The 50 best Disney movies of all time
From Toy Story to Cinderella, from Mary Poppins to The Muppets, we're counting down Disney's finest films
Film Features Elliott
Think “Disney movies” and your mind will probably conjure up images of classic animated films like Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and even Pinocchio. And while the company continues to be an industry leader in animation, its films have encompassed a huge variety of genres, styles, and mediums. To mark Disney’s 100th anniversary, we’re counting down their 50 best films. Animated classics are well-represented, but so are modern, live-action movies like Enchanted. The only things you won’t find are films that Disney owns due to its acquisitions of Fox and Marvel Studios. If a film wasn’t produced by Disney, it doesn’t count. And now, on with the list.
As Disney celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, The A.V. Club marks the occasion with a series of lists, essays, and more.
126 Comments
First off … is “The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes” on the list? Is “Million Dollar Duck?” Ten year old me puts them high on the list.Secondly, first.
The Love Bug says “Hi”.
Indeed. Herbie 4eva!
Hope he’s still chillin in Monte Carlo.When I was little I was convinced once turning 16 I was going to get a Bug and paint it up like that.
I’ve been clinging on for a while, but I chose this ridiculous listicle slideshow to say goodbye to a place that used to be great. One last dance for the party.
Man, the Scooby animators really just weren’t feeling it that day, huh?
I really think I’m done here too , buzzfeed style listicle , with obvious missing/weird choices to provoke maximum engagement …its almost as bad as the shitty chum bucket ads on the site . I feel sorry for the writers, but the management are running this place into the ground .
Lemme get this straight … the #1 Disney movie of all time is … not even made by Disney?
AND not even the best of its franchise. This list is a weird read. Watched Hocus Pocus for the first time recently, its quality was only slightly higher than a TV movie of its era. But it’s better than TS 2 & 3?!And Tron. Love it for what it is, but so many better films below it. Such a random ordering.
I have an unending love for Tron and it absolutely belongs on the list of 50 best Disney movies for sure, but higher than about 45 is insanity.
These lists are alway a mess and put together haphazardly. I suppose that gets us commenting. But I at least expect even the shell of a former glorious pop culture site to know which studio made which movies.
I appreciate Tron, and it is an entertaining film, I’m just not convinced its a particularly good one.
I am firmly in the John Waters mindset, where he said that there is no such thing as a bad movie, just a boring one. Tron might not be the best film ever put to celluloid, but it sure as hell isn’t boring.
I have opinions about people who like Hocus Pocus. I keep them to myself, but know that they are very strong and not good.
100% agree. What a weird list, especially with Tron being so high.Far too many of the Big 5 classics outside the top 10 and weirdly have the remake of Parent Trap included (pick one or the other guys).Anyhoo the lack of Blackbeard’s Ghost makes this whole top 50 redundant.
and where is Something Wicked This Way Comes? honestly the whole list is a mess.
Tron is at #39 of 50… That’s not high at all.It’s a better film than Hocus Pocus, IMO. But that’s hardly my grievance with this list. As much as I do like Up, its place in the Top 5 is a bit far off. The whole beginning sequence is what makes that film memorable, and while the middle act is cool, the final act is somewhat forgettable. I think it could have been placed down near Ratatouille and Monsters Inc, both of which are just good, but all 3 aren’t nearly as awesome as The Incredibles. Instead, I would have placed The Lion King in the #4 spot, with Aladdin as #5, and thus pushing Mary Poppins down to #6.
This list is a weird read. Watched Hocus Pocus for the first time recently, its quality was only slightly higher than a TV movie of its era. But it’s better than TS 2 & 3?!I was surprised to discover that people now in their late 20s and early 30s regard Hocus Pocus as a cherished holiday classic. I was in fifth or sixth grade when it came out, and it made no impression at the time. No one in middle school talked about it. No one in college remembered it in warm nostalgic tones. And now it’s everywhere. Someone in the marketing department is good at their job.
Yeah, Hocus Pocus makes no sense to me. I guess it’s decent enough family fare for a holiday that doesn’t have enough movies, I guess. So in that sense I’m glad it was made and that people can enjoy it, but I have a real hard time watching it.Other movies that the internet has included as amazing cult classic from that era that astound me ( as someone who actually sat through those movies in the theater in their original release) are Clue and Ghostbusters 2.As an aside, I’m surprised that at least the original Pirates movie didn’t make the list.( no love for Gus or The Apple Dumpling Gang?)
Did I miss the original Mighty Ducks on this list? Surely that has to rate higher than Hocus Pocus. That was an immediately beloved hit that got two sequels (while not anywhere as good as the original) as soon as it was released. I feel Hocus Pocus was a slow burn that somewhere over the last 10 years or so got elevated to cult status for reasons.
It’s funny how Toy Story 2 is referred to in this very slideshow as “just as good as the original”… and yet is 44 spots below the original.
The article starts by saying that it won’t count Disney’s acquisitions, and will only focus on movies produced by Disney. And then immediately includes all the Pixar movies, movies made by a studio that is not Disney that Disney acquired.
I guess they can include them because they were financed and distributed by Disney before they bought the company outright. Disney also had a fairly large amount of production oversight on some of the earlier Pixar movies, before they gave them more creative freedom later.
I think they had an investment in Pixar before buying them outright.
People here are being a bit silly about the whole “Toy Story is a Pixar film, not a Disney film…” thing, and I can understand why. People saying this don’t understand, or never even bothered to look up the fact that Disney released the film. Pixar produced it and animated it, yes, but Disney gave funding and released it through their production enterprise. They would go on to fully acquire Pixar is 2006, but before that, they bankrolled a lot of their films and handled the release and distribution. If you look at original 1995 posters for the film, you’ll pretty much see “Walt Disney Pictures Presents” above the Toy Story logo every time. They’ve been attached at the hip since Day 1 and yet people are now just forgetting this… Or they’re forgetting about how animation studios and production companies tend to work.Let me put it this way. If someone were to assemble a list of the best Production I.G anime shows of all time and place FLCL at the top of the list… Then those arguing against its inclusion on the ground of it being a Gainax anime are being woefully ignorant of the animation studio and production enterprise relationship. Both have a major part to play in getting the anime created and premiered for audiences. Look up pretty much any anime and you’ll see this happen. If not for Fuji TV then Toei Animation would have had no ability to fund, animate, and release Dragon Ball Z on their own.If you look inward, you can see this with various American shows as well. For example, Ed, Edd n Eddy, which is a Cartoon Network show, but it was actually created by Yeson Animation Studios. So if there was a list of the best Cartoon Network cartoons of all time, would you argue against Ed, Edd n Eddy being on that list because the show wasn’t made by Cartoon Network directly? No. That would be ridiculous… And that’s exactly what this whole Pixar and Disney debate is amounting to: a ridiculously failed understanding of the animation studio and production enterprise relationship.
They set the rules, not me:“If a film wasn’t produced by Disney, it doesn’t count.”
And that’s where you’re misunderstanding. Disney was the production enterprise for Toy Story, meaning that they are a producer. As I mentioned before, the evidence of is that Disney’s name and logo is in the production credits of Toy Story, and they’re included on the poster. You can also check the Toy Story Wiki to see the Production Companies listed for the film, where Disney is right at the top, and that’s reflective of the time of its release (not due to their later acquisition of Pixar Studios). Conversely to this, even though Disney owns Avatar now, if you look at the Avatar wiki, Disney is not mentioned as a Production Company, and that’s because Disney was never actually a producer (they simply bought the rights later).AV Club is exactly within the definition of what they specified.A company can still produce things that aren’t “in house” while Pixar can also earn internal production credits for a number of reasons that maintain themselves as their own entity and animation studio.This isn’t new. A movie can be produced by two or more entities at the same time, and that happens with pretty much 99% of all wide-release films, which is why opening logos/credits tend to take awhile these days.
Plus…on what freaking planet is live-action 101 Dalmations better than Toy Story 3, which reduced most people to emotional wrecks??I guess the same planet where Pete’s Dragon, a terrible movie, in the top 50. The remake is top notch, though.
Pete’s Dragon had at least one really good song.
If they don’t even have to be Disney movies, then let’s just go ham. The best Disney movie of all time is Goodfellas. Remember the scene where Joe Pesci walks into a room thinking he’s about to become a made man, and instead a dude just shoots him dead as payback for something he did in the first act that he’d completely forgotten about? Disney magic!
… and that guy hanging in the freezer truck? Took three days to thaw him out! Such crazy hijinks.
Av Club slideshow lists can’t hurt me
Av Club slideshow lists can’t hurt meAv Club slideshow lists (internal screaming)“Toy Story 2 is among the rarefied air of sequels that are just as good as the original” – Proceeds to place the sequel 44 places below the original, and somehow even below nostalgic but mediocre fluff like Hocus Pocus…I hate that I care enough to comment on the tripe this website now pumps out
How is Encanto only 37th and how is Tangled not even on the fucking list?!?
Ach, I just noticed that Tangled didn’t make it!
And you “narrowed” the list down to 50 flicks? “Good” for you.
Very weird list…Toy Story isn’t a Disney movie either lol
No love for The Black Hole? Get the fuck outta here!
Interesting thing about the Black Hole. I think Disney was convinced they had a Star Wars-type hit on their hands, so they went on a similar merchandising blitz of tie-in products. Obviously, it didn’t happen, but you would see various toys and other ephemera linked to this film showing up in yards sales almost into the early 90s. Having never seen the film until it came out on Disney+, I was surprised how much I recognized from the discarded toys, read-along-record albums, trading cards and picture books I had encountered as a kid. I found the film itself kind of a big “meh”… but holy crap, that ending!
I still have my Vincent toy. (My family never had a yard sale.)
As a result of my grandparents’ love of yard sales, I got other kids’ Maximillians, VINCENTs and OLD BOBs.
I recently saw it for the first time. It would not be wrong to categorize it as horror. It’s not as on-screen grizzly as Alien or Event Horizon (though a just-off-screen buzzsaw murder is still pretty disturbing), but it belongs on the same shelf as those in my opinion.
Eight-year-old me went into the theater excited for robots and spaceships. Eight-year-old me came out of the theater haunted by poor Tony Perkins’s face during that scene.
Yeah that movie’s fucked up. Between the full-on horror ending and bearing more of a resemblance to Alien than Star Wars, I expect it took a lot of people by surprise.
Had the same experience watching it recently. “Oh THAT thing!” every twenty minutes or so. Sincerely attempted but not quite realized depth, questionable but creative effects, and 70s grain are my pleasure points, so I had a good time. And yes, it’s an ambitious finale.
I found the film itself kind of a big “meh”… but holy crap, that ending!Generally speaking at a high level, I agree with you. Mostly it’s the John Barry score, the great acting from all the leads and the gothic art design that elevate the movie in my book. And of course the pretty good effects (with some wobbliness here or there) makes my inner 10 year old happy.I wouldn’t place it any higher that 45 on the list, but it very much belongs somewhere on the list.
A very fond memory of my grandmother was her giving me and my brother VINCENT and BOB tote bags.
I had the pop up book to this! Also saw in in the theater (god I’m old!).
OK, there’s at least two scenes from that film that I would really be interested to see how they were rendered in pop-up book format.
It’s been so long but I remember the Robot popping up and also being able to slide characters into parts of the book. I’m laughing because I bet like 15 years ago I still had that book somewhere.
Back in the day, my friend wanted to see this and I wanted to see 1941. I gave in and when the lights came up, we were both sorry. My friend had thought 1941 would be a straight-up war movie and I wouldn’t have been too interested in that, either, at about age 12.From what I understood later, it was a no-win proposition with new releases that weekend regardless.
Yeah it wasn’t great but I was 6 and Star Wars just came out 2 years earlier so I badly wanted to see it. I even had a toy from the movie if I remember right.
I saw it in the theater too (well, the Drive In), so we can be elderly brothers in arms!
Sweet! That must have been fun!
Not bothering to look at the list but I love how you guys have devolved into making long shitty slideshow list to drive up clicks and interactions by trying to piss people off. Awesome job!!!
I am glad my favorite soon to be documentary made it in the top 10.
I know, right? Cowards.
RIP, Splash Mountain.
When I think of the cathartic emotional release the imagineers created with Splash Mountain, I am mournful that future generations will never experience its genius. It’s a frickin’ Academy Award-winning song – you can’t just whitewash it out of history.
Name 5 others real quick. Almost 100 years of Academy Awards, and how many can you name off the top of your head? From before 1990? 1980? Guess they was just whitewashed on outta history too. Oh, the humanity.
It’s a banger of a tune, and Splash Mountain was a triumph of imagineering. Do you debate these points? If so, you are simply a troll attempting to outwoke a rodent evolved to survive on the arid Mongolian steppe.
You couldn’t think of any other Academy Award winning songs that are unjustly forgotten, huh.
The original Pinocchio way down at #38 with some of the slop that was placed ahead of it is certainly…something.
The original Pinocchio way down at #38 with some of the slop that was placed ahead of it is certainly…something.I had a similar thought. Pinocchio is probably the most beautifully animated film in the traditional Disney style. The movement is fluid and the characters are full of personality. Some of the modern films come close, like Beauty and the Beast with its neat digital tricks, but at least for me they never surpass it.On the other hand, this list probably reflects the age of its makers, people who discovered animation through post-’89 Disney and early Pixar. I’m just a little older, which makes the landscape look a lot different.
It reads like the didn’t grow up with the “Disney Sunday Movie” either.
When I did a (non-chronological) rewatch of just about all the Disney theatrical animated features a number of years ago, I came to the conclusion that Pinocchio is the best of them all.
I can’t imagine Disney ever again animating something as bleakly dark as the Pleasure Island sequence.
Beauty and the Beast is one of the best movies of the 90s imo. It’s a big romantic epic even if the romance element didn’t age well, it’s still thrilling and magical and sprawling.
Its the only animated film that ever really stood a chance to win Best Picture. The more I get older, the more I wish that was true.
1. The Journey of Natty Gann2. White FangFTFY
18: Robin Hood. I guess at this point it’s impossible to talk about this film without mentioning the furries. Thanks Matthew for making it even weirder with that buzzfeed link.
As I got into the teens of this list, I realized there was probably going to be at least one major omission for live action films. Really, no 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? Great story, great cast, the special effects still look convincing, the design of the Nautilus being the prototype of steampunk, and Kirk-freaking-Douglas singing this awesome earworm song?Swiss Family Robinson, Treasure Island, The Love Bug and Old Yeller could have made the list too, but I guess you have to make cuts somewhere.And as much as I wanted to like it… Soul just didn’t do it for me. Pixar was aiming for the upper deck with that one, but it was a swing-and-a-miss.
20k is one of Disneys best 50s movies. Kirk Douglas singing a sea shanty? Fuck yes all this. Captain Nemo will only ever be James Mason.
Rommell, too.
He was a very good Irwin Rommel in the Desert Fox. But there’s been a couple other good ones. Everyone who came after 20k has tried to be Mason as Nemo and it doesn’t work.
In The Desert Rats, he also had a cameo… as Rommell.
I seriously, literally do not see how we are the first and only ones to mention “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea”.
The Love Bug spawned three or four sequels and a (bad) reboot. Plus, drunk Buddy Hackett! No way it isn’t in the top 50. And the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse still exists at Disney parks today.
50 Best Movies From The Most Potent, And Problematic, Force In Pop Culture Today
Slideshow, #1 is Toy Story (not made by Disney), you’re welcome.
Not a single Herbie movie?
Buddy Hackett deserves better.
The absence of Three Caballeros is criminal. Sure, it’s problematic that Donald Duck hits on human women during a sequence that mixes animation and live action. Sure, it owes its existence to Walt Disney’s stint as a goodwill ambassador to South America during WWII, with all the cultural baggage that implies. But there are psychedelic sequences in this movie that make Fantasia look square. Meanwhile, the absence of The Rescuers is more surprising (because it ended a long slump in the quality of Disney’s animation) but less egregious.
Watched it last year again for the first time in over 30 years. I’d forgotten how good the music in that film was.
And the title song is an absolute delight.
The Rescuers was my favorite Disney as a kid. It’s far superior to at least half the movies on this list. Maybe the staff hasn’t seen it??
Does it bother you that Roger Rabbit is married to a human (well a human toon anyway)? If animals in a work of fiction can think and make their own romantic decisions, what’s wrong with it?
Does it bother you that Roger Rabbit is married to a human (well a human toon anyway)? If animals in a work of fiction can think and make their own romantic decisions, what’s wrong with it?Have you seen the film? The moment in question involves Donald ogling and catcalling the dancers during a musical number. And my point is that it’s a hilariously bizarre element of the scene. That’s it. I don’t think anyone watching this film will take the duck-on-woman implications seriously enough to deplore them. Meanwhile, the whole point of Jessica Rabbit is that her over-the-top voluptuousness nudges scenes toward absurdity. When she flirts with human characters, the movie plays it for nervous laughs. And her relationship with Roger is a send-up of every “how’d she end up with him” joke you’ve ever seen. During her scenes, the movie is playing with discomfort in all sorts of sly, knowing ways. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but it makes her an odd counter-example in this exchange.
This list reminds me that we are all lesser people with Rick Moranis regularly making movies. But we are all greater people that Rick Moranis is such an amazing human to put his family over Hollywood.
Hercules at #50 saved me a lot of time of not having to read the rest of the list with how wrong it would be.
No Midnight Madness or Condorman?
And the original Parent Trap rated lower than the remake!!!????
I can’t say I’ve ever seen Condorman, but I do fondly remember it being part of the mega trailer for Disney Home video that would be at the end of every Disney VHS in the early 80s.
I remember exactly what you’re talking about.“He is not an agent of the CIA, he is a writer of COMIC BOOKS!”, or something like that. I know nothing more about the film than this too.
No Treasure Island? No Scarecrow of Romney Marsh?
50. Hercules
Lol I’m good. Hercules being last on the list tells me everything I need to know about how unhinged this is.
Robin Hood ranked higher than Fantasia? What is happening…
That’s an awfully high rating for Peter Pan. It’s virtually unwatchable for modern audiences thanks to the big ol’ racist musical number.
And it’s also just not that good of a movie.
I know we’re just playing your little game by objecting, but my gosh, how are all of those original films down around the 30s? That just seems ignorant. Bambi, Dumbo, Pinocchio…and since you’re doing both animated and live-action, no Blacks Cauldron or Hole? No Bullwhip Griffin? Three Caballeros, ffs? And how do you place Fantasia, the most original and startling of the entire group, mid-list? This is depressing.
Beauty and the Beast is probably my favorite film. I know the lead actress very well, the soundtrack was the first thing I played when my mom passed. I’m getting a Belle dress soon as I’m further along in transition. Lets just say the movie means a lot to me. I’ve never much cared for the whole Stockholm Syndrome argument. It can appear like that if you tell the story poorly, and the 1991 version doesn’t do that. Everything Belle does after the imprisonment is her own choice and she might not have come back if not for Gaston. Its a really tired old argument. Oh and the remake from 2017 ironically makes the Beast far more unlikable and that version comes off more like Stockholm Syndrome despite changes to try and Belle more proactive. Oh well.
Somewhere in the bottom 25 a slot cries out for this:They straight up swiped WB’s Loony Toon mojo.
Bottom 25? You mean Top 5.
Look, this list is pretty dire, but I can’t say I’m mad at the top four or five movies being placed where they are. So, it remains another list.
Disney is rolling in his grave. When he sees the junk they put out now.
Moana not in the top 5, let alone 10, let alone 20? GTFO
Pinocchio way too low.
What about joint productions, like Popeye and Dragonslayer?
Disney, everybody!:
Oooh, GOOOD call on “Dragonslayer”. Nudity! A priest taking unearned credit for the Church at the end! Very much a Disney movie, even had the “Walt Disney Pictures” logo at the very beginning.
I’m sorry, but how in the hell do you have both Parent Trap movies but no Straight Story? That movie is a masterpiece!
Yikes. A list doesn’t and can’t be perfect, but it should at least be respectable. I think there is an art to curating a good list, and it certainly shows when list makers don’t care about that.
But I’ll say something positive in that I appreciate Pete’s Dragon ‘77 being on here. That one is very near and dear to me, and I think it’s underrated because it has richer themes than it gets a lot of credit for. Within this family musical is a orphan running away from an abusive home, and this lonely kid’s only protector is something others think is just his imaginary friend- which probably has a metaphor of its own somewhere in there. I was supremely disappointed in the remake exploring none of this for a more generic plot.Now ask me why I think Old Yeller should be on here, too.And Newsies.
Lilo and Stich is better than Cinderella???
Kinda, maybe? At least a case could be made for it. But “Sword in the Stone” being better than…anything?? “Pete’s” freaking “Dragon”?? No. Holy cow, no.
IMO Up and WALL-E have great openings, but are otherwise just, you know, kind of okay. Likewise, there are some killer songs in the 90s Disney movies, but not sure the films themselves hold up.I wonder how many writers on this list have had kids – this list seems weirdly weighted towards 90s pics and movies that play better on the brain than on the television. I can get behind the high placing for Mary Poppins – great cast, great songs, great design, and one of the greatest special effects movies ever.
My own niche, based on my age, would be to include Emperor’s New Groove (which the old AV club wouldn’t have forgotten) and Watcher in the Woods, a proper weird VHS classic. This list hews a bit bland.
Coco is the only animated film I have ever watched and openly wept over on a flight. #35 ranking is a disgrace.
The Sword in the Stone? Really? I mean … Really?! Please share whatever you are smoking.
Bloody criminal that Alice and Wonderland did not make this list.
Some easily inferior movies that it could have replaced (A. not including movies I haven’t seen (and B. not saying they’re bad! Just that Alice is way better!)):
Hercules, Ratatouille, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Peter Pan, Toy Story 2, and The freaking Aristocats.
If you’re going to include Toy Story you might as well include Star Wars and The Muppet Movie.
And *where* is The Cat from Outer Space?!
Obviously everyone has already pointed out what a garbage list this is in so many ways, and since kinja sucks this comment will probably never even be posted, but I haven’t seen anyone specifically complain about Up, so I’ll be the dude who complains about Up.#4? I realize I like Up less than most people, but I doubt most people would even put up in their top 5 Pixar movies, let alone the top 5 disney movies of all time. The description itself points out that all most people remember and like about it is the gut punch opening. You ranked it above THE INCREDIBLES.I haven’t been on this site in a while and this is a good reminder why.
There is no way Soul should have made the Top 50 list.Even more egregious is The Black Hole inexplicably missing the cut.
A “best 50 films” list from a studio that’s put out only a little over 60 films feels like a bit of a cop-out. Sure, people can argue about placement on the list, but it’s a bit like doing “Top 10 Star Wars films!”
They have over 60 just in animation. They had 50 movies out by 1959.This site lists over 800, under all their labelshttps://d23.com/list-of-disney-films/
“Bedknobs and Broomsticks” – yay! I watched it a couple years ago for the first time since I was a kid and really thoroughly loved it. “Sword in the Stone”? “Pete’s Dragon”? “Tron”? Oh…such…lame…movies.And in conclusion: “20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA”!!!! You IDIOTS!!!