)

There’s one moment in “The Rescuers Down Under” that is so stunning, so moving, that it might be Disney’s finest hour in terms of sheer animation prowess. That’s the soaring flight scene where kidnapped child Cody takes to the skies on the back of his giant eagle Marahute, gliding across the Australian Outback. The first animated film (first film, ever, really) to be made digitally, the Aussie-set sequel to “The Rescuers” looks mostly fine in other places, but in that one sequence from animator Glen Keane, the production pays off in truly breathtaking fashion. The rest of the movie, an attempt to cash in on American interest in Australian culture popularized by ‘80s movies like “Crocodile Dundee,” can’t live up to that moment. But it’s a stirring adventure all the same; Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor remain a wonderful double act, a more rollicking action feel replaces the darkness of the original film, and the entire film goes down as smoothly as a shrimp on the barbie. —WC

“Tangled” (2010)

Yes, it seems like Mandy Moore was always meant to be a Disney Princess, and yes, Flynn Rider’s (Zachary Levi) character design arose out of a “hot man meeting” wherein directors Nathan Greno and Byron Howard sought to triangulate the most universally attractive physical features. But “Tangled” is still so much better than it needed to be. At least a third of that is due to the fact that “Mother Knows Best” is an unadulterated banger, and Donna Murphy dishes out gleeful, boomer-ish emotional manipulation with laser-guided precision (“Stop, no more! You’ll just upset me!”). But all of Alan Menken’s and Glenn Slater’s numbers are fun, at the very least, and at best are bursting with the kind of clever reversals that can make kids of all ages feel smart (Levi’s delivery of “I have dreams like you. No really!/ Just much less touchy feel-y” should be illegal). The animation style is mostly designed to avoid split ends, but it picks out a couple of moments of true storybook beauty too. “Tangled” succeeds at being both modern and classic. —SS

“Atlantis: The Lost Empire” (2001)

For many children, Disney films are where they are introduced to their first crush, whether you swooned after Prince Eric, went gaga over Elsa, or were one of those kids who felt things when adult Simba sauntered out of the jungle. But few Disney crushes hold up when you head back and revisit the film as an adult better than Milo, the Michael J. Fox-voiced protagonist of underrated early 2000s gem “Atlantis: The Lost Empire.” A nerdy archaeologist with adorable glasses and a perfect middle part, Milo has more charm in one line reading than many a Disney prince has in an entire film. He’s an inspired lead for a film like “Atlantis: The Lost Empire,” an Indiana Jones-esque archaeological adventure that sees him lead a crew of mercenaries to the Lost City of Atlantis. Aimed more at teens than your average Disney movie, it’s a total blast from start to finish, with a huge ensemble of instantly memorable characters, gorgeous animation inspired by the artwork of comic book auteur and production designer Mike Mignola (best known as the creator of “Hellboy”), and a genuinely adult and legitimately hot romance between Milo and Atlantis princess Kida (voice-acting legend Cree Summer). And, while the film definitely has unfortunate traits of a white savior narrative, its anti-imperialist messaging still feels relevant and progressive today. —WC

“The Princess and the Frog” (2009)

Most of the classic fairy tale Disney movies before “The Princess and the Frog” were fairly straightforward retellings of the original stories. “The Princess and the Frog,” which brought Musker and Clements back to the studio for a vivid (and sadly brief) revival of traditional animation, switched things up by transplanting the story of a princess kissing a frog to 1920s New Orleans, stunningly crafted as a jazzy, colorful paradise. This setting change also resulted in the introduction of the first Black Disney Princess, a significant moment of representation that caused a lot of ink to be spilled. What really matters, though, is that Tiana (played by Anika Noni Rose with a light touch and powerful vocals) is among the most likable and well-defined of any Disney protagonist, with clear goals and dreams that drive the adventure outside of her romance — although that romance with Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos) has a refreshing and unique dynamic of its own. The characters are a blast, the songs by Randy Newman are modern classics, and the story is simply told but emotionally full. At the risk of being cheesy, they really don’t make ‘em like this anymore. —WC

“Wreck-It Ralph” (2012)

There still has yet to be a great video game film adaptation despite many, many attempts at trying. Yet the medium and its interactive worlds, colorful characters, and highly specific subcultures has so much fertile ground to depict and explore. There are some great documentaries, but the only fiction film to really find a way to tackle the medium in a way that does it justice remains “Wreck-It Ralph,” Disney’s delightful comedy about the lives of arcade characters beyond the roles in their repetitive gameplay. It’s teaming with cameos from iconic characters (with Browser, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Ryu present, Disney could easily repurpose some assets for a Super Smash Bros. movie), but otherwise keeps its focus tightly on original creations and games that nonetheless feel believable as arcade romps you could play in real-life.

Of a piece with some revisionist takes on villain narratives popular in the 2010s (“Maleficent,” anyone?) even if it’s much better than all of them, “Wreck-It Ralph” explores the shades of grey outside of simple narratives through its lonely villain character, who goes on a quest to prove he’s not a bad person and stumbles upon another misfit in glitched out kart racer player character Vanellope. The casting of experienced comedians John C. Reilley and Sarah Silverman proves key to the film’s success: they’re hilarious doing the frantic comedy and in-jokey references to gaming culture, but also tenderly vulnerable as lonely souls longing for connection. The double act between Ralph and Vanellope is one of the great Disney duos, and they make the romp through the world of 16-bit gaming an experience that has soul beyond the graphics. —WC

“Moana” (2016)

In the 3D animation era (and especially post “Frozen”), one of the more notable shifts in strategy for Disney has been its emphasis on stories led by women without much in the way of romance. The actual quality of the films varies, but it’s been a refreshing change after decades of stereotypical fairy-tale romances, and it particularly benefits “Moana,” a satisfying fantasy adventure that doesn’t bog down Auli’i Cravalho’s wonderful performance as the strong-willed chief’s daughter with an unnecessarily gooey love story. Returning to the ocean a good 30 years after “The Little Mermaid,” John Musker and Ron Clements make Moana’s journey to fulfill a prophecy for her village a vibrant one, with stunning animation that makes the ocean feel like a living being, some of the best Disney songs in years from writer Lin-Manuel Miranda, and a great supporting cast that includes the best use of Dwayne Johnson any film has previously managed. At 107 minutes, the journey is a touch padded, but on the whole, “Moana” is a delight, and the tough, determined title character is even better. —WC

“Mulan” (1998)

Disney animation’s rare foray into the PG rating has to be earned, as it was with this war movie set in Imperial China. Part of that is the battle sequences and the terrifying villain Shan Yu (Miguel Ferrer), but also some of the themes and humor surrounding Mulan (voiced by Ming-Na Wen) while she pretends to be a man (and the accompanying quips by her guardian dragon, Eddie Murphy’s Mushu). The four songs encompass the enormous range this film has to cover, from the dazzling opener “You’ll Bring Honor to Us All” to the soulful “Reflection” to the propulsive “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” — a staple of millennial karaoke (regrettably it lacks an iconic villain song, perhaps because Shan Yu is a man of few words).

“Mulan” thrives in the montage; young girls getting ready to meet the matchmaker, the dramatic (and vaguely sinister) scenes of Mulan leaving home and cutting her hair, the soldiers in training and off to battle. Throughout the film, these illustrate just how drastically its heroine’s life changes throughout the film, ultimately coming to reflect her true self. With a story by Robert D. San Souci and screenplay by Rita Hsiao, Chris Sanders, Philip LaZebnik, Raymond Singer, and Eugenia Bostwick-Singer, the movie uses supposedly ancient times to deliver messages about modern gender dynamics but resists the urge to make it as heavy-handed as one normally would for a children’s movie (and with a more inclusive writing team than well… a lot of them). When Mulan arrives at the palace, her friends don’t hesitate to follow her lead in saving the Emperor, and it’s ultimately those who underestimate her who are both ridiculed and defeated. She’s the real girl worth fighting for — and with. —PK

“The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh” (1977)

A.A. Milne’s endlessly wholesome “Winnie the Pooh” books were the perfect match for ’70s-era Disney, which turned the adventures of Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, and Eeyore into a gentle, colorful piece of movie magic that remains an early childhood favorite. The film’s anthology storytelling — a business tactic to turn previously released shorts into a feature film — proved to be a creative masterstroke, as none of the simple adventures could carry their own feature. But placed together, they form a perfect cinematic representation of Milne’s storybooks. Disney has forged a reputation for using animation to offer deceptively nuanced family programming that adults can enjoy alongside their kids. But “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh” is proof that there’s no shame in making something unapologetically kid-focused. —CZ

“Lady and the Tramp” (1955)

This portrait of small-town Americana, as beautiful in every painterly frame as “Meet Me in St. Louis,” might be Walt’s most personal film: Inspired by his hometown of Marceline, Missouri, there’s an extraordinary detail to the early 20th-century Midwest setting of “Lady and the Tramp.” As the studio’s first widescreen animated film (rendered in CinemaScope), it takes on a different visual quality, one more conducive to landscapes and panoramic images: In the very opening shot, “the camera” dissolves in from the credits to give a sweeping overhead view of the town as snow gently falls on it at Christmas. You get a god’s eye view of multiple streets at once, all while Donald Novis sings “Peace on Earth”: There’s a horse and sleigh jingling past, carolers on a street corner, light spilling through the colored glass of a Victorian home’s front window. It’s as immersive as Main Street U.S.A. itself — probably not a coincidence that “Lady and the Tramp” was released the same year Disneyland opened its doors.

But from there, the movie recenters itself into the low-angle perspective of the four-legged friends of the title. You rarely ever see humans’ faces because you don’t see them higher than their knees. This is a masterpiece of perspective, and done with an absolute lack of pretension, to tell a very simple story about connection, misunderstanding, and re-connection. This is as gentle a movie as Disney’s ever made, and one that even complexifies Walt’s famously right-wing views: No classist statement, “Lady and the Tramp” is a film that boldly tears down those barriers and says that no one should be judged based on what side of the tracks they’re born. If there’s any truly Disney worldview across all of these movies, it’s that you can always find a diamond in the rough. Or, in this case, ruff. —CB

“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937)

The grandmama not just of every film on this list but of American animation in general, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is (contrary to some popular belief) not the first animated feature of all time: as far as the historical record shows, that milestone belongs to a lost Argentian work called “El Apóstol.” Still, Snow White can rest easy knowing that without her, every Disney film ever made and the history of American animation in general would look mightily different. Like most Disney projects, the ambitious adaptation of the Grimm’s bedtime story was as much of a financial endeavor as a creative one: Walt realized that shorts turned in a fixed income at the theaters they ran no matter how popular they were, and a feature film was the only way to set his fledging studio up for long-term success. Still, that doesn’t make what was achieved any less astonishing. Handled by a large group of directors supervised by David Hand, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” pioneered and practically invented decades of animation techniques. Squash-and-stretch character animating techniques gave the innocent princess and her helpers physicality and expressiveness on par with live-action heroes, while its world of faded but vibrant storybook illustrations proved animation held untold aesthetic possibilities.

None of the film’s technical advancements would have mattered much, however, had it lacked a story and characters worth caring about. But “Snow White” proved a smash hit at the time and was hailed as a work of art by critics, thanks to its beautiful and enchanting rendition of the classic fairy tale, featuring instantly hummable songs (“Whistle While You Work” and “Heigh-Ho” remain earworms to this day), a fair maiden, a menacing villain, and a cast of hilarious and heartwarming comedic ringers in the dwarves. The heart of the story, though, might lie in Grumpy, the one holdout not so keen on Snow White in the beginning, only to grow and adore her. Disney commented at the time that he was a surrogate for those who found the princess a bit too sugary sweet, but his rather moving story feels like a reflection of all the skeptics of animation that derided “Snow White” as Disney’s Folly during production, only to fall madly in love with the film upon release. —WC

“The Emperor’s New Groove” (2000)

There’s a version of “The Emperor’s New Groove” that was infinitely more ambitious, serious, and “important” than the one we actually got. Thank god that didn’t happen. The stories of the film’s turbulent production, which saw it morph from a Mesoamerican “Prince and the Pauper” style epic into an irreverent and self-mocking comedy, are the stuff of legend: production went on for six years, during which director Roger Allers was forced to co-direct with Mark Dindel before departing production entirely, Sting song after Sting song (including Eartha Kitt banger “Snuff Out the Light”) was dropped, and the plot changed into a Chuck Jones inspired wacky comedy about a vain emperor transformed into a llama desperately trying to reclaim his throne. All of this makes the movie sound like a disaster, but remarkably, “The Emperor’s New Groove” is pretty damn close to perfect, a wonderful slapstick, smooth-talking gutbuster that features the biggest laughs in the company’s history, including an all-timer of a lever scene led by an all-timer Kitt performance as the melodramatic, megalomanic villain Yzma. Dindel, who made the cult “Cats Don’t Dance” in the ’90s, is a pro at fast-paced humor, and his “Looney Tunes” riff inside a Disney film shell is remarkable in how loose and effortless it feels despite all the baggage behind the scenes. To use a well-worn cliché, it’s a Disney film for people who hate Disney films. —WC

“Melody Time” (1948)

Now here’s a “package film” done right. If “Make Mine Music” was thrown together as sloppy seconds, this is an anthology of prime, grade-A animated brilliance. One so good it almost rivals “Fantasia” itself — sure, Bach’s OK, but he’s got nothing on the Andrews Sisters. Their sing-narration of “Little Toot” is a whistle-blast of ‘40s Americana. Disney animation legend Mary Blair gets to impart her painterly, highly detailed, patchwork-quilt-like aesthetic on at least two segments, VHS-singalong staple “Once Upon a Wintertime” and “The Legend of Johnny Appleseed,” which on its own, might just be the most beautiful short the studio ever created. All kinds of invention are on display here, as David Bordwell magnificently summed up in a 2007 blog post on his site: Notice how far beyond realism Johnny Appleseed goes when, to emphasize his rapidity in gathering a bunch of falling apples, the animators suddenly make it look like he has dozens of hands.  

Then there’s the “Blame It on the Samba” sequence, which may be the most astonishing mix of animation and live action that Disney ever attempted (even including “Mary Poppins”): Donald Duck and Jose Carioca mingle with organist Ethel Smith, whose keyboard virtuosity catapulted her into a number of ‘40s films (including Esther Williams’ debut star vehicle “Bathing Beauty”). A bartender bird puts Donald and Jose in his shaker, pours them into a cocktail glass, then dives into the glass himself amid a hazy swirl of color. Suddenly, in the midst of the animation, the live-action, photographed form of Smith appears at her organ, floating in space and playing up a storm while the animation continues around her. It’s a moment that elicited applause from the audience when “Melody Time” screened at MoMA a few years ago. And it just goes to show the inventiveness that Disney’s filmmakers were capable of when you look beyond just their best-known titles. —CB

“The Three Caballeros” (1945)

They’re three happy chappies in snappy serapes, what’s not to love? Well, actually, “The Three Caballeros” is a tale of two halves, and the first of the movie is not great: “The Cold-Blooded Penguin” and “The Flying Gauchito” are not high points of Disney animation. Luckily, everything after those in “The Three Caballeros” constitutes the most purely expressive, experimental, just damn out-there animation the studio ever attempted. Just pure retina candy.

Donald and his Brazilian traveling companion Jose Carioca are joined by a Mexican rooster named Panchito, whose entrance is the most awe-inspiringly kinetic of any Disney character until Robin Williams’ Genie almost 50 years later. They go on a surreal travelogue, where a primary takeaway about Donald is that… this duck is horny. At one moment, a swarm of disembodied female lips surrounds him and smothers him in kisses. A singing chanteuse’s head appears in the middle of a giant flower. He leers at bathing beauties on the beach at Acapulco. “Pretty girls. Pretty girls. Pretty girls” is drone-whispered on the soundtrack not far off from James Franco’s repeated “spring break forever.” A compendium of erotic daydreams, “The Three Caballeros” is something for which you ultimately cannot believe your eyes and ears, something so avant-garde by the end it feels better suited for Anthology Film Archives than Disney+. It’s part of why Jonathan Rosenbaum picked it among his five favorite films of 1945 on his list of 1000 Essential Movies. It’s a work of art that absolutely refuses to explain itself. It just exists — and thank god it does. —CB 

“The Lion King” (1994)

“Belle” might be Disney’s most direct heir to a virtuosic Broadway opening number and “The Bells of Notre Dame” might be the Mouse House’s most structurally, technically impressive beginning. But there’s something that’s just triumphantly, timelessly cinematic about “The Circle of Life” — Elton John’s music and the beautiful watercolor animation are equally expansive and sublime in the old-fashioned, Romantic sense of the term. It sets the tone for “The Lion King.” Roger Allers’ and Rob Minkoff’s 1994 film is maybe the Disney movie that’s able to move the most naturally from its humor to its darkness — this is an extremely loose adaptation of “Hamlet,” after all — and back again. Great stories, the kind that children know are really true even if all the characters are animals, need both the irreverence of Timon (Nathan Lane) and Pumbaa (Ernie Sabella) and the epic horror of Mufasa’s (James Earl Jones) fall. It’s a balance that “The Lion King” pulls off so effortlessly, Simba’s (Matthew Broderick) journey really does feel like it was written in the stars. —SS

“The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad” (1949)

An exceptionally well-balanced diptych, “The Adventures of Ichabod & Mr. Toad” is built around “The Wind in the Willows,” already in the works as of the dawn of the 1940s but on the back burner for years because of Disney’s financial issues, and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” The two segments display the studio’s greatest strengths: Astounding character animation in “Willows,” each character absolutely oozing personality (notice how Mr. Winkie, the evil bartender whose perjury throws Mr. Toad into prison, wipes down the witness stand with a wet rag as if he’s at his bar), and expressionistic psychological depth and subjectivity in “Sleepy Hollow.” Ichabod Crane’s terrifying moonlit journey through his upstate New York woods outdoes even Snow White’s flight into the forest. 

These are two of the most influential shorts in Disney history: The final battle to reclaim the deed to Toad Hall features action beats replicated in multiple subsequent Disney projects, including “The Jungle Book,” while Brom Bones, and the critique of his outrageous hypermasculinity, is an obvious visual and thematic predecessor to Gaston in “Beauty and the Beast.” (One of Brom Bones’ followers even looks exactly like Le Fou.) Basil Rathbone narrates “Willows” and Bing Crosby “Sleepy Hollow,” and Der Bingle’s performance, so nuanced and a showcase for his extraordinary vocal artistry, not just in singing but in vocalizing and whistling, involves him essentially portraying every character. That segment is a fusion of sound and image much like Chaplin’s re-edit of “The Gold Rush” with its added narration — where radio and cinema meet. It’s hard to imagine anyone but Bing giving the notes of irony he imbues Ichabod’s reverie when he imagines, gold-digger that he is, marrying into all of Katrina Van Tassel’s bounteous wealth. Ah, but wait, her father’s still alive: “Well, the old goat can’t take it with him, but when he cuts out, that’s when I cut in.” —CB

“The Jungle Book” (1967)

Walt Disney’s last film turned out to be a huge hit and a surprising masterpiece, thanks to its simplicity, humor, and infectious songs (Robert and Richard Sherman wrote all but “The Bare Necessities,” which was by Terry Gilkyson). There’s not much of a story at all. it’s just about Mowgli (Bruce Reitherman, the son of director Wolfgang Reitherman) wanting to hang out in the jungle with his eccentric friends: Baloo (Phil Harris), the carefree bear, and Bagheera (Sebastian Cabot), the wise black panther. Walt, who took a very active role, was adamant about maintaining a light tone that avoided the seriousness of Rudyard Kipling’s book. He stressed the personality of the characters and insisted on hiring well-known performers. Reitherman, who was good with action, kept the rhythmic pace going as a series of fun interactions, which also included King Louie (Louis Prima), the hip orangutan, Kaa (Sterling Holloway), the sly python, and Shere Khan (George Sanders), the menacing Bengal tiger. The standout scene, of course, is King Louie’s “I Wan’na Be Like You.” The legendary animators got to oversee sequences rather than single characters because of so much interaction, and Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, and Milt Kahl shined with a grounded and appealing approach. —BD

“Fantasia” (1940)

Few movies feel as self-consciously a grand artistic statement as “Fantasia.” A massively expensive animated anthology that came with its own surround sound audio precursor that sets its impressionistic and varied segments to classical music pieces conducted by Leopold Stokowski? While attitudes about animation were vastly different back in 1940, nowadays, the film feels like a pointed rebuke at anyone who could ever think animation is a medium exclusive for children — even if children are still likely to be delighted by plenty of the segments, from Mickey’s comedic magical turn in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” to the comic “Dance of the Hours” ballet. The rest might leave them a little baffled, but those who watch with their ears as much as their eyes will find a beguiling and ambitious attempt to represent sound and music visually. “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” becomes a series of abstract shapes and colors that match the rhythm of Bach’s organ piece. The iconic “Nutcracker Suite” soundtracks pixies and fairies that dance along with the season’s changes, while the progression of the Earth’s beginnings to the fall of the dinosaurs turns “The Rite of Spring” into a particularly mournful ode. And, of course, “Night on Bald Mountain” is now inextricable from the terrifying spirit Chernabog, whose awakening serves as the film’s grand climax. Anthology films are often thought of as simply the sum of their parts, or maybe even less. “Fantasia,” with its seamless throughline and its captivating beauty, somehow feels infinitely greater than itself. —WC

“Bambi” (1942)

The coming-of-age drama of the titular white-tailed deer (Donnie Dunagan) was a bold step forward for Disney animation and is now considered one of Walt’s greatest masterpieces. The first “circle of life” story is all about the animals of the forest, relying on its visuals and emotion to carry the film. Although it’s very playful, especially when Thumper (Tim Davis) teaches Bambi to walk, the film doesn’t shy away from its dark moments. The shocking murder of Bambi’s mother (Paula Winslowe) still terrifies. Walt tirelessly pushed his team of animators (led by Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl, and Eric Larson) to achieve greater realism with the characters, and Tyrus Wong achieved an innovative Impressionism with his watercolor backgrounds. With its strong environmental theme and naturalistic detail in the animals and the forest, the film’s enormous influence can be witnessed in two of 2024’s best animated films, “The Wild Robot” and “Flow.” —BD

“The Little Mermaid” (1989)

The film that kicked off what could be considered the greatest decade in Walt Disney Animation’s history, “The Little Mermaid” was the perfect storm of the right talent convening at the right time. Howard Ashman and Alan Menken achieved Broadway stardom for composing the musical adaptation of “Little Shop of Horrors,” but when Jeffrey Katzenberg’s years of attempts to lure them to Disney finally bore fruit, it became clear that animated musicals were the perfect canvas for their skills. Their first project at the studio, “The Little Mermaid,” was a lush animated fairytale that used music to offer more sophisticated storytelling than anything else that was available at the time. An instant classic in every regard, the film established much of what is now recognized as the modern formula for Disney movies — yet few subsequent films have matched, let alone exceeded its magic. —CZ

“One Hundred and One Dalmatians” (1961)

“Cool” is not a word used to describe most Disney films — earnestness is, unfairly or not, perhaps the opposite of cool to most people. But in the ’60s, the company produced “One Hundred and One Dalmatians,” which may well be the coolest animated film ever made. Immaculate vibes define the story of a Dalmatian puppy litter kidnapped by the villainous (and fabulous) Cruella de Vil, which embodies chic ’60s London with style and panache. While Cruella and her outrageously catchy theme song is undoubtedly the most iconic and remembered part of the film — and with that striking fashion-forward fur coat, who could really blame her? — the puppy picture is far weirder, blither, and funnier than you remember. It begins with an achingly adorable meet-cute between pet owners Roger and Anita on behalf of their loyal pets Pongo and Perdita (although Pongo would have the pet-owner relationship the other way around), and transforms from a rom-com to a heist film while never losing its laid-back hangout feel. From the sight gags of owners who resemble their pets a little too much to a jokey bit about a canine food ad that nearly breaks the fourth wall, the movie keeps a tongue firmly planted in its cheek while never losing sight of the core story of family and romance that centers it. While the animation — which used xerography to make the inking process easier — kicked off a period of scratchy-looking and cheaper Disney films, the look fits the low-key but wildly satisfying “One Hundred and One Dalmatians” like a black spot on a white dog. —WC

“Lilo & Stitch” (2002)

In 2022, Chris Sanders went viral after he commented on “Frozen” and the hype around the film’s focus on a sister relationship in a 20-year-anniversary piece about his directorial debut “Lilo & Stitch:” “It was a little bit frustrating for me because people were like, ‘Finally, a nonromantic relationship with these two girls,’ and I thought, ‘We did that! That has absolutely been done before.’” He’s not wrong; while they’re not the titular duo, young and rebellious Lilo (Daveigh Chase) and her stressed-out older sister-turned-guardian Nani (Tia Carrere) are the heart and soul of “Lilo & Stitch,” two very different women struggling to understand and see each other in the wake of their parents’ tragic deaths. Even beyond the film’s down-to-earth and uncomfortably relatable family story — this is probably the only Disney film to feature Child Protective Services and make the agent a sympathetic character just doing his job — “Lilo & Stitch” feels years ahead of the curve in several respects. Back when the company’s films tended to lily white (give or take a “Mulan” or “Pocahontas”), here was a film that showed deep respect and love for Hawaiian culture in 2002, and, although its most scathing scene was cut, had a sharp eye on the divide between white tourists and natives of the island. Here was a film that allowed its lead female character to be a legitimate weirdo, with nary a male love interest in sight (although Nani gets a cute boyfriend).

And, of course, the film packages all of its depth and maturity into a wildly accessible sci-fi comedy romp that pairs Lilo with an all-timer comedic creation in Stitch for a simple but heartwarming story about found family. While the realist elements are what makes “Lilo & Stitch” a classic, the alien invader story is just as necessary a component, and there’s real power in watching the blue menace soften thanks to the simple love Lilo shows him. “Lilo & Stitch” is a movie that could soften anyone, though; more than any other Disney film, it’s a project for the whole family, the whole Ohana, to enjoy. —WC

“The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1996)

This most ambitious of all Disney animated features is also one of the best. It’s not often you get a movie geared for kids that’s also a potent critique of religious fanaticism and sexual obsession — or a haunting Gregorian chant being intoned while the Disney castle logo unspools before the credits — but “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” doesn’t hold back, giving Demi Moore-voiced Roma dancer Esmerelda both pole dancing moves and major empathy and theocratic Judge Claude Frollo a leering male gaze as her tormentor.

The title character, deemed a monster by Frollo and assigned the name Quasimodo, was almost drowned by the judge as an infant in a bracingly operatic opening that plays like an overture. When the archdeacon of Notre Dame stays Frollo’s hand, he agrees to let Quasimodo live in the cathedral, where he becomes its bellringer in the decades hence. But only after the archdeacon pleads with Frollo that he “never can run from nor hide what you’ve done from the EYES… the eyes of Notre DAME!” The animation here is astounding, focusing on rain-soaked Gothic statues of saints and martyrs and finally the Madonna and Child themselves, all appearing to stare back in judgment at Frollo, the kind of judgment reserved only for those who pervert and weaponize their faith. “And for one moment in his life of power and control, Frollo felt a twinge of fear for his immortal soul.”  

Somehow there are also talking gargoyles and Esmerelda’s cute pet goat Djali, but even the best operas often have comic relief. That kids’ stuff can’t dilute the extraordinary one-two punch of the songs “Heaven’s Light” and “Hellfire,” the greatest of all Alan Menken’s extraordinary Disney masterpieces. This is a movie about the gap that exists — the hellish and all too real chasm — between true spiritual transcendence and those who use their faith to make life on earth worse. —CB 

“Beauty and the Beast” (1991)

Perhaps the best love story ever told through animation, “Beauty and the Beast” truly has everything: stunning artwork, rich characters, and a soundtrack full of iconic tunes. The film merges the elegant simplicity of Disney’s early fairy tales with elevated character development that ’90s audiences had come to expect. The result is a film that effortlessly alternates between humor, action, and romance. It’s anchored by one of the best voice casts the studio ever assembled, and everything builds to a ballroom dance sequence that deserves to be recognized as one of the great moments in movie history. Even when compared to the countless classics that Disney released alongside it in the early ’90s, “Beauty and the Beast” stands on its own. —CZ

“Sleeping Beauty” (1959)

For pure emotional punch, some find “Sleeping Beauty” a tiny bit lacking. Those people are wrong about the operatic romance, but regardless of how you feel, there’s no question that this is Disney’s most singularly beautiful animated creation. Developed over 10 years on the Super Technirama 70 technology that gave the animators much larger screens to create on, the film has a singular tapestry-like stylization to its world that makes it feel like a true fable. Devised by background illustrator Eyvind Earle, the animation style results in some indelible images that have been burned into Disney history, from Maleficent’s arrival in the castle to the evil fairy’s final fight with Prince Phillip to the dance between the lovers in the forest. Complimenting the epic feel are the cues the film takes from the iconic Peter Tchaikovsky ballet, which was essentially remixed by George Bruns into the magnificent score.

If all this makes “Sleeping Beauty” sound a wee bit cold, a technological masterwork more than an emotional experience, then think again. The secret to what makes “Sleeping Beauty” so great is that the lovely leading lady is actually a supporting character to her fairy godmothers Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather. Originally intended by Walt to be stock characters without much individual personality, the animators had such fun with them that they took over the film, becoming the heroes as they help Phillip save the day in between some frantic household antics. It’s a perspective flip on a fairy tale decades before “Maleficient” did it with less creativity, without ever puncturing the classical and timeless feel. Disney films are at their best when they can balance grandeur with a bit of comedy, and “Sleeping Beauty” finds a way to meld the two sides together to create pure art. —WC

“Dumbo” (1941)

Let’s get the bad out of the way first: the crows of “Dumbo” are indefensible. The fact that they’re generally positive characters and some of the few in the film to treat the hero kindly can’t erase the fact that they’re inherently minstrel stereotypes, one of whom is outright named Jim Crow. If it wasn’t for the crows, though? There’s a very good argument for Dumbo to be No. 1 on this list.

At 63 minutes, it’s an almost absurdly perfect movie, a deeply moving fable about childhood, parents, and learning to embrace your own imperfections. Made on the cheap by Disney after “Pinocchio” and “Fantasia” bombed and “Bambi” was in the pipeline, it’s still a gorgeous film that contains multitudes, from heartrending family tragedy when Dumbo is ripped away from his mother to hilarious slapstick comedy when sidekick Timothy Q. Mouse gets to run amock around the circus to trippy psychedelic horror when the march of the pink elephants sequence begins. Still, there’s a pervasive sadness to “Dumbo” that’s palpable and almost unbearable despite its sunny circus setting — no other Disney tearjerking moment is as beautifully understated and effortless as Miss Jumbo cooing her mistreated young boy to sleep to the tune of “Baby Mine.” If the aim of a Disney film — any film, really — is to make the audience feel, it’s hard to think of any animated film that can make kids or adults alike feel deeper than “Dumbo,” which mixes laughs with melancholy before ending on a moment of true wonder. It’s a movie that can make you believe an elephant will fly. —WC

“Pinocchio” (1940)

There’s a reason why “When You Wish Upon a Star” is the official theme song of Disney itself, the tune that plays over its logo before every movie. It’s not just a great song, it’s a company-defining mission statement. But it wouldn’t be as powerful if it hadn’t come from the greatest of all the studio’s films: “Pinocchio,” a movie that unlocked the entire possibilities of a medium in showing that animation could be a work of powerful, disconcerting art. Could be a vehicle to show you things that you could barely dream of. Could be more than kids entertainment, but a serious reflection by adults on what it means to be a child.

The scale of “Pinocchio” is as great as any fantasy epic ever made: From the literal minutia of the clockwork figurines in Geppetto’s shop (scaled perfectly to fit the point-of-view of Conscience-in-Training Jiminy Cricket) to the smoke-filled and sprawling Pleasure Island (a theme park where “bad boys” can fight one another at “The Rough House” or break furniture in a model home designed for destruction) to the bottom of the sea and the cavernous interior of Monstro the Whale. It plays with the subtlest gradations of “performance” in animation: What separates boy-made-of-pine Pinocchio from the other marionettes he performs alongside in the “I’ve Got No Strings” number? Movies are about creating an illusion of life from stillness: motion out of 24 frames per second. Of course this story about life created out of lifelessness would be an essential contribution to motion picture artistry.

But that it does so with such panache is what’s breathtaking. As only Disney’s second full-length animated feature, “Pinocchio” is light years beyond “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and feels almost like a “Citizen Kane” of animation, with dazzling use of the Disney studio’s famous multi-plane camera giving an extraordinary level of depth and realism. And it’s funny! That “I’ve Got No Strings” number? An all-time banger with its Dutch, French, and Russian riffs on the same melody. Ned Washington’s lyrics go so far as “You’ve got no strings / Comme ci comme ça / Your savoire-faire is ooh la la / I’ve got strings / But entre nous / I’d cut my strings for you.” That alone established an all-time truth: Don’t dumb down your movie because you think kids can’t understand something. They definitely won’t understand that — but they’ll love it anyway. Just like adult viewers might not understand how Jiminy Cricket is able to breathe underwater, but suddenly seems at risk of drowning when (in an incredible sight-gag) he’s trapped in a bubble that springs a leak, water rushing in. But hey, there’s literal logic, and there’s poetic logic, and “Pinocchio” is tapped firmly into the latter.

You can love something without understanding it — that’s what Geppetto feels to his core, utterly unaware of how his marionette even came to life. And it’s what people will feel watching “Pinocchio” as long as movies exist. This is not a film you’ll ever fully wrap your head around, never “solve,” never stop finding things to wonder at. It’s a singular work of depth and ambition, the kind that all artists would aspire to from the core of their being. Even if they have to wish on a star. —CB