So a couple of caveats before I go into this:
* This is based on my personal taste and how often I would willingly rewatch certain films. While I certainly find some entries far lesser than others, I like most of them and don't think any of them (except perhaps the bottom entry) to be truly "bad films"
* I have not yet seen Encanto so it is not ranked.
* Disney grandfathered in a film to market Tangled as the 50th feature. The problem is that said film is different based on country, with Dinosaur added in the US and others, and The Wild added in the UK and others. Given this confusion and the fact neither of them are truly Disney Animation Studios productions, I will not count either (I wish if they were dead-set on adding thay they had added more fondly-remembered films that people often mistake for Canon films anyway like Goofy Movie or Nightmare Before Christmas, but it is what it is)
* I plan on fully rewatching and reevaluating this list every decade or so.
I will try to give a one-two sentence summary of my thoughts for each entry. My original idea was to have pictures too, but since I'm doing this primarily on my phone, that idea was scrapped.
The Disney Animated Canon from Least to Most Favorite
58. Chicken Little
While I am quite fond of the title character and his dynamic with his female friend, every other character is both physically and spiritually ugly and difficult to watch (and it commits the cardinal sin of making Steve Zahn unfunny).
57. Saludos Amigos
I commend the concept and its pretty fair for its day, but I just find most of the segments uninteresting.
56. The Three Caballeros
Similar to above. The shorts are better, but Uncomfortably Horndog Donald brings it back down.
55. Melody Time
I generally like the musical anthologies, but there's just a bunch of "meh" ones sandwiched between the uncomfortably Christ-y Johnny Appleseed and the disturbingly down-note Pecos Bill.
54. Dumbo
When your best and most enjoyable sequence is commonly-cited nightmare fuel and your most compelling and unambiguously heroic characters are led by Jiminy Cricket doing audio blackface, you're not going to rank very high for me.
53. Winnie the Pooh 2011
Honestly this one was a bit lower before that admittedly perfect stinger. Solid attempt at the feel but a lot of the voices were too off for my taste (not bad, just off).
52. Ralph Breaks the Internet
There are a lot of really good parts and messages in this film, but it sadly drops the ball hard by completely going against the rules of the universe and messages of the original film. And that Princess sequence is an unmitigated insult against all those films, all those characters, and all the actresses - especially those they miraculously got back to reprise.
51. Fun and Fancy Free
Mickey and the Beanstalk is fun, but Bongo is kind of slow and the connecting tissue is odd.
50. Brother Bear
I do really like a lot of individual elements of this movie, I just don't think it all coalesces in the most satisfying way for me.
49. Peter Pan
If this movie were just the sequences of Hook, Smee, and the Crocodile (and I guess the Darling house too; basically whenever Hans Conreid is involved) this would easily be a Top 11 film no question. Unfortunately we have the rest of it, including but not limited to a title character I can't stand and a depiction of Native Americans that makes Pocahontas look respectful and accurate (more on that later).
48. Frozen II
It feels like the beginning of several different really interesting plots that never quite followed through in the end.
47. Bolt
It's okay. Nothing really more sticks with me one way or another, it was okay. I like the cat.
46. Fantasia 2000
Only Rhapsody in Blue and maybe The Firebird Suite really live up to the original, and the celebrity intros are a bit perplexing.
45. Home on the Range
Yeah, Rosanne's shtick gets old fast and I loathe that horse, but the rest of it is actually quite fun and I love the villain.
44. The Rescuers
The animation on Madame Medusa is exceptional, but otherwise try as I might I just can't really get invested in this one, especially compared to its sequel.
43. The Fox and the Hound
I'm usually forgiving of weird tonal shifts, but as much as I like the characters of this one the story and messages are too all-over-the-place for me to rank this higher.
42. Raya and the Last Dragon
I felt way too rushed through this world and its inhabitants to really connect with it. I feel like this needed to be a series as opposed to a single film, give everyone and everything room to breathe.
41. Lady and the Tramp
This was initially ranked higher but for some reason on immediate rewatch it soured a bit compared to what it had originally been above. Solid film, but not all of it ages well.
40. Pocahontas
The music and visuals are steller, and I love the villain and a few of the side characters. It just has the teensy problem of being the epoch of 90's Hollywood "Let's Overcorrect Our Poor Treatment of Indigenous Peoples by Portraying Them as Magical Superpeople But Also Only A Few Bad Whites Were Bad" trend, on top of some pretty bland main characters.
39. Make Mine Music
It's got a lot of heart and creative visuals. Peter and the Wolf is a classic, I just wish Willie the Whale didn't end on such a depressing note.
38. Moana
Moana's fine. It's fine.
37. Tarzan
I would like this one more if the excellent soundtrack were actually sung in-universe by the characters. Otherwise no real complaints.
36. Tangled
I really really want to love this one, and I've tried many many many times, but in the end I just can't really get into it despite recognizing the quality.
35. Meet the Robinsons
Kind of sags in the middle given how gimmicky and one-note the majority of the titular Robinsons are, but the overall story is pretty good and this film has one of the greatest underrated comic villains of the Canon
34. Pinocchio
Just a really solid movie I enjoy.
33. Lilo & Stitch
Again, a lot of individual elements are exceptionally done, just put all together I don't love it as much as I want to or feel like I should.
32. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
The Queen is great. The Dwarves are great. Snow White is just okay. The Prince is creepy.
31. Oliver and Company
Well, it ain't "Oliver!", but it's got a lot to like in it and Why Should I Worry is one of the better singles in the Canon.
30. The Black Cauldron
This film definitely feels the 10-20 minutes its infamously missing and that will always hold it back objectively and subjectively. But what IS there I sincerely like and enjoy.
29. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mister Toad
Easily the best of the Package Age, both stories are fun and engaging. The only problem is that while Sleepy Hollow works as a short, Wind in the Willows could have been expanded into a full feature.
28. 101 Dalmations
Fun, but not as fun as I remember as a kid. Sgt. Tibbs is the MVP of the film and nothing will convince me otherwise.
27. Frozen
Yeah the metacommentary ages poorly and the objectively best song in the film got overplayed to death, but it's still a pretty solid and enjoyable little movie underneath.
26. The Aristocats
I feel similarly about this as I do about Dalmations, but while Dalmations is a better film I just like cats more.
25. Bambi
I will say it really surprised me how good this movie was and how much I enjoyed it when I revisited it for this experiment.
24. Sleeping Beauty
Maleficent, 'nuff said. Also, we all agree that the three fairies are the actual protagonists of this movie, yes?
23. Treasure Planet
Easily my second favorite adaptation of Treasure Island (nobody beats The Muppets).
22. Cinderella
It just astonishes me how misinterpreted this film and its title character are. For a 50s Disney Princess movie, I find this one oddly empowering and makes future adaptations' attemps to make it moreso ring hollow.
21. The Rescuers Down Under
Might be my bias as this is the one I grew up with, but just better villain, better visuals, Bernard's a better person. I do think Cody should have been indigenous as originally planned, or at the very least had some version of an Australian accent.
20. Atlantis: The Lost Empire
A bit rushed in the middle, but otherwise a great adventure flick.
19. The Sword in the Stone
Yeah, the ending peters out and the switching between The Wart's three voices is jarring. But I love Merlin and Mim and Archemedes and all the vignettes are super fun.
18. Big Hero 6
One of the above-average Marvel movies. I kind of have a crush on Honey Lemon?
17. Zootopia
Yeah, the racial allegory falls apart if you try to plug any real-life groups into it, and having a cop as a hero in this kind of tale will always be problematic, but it does give the subject more nuance than my previous words suggest and as a kid's first look at systemic injustice you could do far, far worse.
16. Wreck-It Ralph
No it's not the "Roger Rabbit of Video Games" as advertised, but it is a neat world full of fun characters and great performances. But would it kill someone to make a full movie-accurate Sugar Rush track in a video game?!
15. Fantasia
Just beautiful music and iconic visuals from beginning to end...of Night on Bald Mountain as I always check out completely at Ave Maria and always forget it's even there in the movie until Deems Taylor introduces the finale as a double-act.
14. Mulan
I wish Reflection was longer, I wish they let BD Wong sing his own song, and I wish Shan Yu had more to do. Otherwise a rightful classic.
13. The Princess and the Frog
I wish the public had been kinder to this movie on release so that the traditional animation department hadn't shut down. Seriously, this one is a blast, what's wrong with people?
12. Robin Hood
Despite containing the most egrigious examples of recycled animation in the history of the Canon, this version of the legend is so fun and charming you can't help but forgive it.
11. Alice in Wonderland
I can definitely see why someone might be a bit put off by this one, but its proto-psychedelic nonsense is right up my alley.
10. The Lion King
The Hyenas did nothing wrong except allow a charismatic leader to trick them into doing his dirty work in exchange for the rights they always deserved. Also the first act is miles better than the second and third.
9. The Jungle Book
My first memory of a movie theatre was seeing a rerelease of this one, and I've never stopped loving the characters.
8. The Little Mermaid
Okay I may have a crush on Ariel too and before you judge me I was her age when I developed it. Oh, and it's also a masterful production with iconic music and an even more iconic villain, I guess.
7. Hercules
Gerald Scarfe's fantastic designs, the best female lead that's not herself a protagonist, and the one unambiguously good thing James Woods has ever done with his life make just a great movie to watch.
6. Aladdin
Robin Williams, 'nuff said. Okay to be fair Jafar is amazing too.
5. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
Just sealed warm feelings in a can, and so meta in an artful way.
4. The Emperor's New Groove
Robin Williams called Aladdin a "Looney Tunes Cartoon in Disney Drag", but I find that describes this film far better and I love it all the more for it.
3. The Great Mouse Detective
Vincent Price is having the time of his life and so should you. Arguably one of the best Sherlock Holmes adaptations and it's not even about specifically him.
2. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
I don't care if there's some not-perfectly-executed tonal whiplash, it has the best score of any film in the Canon and I vastly prefer this ending.
1. Beauty and the Beast
Every time I sit down to watch this I say "this can't possibly be as perfect as I remember" and every time it absolutely is. I can't find a single meaningful fault in it, every part of it is insanely beautiful in my soul.
We have one more of these to go this year. Stay tuned!
Huh, by some coincidence I also did a Disney marathon during quarantine with my mom, though we ended up stalling out after Hunchback. I won't bore you with my entire list, suffice to say I tended to rank highly based on the quality of the animation itself, so the Golden Age and Renaissance films tended to rank extremely highly while the 70s films ranked pretty low. Sleeping Beauty and Bambi topped out my list, and I have a difficult time picking between the two of them which is my absolute favorite. Beauty and the Beast and Hunchback ranked right below those, both are just tremendous films.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't ever go so far as to say that the Bronze and Dark ages are in any way bad animation quality, but I will blame absolutely no-one for finding the sketchy look that was the byproduct of xerography off-putting. I think it totally compliments Pooh but is an acquired taste at best everywhere else.
DeleteOh, I have nothing against xerography as a process--point of fact, 101 Dalmations is actually in my top 10 and I specifically adore the look of that film. But it's a style that works best when the whole aesthetic of the film is complimenting it, and on some projects they still do their traditional oil backgrounds with xerography characters and it just looks *off*.
DeleteI think more than anything my distaste for the immediate-post-Walt films has more to do with Reitherman as a director--I tend to find his shot compositions pretty weak/uninteresting and some of his preoccupations bizarre. Once he leaves the post of director my interest in the Dark Age picks up substantially--I'm quite fond of Rescuers, his last film in the chair, and Fox through Mouse I have a great deal of affection for. (not gonna lie, I find Oliver & Co. extremely grating, but I understand why people are often fond of it: there's a lot to like and "Why Should I Worry" slaps).
I just realized this made it sound like I was slagging off Pooh--it's a tremendous film, ofc, I just often forget to group it in the Dark Age because the majority of it was produced much earlier. In many ways it's functionally a Silver Age film that just happened to get released in the Dark Age.
DeleteExcept by most standards, the Silver Age ends with Sleeping Beauty in 59, and the first Pooh short was in 66.
DeleteThere is some contention as to the different eras and what to name what, but I'm in agreement with the majority that Golden Age = Snow White-Bambi, Package Age = Saludos Amigos - Ichabod & Mr. Toad, and Silver Age = Cinderella - Sleeping Beauty (and obviously Mermaid - Tarzan = Renaissance).
Otherwise...
* I split the difference between "Bronze or Dark" by saying Bronze Age = Dalmations - Jungle Book and Dark = Aristocats - Oliver using Walt's death to separate (though if you wanted to split when his original concepts were exhausted I would accept Bronze = Dalmations - Pooh and Dark = Rescuers - Oliver, since 1. Aristocats was greenlit by Walt, 2. Robin Hood was heavily based on Walt's abandoned Reinard project, and 3. As you said, 2/3 of Pooh was produced in Walt's lifetime)
* I'm in the camp that says Princess and the Frog begins the Revival Age (Frog - Frozen II) rather than ending the Experimental Age (Fantasia 2000 - Bolt).
* I also feel strongly that Raya in not a Revival film and in fact begins a new Age, though what we call it and how long it lasts remains to be seen.
I have no other contentions to your point. It doesn't bother me, but I can totally see why it would bother others.
DeleteYeah, as the eras aren't an official thing there's not a consensus, but the majority I've seen omit a Bronze Age and just do Cinderella through Jungle Book as the Silver Age (a quick google of "Disney silver age" shows 1950-1967 as the era years). I tend to agree with that, because otherwise you're left with an era that's just three films long, and there's enough connecting the 50s & 60s in terms of how the company was developing that makes it a coherent era for me. Anywho, however the era is split, yeah you got the point I was making that Pooh is more of a Walt film than it is a post-Walt film.
DeleteI think Princess makes sense as the end of an era rather than the start, if only for the reality that it heralded the end of hand-drawn films for the studio. It feels to me more like a Great Mouse or Oliver that presages the coming era rather than starting it outright--but then I also know people that consider Mouse the first Renaissance film, so I guess some fudging of the borders is inevitable.
I just can't put xerography in Silver Age because it's SUCH a marked difference in style, although the character design philosophy sort of evolved from Sleeping Beauty.
DeleteI think that's definitely fair--I'd be interested to see an alternate division of Disney eras based on the animation processes. So 101 through Fox & Hound is the xerography era, Black Cauldron through Little Mermaid is the APT era, Rescuers Down Under starts the CAPS era, etc. There's certainly elements that make that a more interesting way to divide eras instead of the current system's "major event happens and/or one film suddenly makes bank"
DeleteI feel like it's already kind of that way. I mean, going from the lushness of Bambi to the relative cheapness of the Package Age is inspired by a big event but it was a different design philosophy. As is Cinderella kicking off the Silver Age by being a return to form after the Package Age, Xerography in Dalmations as a cost and time-saving measure kicking off a new look and modern style that would evolve slightly but still retain that look and philosophy through Oliver, Howard Ashman coming in and transforming Little Mermaid into the Gold/Silver Age Meets Broadway that defined the Renaissance until by Tarzan a lot of folks were kind of sick of it so the Experimental Age is a response of trying ANYTHING else until Frog and Tangled again Revive the old sensibilities with a 2010s twist bringing the best of what they learned from the past 20 years, but by the end of that decade the fact that Disney has become too corporate for its own good (which let's be clear has been the case behind the scenes for a long time) started bleeding too much into the art which is why Internet and FrozenII feel so rushed off compared to their recent predecessors, and now Raya feels like its evolving into something kind of new and attempting to build on what they started a decade ago.
DeleteI'm meaning more the technical processes--how the animation was materially crafted in making the films. Because going from hand-inking each frame to xerography to APT to CAPS to CGI fundamentally changed what sorts of films were being made and produced, so thinking about the eras in that respect makes for some interesting analysis.
Delete