Looking for the best Disney movies for a night in? Search no further! Our list includes classics, Pixar hits and more!
June 2025 update: In light of the recent success of the Lilo & Stitch live-action remake, with this update, we’ve re-evaluated the 2002 original – a fun, formula-busting tale of unlikely friendship that became a zoomer classic – and moved it up the list. Check below to see where it lands now.
On the one hand, Disney is entertainment’s evil empire, a corporate monolith seemingly hellbent on taking over the world by swallowing up every other, slightly smaller corporate monolith and valuable piece of intellectual property on the planet. On the other hand, who doesn’t hold some kind of Disney product close to their heart? The company is responsible for many of the greatest animated movies of all time, and some beloved live-action ones, too.
Hey, two things can be true at the same time. Here, we’re going to focus on the good stuff. Obviously, there’s a lot to consider, and whittling down the greatest of the greatest is daunting. But for every Disney classic that instantly makes you feel like a kid again, there are multiple direct-to-video sequels, needless remakes and cringeworthy failures. But these 50 selections, spanning from the Golden Age to the 1990s Renaissance to Pixar, are simply immortal.
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Our band of film critics named Pinocchio the best animated film of all time, but you don’t need to be a historian to see why the tale of the little wooden boy seeking to become real is the high water mark for Disney. From the puppet’s ever-growing nose to the climax within a whale, the Blue Fairy to Jiminy Cricket singing ‘when you wish upon a star,’ nearly every minute is iconic and awe-inspiring. Rated G.
The sequels sharpened the humour, upped the emotion and the sense of adventure, and improved on the CGI, but for pure joy and charm, nothing beats the original. It’s hard to believe there was a time when Woody and Buzz weren’t BFFs, but that’s the case here, as the two initially butt plastic heads before coming together to defeat the real enemy: toy-destroying problem child Sid. Rated G.
Whatever Brad Bird’s animated action-comedy lacks in deep emotionality relative to other Pixar classics it more than makes up for in creative zip. Set in a retro-futuristic 1960s, where superheroes are legally prohibited from crime-fighting, a family of ‘supers’ are forced to live a mundane suburban existence – until a villain with a long-held grudge draws them out of hiding. It’s a blast from start to finish. Rated PG.
Disney’s first animated feature completely changed the face of cinema, but even in the age of eye-popping computer animation, it remains a stunning achievement. It's also equal parts thrilling, scary, funny and whimsical. Few films hold up as well as Snow White, and decades’s worth of ho-hum remakes, reimaginations and adaptations only prove how impressive Disney's achievement really is. Like the fairytale that inspired it, this is a timeless piece of entertainment. Rated G.
Up is so much more than its famous opening montage, which will leave even the most curmudgeonly viewer drowning in tears. It's a master class in emotional storytelling. But once widower Carl's house becomes skybound, Up transitions into a rolicking adventure, one packed with exotic locales, talking (and flying!) dogs, colorful birds and one very, very dedicated boy scout. Want more once the credits roll? Disney+ also has a canine-focused series of shorts called Dug Days. Rated PG.
After taking a financial hit on Pinocchio and Fantasia the year prior, Disney decided to play it safe for its fourth feature with a simple, straightforward cartoon about an ostracised circus elephant, and still came away with a stone cold classic. The scene of young Dumbo tearfully locking trunks with his imprisoned mother will rip your heart out, while the hallucinatory ‘Pink Elephants on Parade’ sequence will make you wonder what the animators were getting into in their off-hours. Rated G.
Arguably the apex of Pixar’s imperial era, this near-wordless environmentalist parable pushed the boundaries of what animated storytelling can accomplish. Left alone on Earth to clean up humanity’s mess, the titular sentient trash compactor wiles away the centuries crushing garbage into cubes and watching old Hollywood musicals, until the arrival of an Alexa-like droid gets his gears grinding in unexpected ways. Rated PG.