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The 50 Best TV Shows and Movies to Watch on Disney+ Right Now
The Disney streaming platform has hundreds of movie and TV titles, drawing from its own deep reservoir of classics and from Star Wars, Marvel, National Geographic and more. These are our favorites.
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Of all the companies to enter the streaming wars, Disney has significant advantages with Disney+. It can draw from a deep vault of its own animated and live-action movies and from popular shows on its own cable networks — as well as from company properties like Marvel, Pixar, National Geographic and Star Wars. And that’s not counting the platform’s slate of original TV shows and movies.
That’s a lot of material: Nearly 500 films and 7,500 TV episodes at the time of its debut. Below is our guide to the 50 best titles on Disney+, arranged in reverse chronological order with an eye toward variety. As the service continues to build its catalog, this list will change, too. (Note: Streaming services sometimes change their libraries without notice; we’ll do our best to keep up.)
Here are our lists of the best movies and TV shows on Netflix, the best of both on Hulu and the best movies on Max and Amazon Prime Video.
‘The Beach Boys’ (2024)
One thing that can be agreed upon about the Beach Boys is that they were never simply a band of laid-back Californians harmonizing about surfin’ safaris and good vibes on the Pacific. The musicianship was always too sophisticated and the interpersonal relationships too fractured to fit the commercial, clean-cut fantasy that Capitol Records was promoting. Takes on the band’s contentious history vary, but “The Beach Boys,” a documentary that gathers most of the surviving voices, is a good place to start, chronicling a family operation that revolutionized pop music, even as it gradually chipped apart. The film includes many of those difficult stages, but as Nicolas Rapold writes, it “mostly tries to keep the good vibrations going.”
‘Let It Be’ (1970)
The director Peter Jackson described “The Beatles: Get Back,” his three-part, 468-minute film as “a documentary about a documentary.” Now, the actual documentary, Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s long-unavailable “Let It Be,” finally sees the light of day — in all its excruciating glory. As the band assembles for what will be its final studio album release, Lindsay-Hogg’s camera reflects a prevailing mood of exhaustion and irritability, but there’s still plenty of creative magic here, too, despite the stifling conditions. When the quartet head up to the roof for that famous, impromptu lunchtime concert in London, you can practically feel the oxygen filling their lungs. At the time, the Times critic Howard Thompson was not alone in finding the 1970 film “artless,” but admitted it was also “arresting.”
‘Doctor Who’ (2024)
After 60 years, the venerable British time-space adventure, a staple of sci-fi nerds for generations, comes to Disney+ for its 14th series — and its fifth under the showrunner Russell T Davies, whose run includes the wildly popular Tenth Doctor, David Tennant. This “Doctor Who” gets much of its buoyant energy from Ncuti Gatwa’s performance in the title role, here joined by Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday, a foundling who boards the TARDIS as the Doctor’s sidekick. (Her origins were the subject of a Christmas special, “The Church on Ruby Road.”) The time machine whisks them to places like a space station operated by genetically developed babies and a studio where John Lennon and Paul McCartney try to record an album while the world has mysteriously lost interest in music.
‘Madu’ (2024)
Amid the early lockdowns of the Covid-19 pandemic, an Instagram video of an 11-year-old Nigerian boy dancing in the rain went viral, attracting the attention of instructors at Elmhurst Ballet School in Birmingham, England. The beautifully photographed documentary “Madu” follows the dancer, Anthony Madu, from his native Nigeria, where he’s mocked and bullied by classmates, to a culture where he’s an outsider of another kind, supported by teachers and peers, but separated from his family and unsettled in his new home. A sharp decline in Anthony’s vision proves a more unexpected threat, but “Madu” mostly celebrates the grit of a child whose love of dance is at once a vehicle for his dreams and a shield from a harsh world.
‘Tiger’ (2024)
Two words: Tiger cubs. There have been plenty of Disneynature documentaries more informative and artful than “Tiger,” a feature-length ode to the majestic felines of the Indian forest, but few can match it on cuteness. Narrated by Priyanka Chopra Jonas, the film opens with four hungry, playful cubs stumbling after their tigress mother, who has to capture double the prey in order to keep up her milk supply. Using long-lens, remote-controlled cameras for greater intimacy and limited intrusiveness, the filmmakers track the perils and knockabout silliness of family life, sustaining an optimistic note even as the litter’s survival is not guaranteed. “Tiger” establishes a very strong rooting interest for them.
‘The Rookie’ (2002)
Improbable and sentimental without caving entirely to the cornpone, “The Rookie” offers the fanciful premise of a high school baseball coach (Dennis Quaid) from Texas who still has a live fastball, despite the injuries and life turns that kept him from the majors. And so, he accepts a bet from his losing team: If they win the district championship, he will follow through on an open tryout for the big leagues. It’s not hard to guess where “The Rookie” is going, but grounded performances by Quaid, Rachel Griffiths and Brian Cox make it seem more real than it sounds. Stephen Holden called it “unabashedly lyrical and beautifully photographed.”
‘Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version)’ (2023)
Without a second of behind-the-scenes footage or any apparent directorial flash, this three-and-a-half hour concert film, shot over three nights at SoFi Stadium in California, aims simply to bring Taylor Swift’s mammoth Eras Tour from stage to screen with minimal fuss. The approach works beautifully, in part because the tour’s conceit — drawing selections from Swift’s complete discography — has a built-in narrative scaffolding that supports the entire show. The sheer magnitude of the event is like getting hit by a pop-culture tsunami. Wesley Morris called attention to Swift’s stamina, writing in The New York Times that “she’s as ebullient descending into the stage, for her farewell, as she is in the opening minutes magically materializing upon it.”
‘Renegade Nell’ (2024)
Fusing elements of historical adventure and fairy-tale fantasy with comic irreverence, “Renegade Nell,” from the reliable British creator Sally Wainwright (“Happy Valley,” “Gentleman Jack”), is a generously entertaining genre mishmash. Much of its charm comes courtesy of the “Derry Girls” star Louisa Harland, playing Nell, a salty, strong-willed woman living in early 18th-century Tottenham. Nell takes to the outlaw life after the magistrate’s evil son frames her for his father’s murder. She has superpowers, too, but she gets them from a magical fairy (Nick Mohammed) who doubles as the pesky angel on her shoulder, trying to keep her on the righteous path.
‘X-Men ’97’ (2024)
A word like “reboot” doesn’t quite capture the uniqueness of this revival of “X-Men: The Animated Series,” the popular and hugely influential Fox Kids series from the ’90s that helped establish mutants like Wolverine, Magneto and Professor Xavier as millennial favorites. “X-Men ’97” is, more remarkably, a direct continuation of the original series — done in the same animated style and featuring much of the same voice cast, too. As such, it becomes the rare Marvel property that’s completely disentangled from the MCU, picking up instead right where the series ended, with the mutants trying to adjust to the loss of their leader, Professor X, while joining the United Nations — a tentative sign of wider acceptance by humankind.
‘Arctic Ascent With Alex Honnold’ (2024)
The nerve-jangling 2018 documentary “Free Solo” trailed one of the world’s most accomplished rock climbers, Alex Honnold, as he scaled the 3,200-foot granite wall of Yosemite’s “El Capitan” — without ropes. It’s a showcase of Honnold’s unique combination of technical discipline and old-fashioned derring-do. In this gorgeous three-part series from National Geographic, Honnold and another brilliant climber, Hazel Findlay, take on an even more imposing rock formation called Ingmikortilaq in Greenland, and safety measures only partially mitigate the risk of a remote structure that’s never been climbed. “Arctic Ascent” chronicles Honnold’s 2022 expedition during the month of August, when scientists can research the effects of climate change on glacier movement, but as the Times critic Margaret Lyons notes, it all “takes a back seat to the show’s sense of natural wonder.”
‘The Marvels’ (2023)
Though pilloried as the lowest-grossing film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — a sign that the integrated box-office juggernaut may finally be on the downslope — “The Marvels” plays much better at home, where expectations can be more aligned with its modest, jokey galactic adventures. It’s especially good as an extension of the Disney+ show “Ms. Marvel” whose star, Iman Vellani, plays a Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) fangirl from New Jersey. In the film, she’s charmingly geeked out about fighting alongside her hero. The complicated save-the-universe plot involves the two women teaming up with a third, Captain Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), when their powers become entangled across jump points in outer space, giving the action a zany, screwball kick.
2024 Oscar-nominated documentary shorts: ‘Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó’ and ‘The Last Repair Shop’
The passion and resilience of experienced hands connects two heartwarming Oscar-nominated documentary shorts on the platform. In “Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó,” the Taiwanese American director Sean Wang visits his maternal and paternal grandmothers, who enjoy each other’s company so much that they’re spending their twilight years as roommates in the Bay Area. They’re shown hip-hop dancing and arm wrestling, and getting a chuckle out of the raunchy comedy “Superbad.” “The Last Repair Shop” celebrates the artisans at a Los Angeles warehouse who keep over 80,000 musical instruments in good shape for public schoolchildren across the city. Their behind-the-scenes craftsmanship is mesmerizing on its own, but the film also interviews the happy beneficiaries on the other end, who could not otherwise afford their tubas and violins.
‘Echo’ (2024)
Spun off from “Hawkeye,” one of the most entertaining Marvel shows on Disney+, “Echo” goes deeper into the minor character of Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox), a deaf Choctaw hero from Oklahoma. Lopez is part of the Tracksuit Mafia, a criminal gang connected to Wilson Fisk (a.k.a. Kingpin, played by Vincent D’Onofrio). But as this series progresses, Lopez’s allegiances shift dramatically as she learns more about Fisk and her tortured family history, connects to her roots and channels her grief and fury to more productive ends. Though “Echo” has moments of lightness, the tone is more serious than “Hawkeye,” anchored by an Indigenous cast that includes Tantoo Cardinal, Graham Greene, Cody Lightning and Zahn McClarnon.
‘Choir’ (2024)
Anyone who followed “America’s Got Talent” in 2019 discovered that the Detroit Youth Choir were not 52 kids singing hymns on risers, but a dynamically choreographed pop outfit that rapped and danced through songs by Macklemore and Carrie Underwood. (During a return to the show last year, they even backed up Weezer onstage.) This six-episode documentary series grapples with the vexing question of what comes next, as the choir’s charismatic director, Anthony White, needs to bring in new voices, book exciting performance spaces and continue the DYC’s educational and social initiatives. “Choir” offers plenty of showstopping moments, but it’s gratifyingly frank about all the hard work and sweat they require.
‘The Mission’ (2023)
In their follow-up to the superb political documentary “Boys State,” the directors Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine revisit the tragic case of John Chau, a young American missionary who was killed in a quixotic attempt to convert an untouched Indigenous people, the Sentinelese, to Christianity. Much like the great Werner Herzog documentary “Grizzly Man,” which considered the death of an idealist who lived among the Alaskan bears, the film makes Chau’s arrogance and hubris plain while gaining a richer understanding of his plight — and of the missionary tradition more broadly. His failure is just an illustrative piece of a much larger story.
Watch it Disney+
‘Kiff’ (2023)
A gateway to the gentle irreverence and surrealism of animated favorites like “Adventure Time” and “Phineas and Ferb,” “Kiff” is the rare series that might appeal as much to parents as to their young children. Set on the mountainous island of Table Town — a magical place populated by a menagerie of talking animals — the show is a mismatched buddy comedy between schoolmates. Kiff (voiced by Kimiko Glenn) is an energetic, headstrong orange squirrel whose eccentric sense of initiative pings off her mellow chum Barry (full name: Barrington Augustus Buns III), a blue rabbit who’s mostly along for the ride.
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‘Up’ (2009)
The bittersweet first 11 minutes of “Up” max out the Pixar Cry-O-Meter, detailing the decades-long marriage between a pair of adventurers who longed for children and a trip to the South American idyll of Paradise Falls, but never achieved those dreams together. From there, the film follows the lovably cantankerous widower (Ed Asner) as he devises a whimsical new scheme to attach balloons to his tiny house and float to Paradise Falls, with a misfit boy (Jordan Nagai) as his unintended co-pilot. Manohla Dargis praised “the extraordinary tenderness and brilliant narrative economy” of the film’s opening section.
Watch it on Disney+
Vintage Shorts: ‘The Skeleton Dance’ (1929), ‘The Band Concert’ (1935), ‘Donald’s Nephews’ (1938)
The steady influx of classic Disney shorts is one of the quiet pleasures of the platform, especially for families looking for pre-feature fun on movie night. “The Skeleton Dance” is an eerie yet whimsical Silly Symphony that stirs up a spooky Halloween atmosphere before the skeletons turn their bones into instruments, like using their spinal cords as xylophones. “The Band Concert” has a similarly pleasing comic rhythm, as an exasperated Mickey Mouse tries to conduct a concert while Donald Duck leads his band to distraction. “Donald’s Nephews” is the first short featuring the mischievous Huey, Dewey and Louie, who enter the house on tricycles with croquet mallets and gleefully shatter every piece of glass their uncle owns.
Watch “The Skeleton Dance’’ on Disney+
Watch “The Band Concert” on Disney+
Watch “Donald’s Nephews” on Disney+
‘Cinderella’ (1950)
It’s hard to believe there was a time when the future of Disney animated features was in doubt, but the studio had withstood a decade of box-office disappointments after “Snow White and Seven Dwarves” before the swooning “Cinderella” reversed its fortunes. Drawn with the visual lushness of Walt Disney in his prime, the film became the gold standard for princess stories to come, casting Cinderella as a beauty whose dreams are rooted in the humility forced upon her by an evil stepmother and two vain, scheming stepsisters. Bosley Crowther admired the film’s “extravagant storybook terms, matching the romance of the fable with lushly romantic images.”
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‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ (2022)
It took 13 years for James Cameron to direct a sequel to “Avatar,” the highest-grossing film ever made, but his talent for world-building and science-fiction/adventure hasn’t wavered a bit in the interim. “Avatar: The Way of Water” returns to the verdant, screen-saver splendor of the planet Pandora, which is again under attack from humans (or “Sky People”) who are using militarized technology to suppress the peaceful Na’vi. Having plunged into the sea for “The Abyss,” “Titanic” and multiple documentaries, Cameron seizes the opportunity to explore Pandora’s aquatic wonders. A.O. Scott thought the younger characters gave the film “the buoyant, high-spirited sincerity of young-adult fiction.”
Watch it on Disney+
‘Spider-Man 2’ (2004)
The 21st century already has three different Spider-Man series with Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland each squeezing into the Spidey suit. But Maguire and the director Sam Raimi’s trilogy remains the gold standard. “Spider-Man 2” stands out for the ambivalence Peter Parker feels about his double life as a broke college student and overburdened crime-fighter, and for a terrific villain in “Doc Ock” (Alfred Molina), a scientist whose experiment in an alternative energy source goes horribly awry. A.O. Scott called the film a reminder of “what vibrant, intelligent and sincere popular filmmaking looks like.”
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‘The Princess and the Frog’ (2009)
As computer animation became the dominant format at Disney and other major studios, “The Princess and the Frog” brought the company to its hand-drawn roots, evoking New Orleans of the Roaring Twenties with exceptional color and warmth. It also offered Disney’s first Black princess in Tiana (Anika Noni Rose), a waitress whose dreams of owning as restaurant are derailed by her bayou quest to help a prince break a curse that has turned him into a frog. The film’s reputation has improved over the years, buoyed by its vibrancy and jazz-infused songs, as well as the aspirations of a heroine who wants to be more than royalty.
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‘Andor’ (2022)
Carving out another small slice of the “Star Wars” universe, this prequel series takes place before the events of “Rogue One,” the 2016 stand-alone movie about the Rebel mission to swipe plans for the Death Star. The show’s creator, Tony Gilroy, who co-wrote “Rogue One,” brings back Diego Luna as the thief turned spy Cassian Andor and follows his journey from cynicism to fierce resistance as the Alliance forms to beat back the Galactic Empire. By far the most compelling spinoff series since “The Mandalorian,” “Andor” succeeds, according to our critic Mike Hale, because its makers “like a lot of things better than they like “Star Wars.”
Watch it on Disney+
‘West Side Story’ (2021)
It took four decades for Steven Spielberg to make a musical, and “West Side Story” seems to bridge an even larger gap in time, modernizing the stage classic while reviving the dazzling spectacle and craft of a much earlier age in Hollywood. In many respects, it improves on the 1961 Best Picture winner, including Tony Kushner’s thoughtful reworking of the book and the better-developed Puerto Rican characters. Several individual performances also add shine, led by the newcomer Rachel Zegler as Maria, the tragic heroine of this gangland “Romeo & Juliet.” A.O. Scott called it “bold, surprising and new.”
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‘Summer of Soul’ (2021)
As Woodstock became a generational event in the summer of 1969, with an estimated 400,000 attendees and a feature film, the six-week Harlem Cultural Festival unfolded in Mount Morris Park to much less media fanfare. But “Summer of Soul,” from Ahmir Thompson, better known as Questlove, makes the case for its significance as a musical and political revelation. The documentary unearths stirring footage of Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Mahalia Jackson, Sly and the Family Stone and others performing at an anxious time for Black people in America. Our critic Wesley Morris called it “a mind-blowing moment of American history.”
Watch it on Disney+
‘Bluey’ (2018-present)
For parents of very young children, “tolerable” tends to be the low bar that shows have to clear. But this delightful Australian cartoon about a family of dogs living in Brisbane appeals to all ages with its imaginative playtime scenarios and its genuinely clever and sweet observations about domestic life. The episodes are a digestible seven minutes long, enough time for low-key vignettes about, say, a chaotic wait for a takeout order or about when Bluey, the oldest child, dreams of being a fruit bat. In an NYT Parenting column on favorite TV shows for kids, “Bluey” was “by far the most popular reader submission.”
Watch it on Disney+
‘Encanto’ (2021)
Living in the impossible lushness of a Colombian paradise, the Madrigals are a family in which everyone has magical talents, like super-strength, healing powers and the ability to communicate with animals. “Encanto” focuses on the one Madrigal without any special gifts and her touching quest to figure out what role she has in the family dynamic. With songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda that cover a wide emotional spectrum, this whimsical and heartfelt film is also a feast for the eyes. Our critic Maya Phillips calls the computer animation “some of the best from any major studio in the last several years.”
Watch it on Disney+
‘Isle of Dogs’ (2018)
Wes Anderson’s second attempt at stop-motion animation, after 2009’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” applies the same meticulousness to an original entertainment that uses whimsy and adventure to mask dark themes about a future teetering on the brink of authoritarianism. With a “canine flu” epidemic gripping Japan, its demagogue leader sends the nation’s dogs to quarantine on a garbage island, underestimating their frisky resilience and camaraderie. Manohla Dargis called these droll pups “surprising, touching and thoroughly delightful company.”
Watch it on Disney+
‘The Mandalorian’ (2019-present)
Although “The Mandalorian” takes place between the events of “Return of the Jedi” and “The Force Awakens,” this thrilling sci-fi-adventure series makes a virtue of simplicity, casting off the dense mythology that has burdened the “Star Wars” brand. Most of the blessedly short episodes are about a Clint Eastwood-like bounty hunter (Pedro Pascal) and his precious charge — popularly known as Baby Yoda but officially known as the Child — who square off against various galactic beasts and cutthroats. Mike Hale called it “well paced and reasonably clever, with enough style and visual panache to keep your eyes engaged.”
Watch it on Disney+
‘The Simpsons’ (1989-present)
Let’s face it: Of the 34 (and counting) seasons of “The Simpsons,” only about the first nine are truly great. But that impressive run had such a cultural impact that quotes from and references to it have become a linguistic shorthand. The creator Matt Groening and his animators conceived the Simpsons and the town of Springfield as an endlessly elastic source of colorful characters and sharp jibes about American families, institutions and values. Our critic called its animation “ingenious” and its scripts “consistently inventive.”
Watch it on Disney+
‘Queen of Katwe’ (2016)
Disney live-action films don’t exactly have a tradition of gritty realism, but with “Queen of Katwe,” the director Mira Nair scrapes some of the gloss off the rousing true story of a Ugandan girl whose prodigious gifts as a chess player allow her to see the world beyond a Kampala slum. By taking the time to detail the day-to-day struggles of a desperately poor family, Nair adds power to the girl’s efforts to maneuver around the board. If “Hoosiers” made you cry, predicted A.O. Scott, “‘Queen of Katwe’ will wreck you.”
Watch it on Disney+
‘Gravity Falls’ (2012-16)
Crossing the leisure-time sibling dynamic of “Phineas and Ferb” with a much smarter version of the comic mysteries of “Scooby Doo,” this lively and sweet animated series is about Dipper and Mabel Pines, 12-year-old twins who are shipped away to the middle of Oregon to live with their crazy “Grunkle” Stan. Stan runs a beaten-down tourist trap called the “Mystery Shack,” which becomes the nexus of supernatural happenings. Voiced by Jason Ritter and Kristen Schaal, the twins have a winning banter that’s underscored by real affection.
Watch it on Disney+
‘The Muppet Show’ (1976-1981)
Four decades after it went off the air, Jim Henson’s “The Muppet Show” might seem alienating to younger generations, who will not only scratch their heads over the dated pop culture references but might also be unfamiliar with the variety-show format. Yet Henson’s beloved creatures have stood the test of time, and there’s no better showcase for them than this delightful patchwork of sketches, musical numbers and silly interstitials. “The Muppet Show” has been difficult to access over the years — this collection offers all but two of the original 120 episodes, many of which were unavailable on DVD — so this is a great chance to sample classic moments or skip ahead to favorite characters.
Watch it on Disney+
‘Schoolhouse Rock!’ (1973-2009)
Saturday morning cartoons were always short on educational opportunities for children, but ABC decided to do a public good by producing “Schoolhouse Rock!,” a series of three-minute animated interstitials that proved to be surprisingly sticky mnemonic devices. Disney+ doesn’t have the complete run of episodes — it has 51 of the 64, the vast majority made in the mid-1970s — but it has all the classics, including the call-and-response of “Conjunction Junction,” the heart-rending multiplication song “Figure Eight” and “I’m Just a Bill,” a civics lessons that was parodied on the “Simpsons” episode “The Day the Violence Died,” which is also available on the service.
Watch it on Disney+
‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ (1937)
The first full-length animated feature remains a treasure and an institutional touchstone, establishing the outsized clashes between good and evil, the comical interludes and the lush house style that would endure as Disney hallmarks for decades. A princess’s beauty, a queen’s vanity, a magic mirror, a poisoned apple and a cottage full of diminutive miners are among the classic elements plucked from the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale. Our critic called it “sheer fantasy, delightful, gay and altogether captivating.”
Watch it on Disney+
‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ (2017)
The most divisive “Star Wars” movie is also one of the boldest and best, defying the orthodoxy of the Jedi traditionalists in order to embrace a more operatic vision of the overmatched Resistance doing battle against the First Order. It starts with the shock of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) casually tossing a light saber off a cliff and keeps the heresies flowing from there, all in an effort to heighten the emotional stakes for the battles to come. Manohla Dargis called it “a satisfying, at times transporting entertainment.”
Watch it on Disney+
‘Hidden Figures’ (2016)
Tucked away in a segregated building at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., in the early 1960s, Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) joins her Black colleagues as a “human computer” until her computational brilliance becomes too valuable for NASA to deny. The irresistible history lesson “Hidden Figures” follows Johnson and two other Black mathematicians as they break down barriers at a crucial time for the space program. A.O. Scott called it “a well-told tale with a clear moral and a satisfying emotional payoff.”
Watch it on Disney +
‘Moana’ (2016)
Disney has spent decades laboring over the creation of more strong-willed heroines, but few have embarked on a mission as consequential as Moana, who travels the seas to save her Polynesian village from environmental ruin. Her adventures are rendered in pleasingly lush ocean blues, and Dwayne Johnson has a fun role as the egotistic demigod Maui. But the true star of “Moana” is the songs, which range from the soaring (“How Far I’ll Go”) to the silly (“You’re Welcome”) to the Bowie-esque (“Shiny”). A.O. Scott wrote that they “anchor the film’s cheery globalism in a specific South Pacific milieu.”
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‘Mary Poppins’ (1964)
In this boisterous musical, Julie Andrews descends from the sky to bring discipline and magic to two spoiled English schoolchildren — and she did the same for a studio that had struggled to make live-action fare on par with its animated classics. With a twinkle in her eye, Andrews’s nanny leads the children through chores with “A Spoonful of Sugar” and more whimsical numbers like “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and “Feed the Birds.” Citing the legacy of P.L. Travers’s original novel, our critic praised it as “a most wonderful, cheering movie.
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‘WALL-E’ (2008)
The first third of “WALL-E” is a high-water mark for Pixar, quietly and wondrously detailing the solitary life of the only trash-compacting robot left on an uninhabitable future Earth. The film doesn’t drop off much, either, when the robot befriends a sleeker android sent to the planet to search for signs of life — and perhaps hope for surviving humans to return home. “We’ve grown accustomed to expecting surprises from Pixar,” wrote A.O. Scott, “but ‘WALL-E’ surely breaks new ground.”
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‘Ratatouille’ (2007)
Riding high off a nonstop run of hits after “Toy Story,” Pixar gambled on the almost perversely unappealing premise of a Parisian rat with a passion for finessing haute cuisine. But “Ratatouille” pays off in the fast-paced slapstick of loosing a rodent in the kitchen, in its sensual appreciation for food and in its rousing message about pursuing your dreams, no matter your seeming limitations. A.O. Scott called it “a nearly flawless piece of popular art.”
Watch it on Disney+
‘The Straight Story’ (1999)
The director David Lynch shocked the film world by following the hard-R mind-melters “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” and “Lost Highway” with a G-rated, fact-based Disney film about an elderly Midwesterner (Richard Farnsworth) who travels 370 miles on a riding lawn mower to visit his ill, estranged brother. There’s plenty of Lynchian eccentricity and style, however, to his heartfelt slice of Americana, and a genuine conviction in the decency that evildoers in his other films often work to snuff out. Janet Maslin called it “a supremely improbable triumph.”
Watch it on Disney+
‘Toy Story’ (1995)
The first feature-length Pixar movie was also the first entirely computer-animated feature, representing an evolutionary leap for Disney on par with “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” The sequels would add a more emotional component, but the original “Toy Story” may be the funniest and most fast-paced, scoring jokes off the interplay and adventures of Woody, Buzz and other toys that come to life when they’re not being watched. Our critic called it “the sweetest and savviest film” of 1995.
Watch it on Disney+
‘Beauty and the Beast’ (1991)
The renaissance of Disney animation that started with “The Little Mermaid” peaked with this romance between the book-smart Belle and the tempestuous Beast, a former prince who holds her captive in his enchanted castle until the curse that turned him into a monster is broken. The technical and artistic contributions are first-rate all around, none greater than the songs by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, which include “Be Our Guest” and the title number. Our critic praised its combination of “the latest computer animation techniques with the best of Broadway.”
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‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ (1988)
Walt Disney Studios had experimented with live-action-animation hybrids for decades before “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” but it never achieved anything close to the fluidity and sophistication of Robert Zemeckis’s one-of-a-kind noir. Through the story of a hard-boiled private detective (Bob Hoskins) who helps a cartoon rabbit on a murder rap, the film pays homage to Disney and Warner Brothers animation while delivering an all-ages “Chinatown.” Its best moments, our critic wrote, “are so novel, so deliriously funny and so crazily unexpected that they truly must be seen to be believed.”
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‘The Princess Bride’ (1987)
Unpacking the mythology of countless bedtime stories, this fractured fairy tale from Rob Reiner, adapted from the novel by William Goldman, winks knowingly at the conventions of romantic adventures while paying them off all the same. At its center is a star-crossed love story between a would-be princess (Robin Wright) and a mysterious pirate (Cary Elwes), but much of the fun is at the periphery, like Mandy Patinkin’s hapless swashbuckler and Wallace Shawn’s Sicilian outlaw. Janet Maslin hailed the “delightful cast and a cheery, earnest style that turns out to be ever more disarming as the film moves along.”
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‘Bambi’ (1942)
No one can forget the trauma of watching a hunter kill a young deer’s mother. But after that notorious moment, “Bambi” is watercolor poetry, following the fawn as he learns and grows alongside his woodland friends and eventually becomes a father himself. Without spelling it out in a big production number, the film quietly teaches children about the “circle of life” in all its beauty, wonder and occasional loss. “The colors,” our critic raved, “would surprise even the spectrum itself.”
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‘Return to Oz’ (1985)
Disney would come to regret making a sequel to perhaps the greatest children’s film ever made, but Walter Murch’s “Return to Oz” has picked up a deserved cult following over the years for its half-wondrous, half-nightmarish reading of L. Frank Baum’s Oz novels. This time, Dorothy (Fairuza Balk) goes back to a far less enchanting place, with the Yellow Brick Road and the Emerald City in ruins, her old friends turned to stone and the land patrolled by people with wheels instead of hands and feet. Our critic warned that “children are sure to be startled by [its] bleakness.”
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‘Tron’ (1982)
What did the future look like in 1982? This Disney science-fiction-adventure offered one distinctive vision, although not many people flocked to see it at the time. The film has endured as a cult favorite and technological curio, however, presaging inside-the-grid scenarios like “The Matrix.” It also provides a jaundiced look at corporate-controlled tech realms, pitting a computer engineer (Jeff Bridges) against the Master Control Program in a virtual environment. Our critic Janet Maslin praised its “nonstop parade of stunning computer graphics,” even if they weren’t accompanied by more “old-fashioned virtues.”
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‘Pinocchio’ (1940)
When the Italian woodworker Geppetto wishes upon a star that his marionette Pinocchio will become a real boy, a blue fairy brings the puppet to life, but that’s only the beginning of a difficult odyssey before Geppetto’s dream comes true. Modern audiences may be shocked by how dark Pinocchio’s journey becomes, particularly when he arrives at Pleasure Island, but the beauty, horror and moral simplicity of the film are still resonant. The movie bombed on initial release, but our critic praised it as Walt Disney’s “happiest event since the war.”
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