Best Disney movies of all time: the ultimate ranking

Ranking the best Disney movies is like choosing your favourite child: technically you can't, but deep down we all have one. We've had almost a century of animation, technological revolutions, songs that stick in your head for weeks, and villains scarier than your mortgage. So let's give it a try.

This ranking mixes 1930s classics, the 90s Renaissance, the Pixar revolution, and modern gems. It's not a box-office or awards ranking — it's a ranking of movies that matter, with behind-the-scenes facts you probably didn't know.

The classics that started it all (1937-1967)

1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

The film that nearly bankrupted Walt Disney. Hollywood called it "Disney's Folly" during production because nobody believed audiences would sit through 83 minutes of cartoons. The budget ballooned from $250,000 to $1.5 million — a staggering sum back then. The result: the highest-grossing film of 1938 and proof that animation could tell real stories.

Fun fact: animators used rotoscoping (drawing over live footage) for Snow White, but the dwarfs were entirely invented because they couldn't find actors expressive enough.

2. Fantasia (1940)

Walt Disney wanted Fantasia to be an immersive experience. He invented a surround sound system called "Fantasound" — basically the Dolby Atmos of 1940. Cinemas had to install special speakers. It was an enormous commercial flop, but today it's considered one of the most ambitious works in cinema history.

3. The Jungle Book (1967)

The last film personally supervised by Walt Disney, who died during production. Walt scrapped the first script for being too dark and faithful to Kipling's book, and asked them to make it fun. Phil Harris, the voice of Baloo, improvised much of his dialogue. "The Bare Necessities" was composed in a single afternoon.

The Disney Renaissance (1989-1999)

4. The Little Mermaid (1989)

The film that saved Disney from creative bankruptcy. After a decade of flops, The Little Mermaid proved that the animated musical could work in the 80s. Howard Ashman and Alan Menken wrote the songs in just a few weeks. "Under the Sea" was recorded with a 40-piece orchestra in a single session.

Fun fact: Ursula was inspired by the drag queen Divine. Animators studied her performances to capture that mix of glamour and menace.

5. Beauty and the Beast (1991)

The first animated film nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars (when there were only 5 nominees, not 10). The ballroom scene used pioneering CGI technology — Disney created a 3D environment and overlaid the 2D characters on top. Seems normal now, but in 1991 it was pure magic.

6. Aladdin (1992)

Robin Williams recorded 16 hours of improvisation as the Genie. Animators received so much material they could create entirely new scenes from his voice alone. Disney promised not to use his image for merchandising — a promise they broke almost immediately, which led Williams to refuse the sequel.

7. The Lion King (1994)

Disney's "B-team" made this. While the best animators worked on Pocahontas (which Disney thought would be the big hit), the junior team was assigned "the lion project." The result: the highest-grossing animated film in history at that point and an Elton John/Hans Zimmer soundtrack that still gives you goosebumps.

Fun fact: the wildebeest stampede took three years to animate. Each wildebeest was individually programmed with software created specifically for that scene.

8. Mulan (1998)

Disney sent a team of artists and writers to China for three weeks to document landscapes, architecture, and culture. The avalanche scene was one of the first to combine 2D character animation with massive computer-generated effects. And "I'll Make a Man Out of You" remains an anthem for anyone who's survived an impossible training session.

9. Hercules (1997)

Possibly the most underrated Disney film. Director Ron Clements wanted to make a superhero movie parody with Greek vase aesthetics. The Muses were inspired by 60s gospel and Motown groups. James Woods improvised so much as Hades that animators had to redraw entire scenes to match his mouth movements.

The Pixar revolution (1995-2015)

10. Toy Story (1995)

The first fully computer-animated feature film. Steve Jobs, who had bought Pixar from George Lucas for $10 million, nearly sold it before the premiere because he didn't believe in the project. Disney rejected the first script because Woody was a tyrant — he literally threw other toys out the window. John Lasseter had to rewrite it entirely over a weekend.

11. Finding Nemo (2003)

The Pixar team took scuba diving courses, studied marine biology with experts from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, and set up aquariums in their offices to observe how fish move. The result: water so realistic it looked filmed. After the premiere, demand for clownfish surged 40% — the exact opposite of the film's message.

12. The Incredibles (2004)

Brad Bird wrote it while feeling frustrated at Warner Bros., where he felt creatively stifled. He channelled all that frustration into a film about a superhero forced to hide his talents. Animating Violet's hair required creating entirely new software — each strand had its own physics.

13. Coco (2017)

Pixar spent six years researching Mexican Día de los Muertos culture. The team travelled to Oaxaca, Michoacán, and Mexico City, consulted with Mexican families, and hired cultural advisors. When a group of Mexican families watched an early screening and cried with emotion, the team knew they'd got it right. It won the Oscar and is the highest-grossing film in Mexican history.

Fun fact: Disney tried to trademark "Día de los Muertos" in the US. The backlash was so fierce they withdrew the application within 48 hours.

14. Inside Out (2015)

Director Pete Docter consulted with psychologists from Berkeley and Yale for two years to make the emotions work scientifically. The original concept had 27 emotions — they trimmed it to 5 because more characters made the plot unmanageable. The Bing Bong scene made the Pixar team themselves cry during production.

The modern era (2010-today)

15. Tangled (2010)

The most expensive animated film ever at the time: $260 million. Disney had spent over a decade trying to adapt Rapunzel. The protagonist's hair is 70 feet (21 metres) long and each frame required simulating the physics of 100,000 individual strands.

16. Frozen (2013)

Disney tried to adapt Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen" since the 1940s — over 70 years of failed attempts. The problem was always the same: the Snow Queen was the villain, and they couldn't find a way to make her interesting. Everything changed when the Lopez siblings composed "Let It Go" and the team decided Elsa wasn't the villain but the protagonist. They rewrote the entire film around that single song.

Fun fact: "Let It Go" was translated into 41 languages for the worldwide premiere. The Spanish version ("Suéltalo") was recorded in a single day.

17. Moana (2016)

Disney created an "Oceanic Story Trust" — a council of anthropologists, historians, and Polynesian navigators — to ensure respectful cultural representation. The team learned traditional Polynesian navigation, and animators studied Pacific waves for months. Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the songs right after finishing Hamilton, and you can feel the energy.

18. Encanto (2021)

The first Disney film set in Colombia. Lin-Manuel Miranda composed 8 songs, of which "We Don't Talk About Bruno" became the first Disney song to reach number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 since 1995. The team travelled to Colombia three times to document architecture, biodiversity, and family traditions. Each member of the Madrigal family represents a different aspect of Colombian culture.

19. Zootopia (2016)

Originally, the film followed Nick Wilde (the fox) as the protagonist and was much darker — predators wore electric collars that shocked them whenever they got emotional. Disney switched the lead to Judy Hopps mid-production because test screenings showed audiences didn't connect with such an oppressive society. It was the right call.

20. Up (2009)

The first 10 minutes of Up are considered the best narrative sequence in animation history. Pete Docter (him again) told an entire lifetime of marriage with almost no dialogue. When he showed it to the Pixar team for the first time, the entire room was crying. The studio debated whether it was "too sad" for a children's film — they decided that real emotions are exactly what children need.

Fun fact: Carl's house would need 23.5 million balloons to actually fly, according to National Geographic calculations.

How many of these films do you really know?

It's one thing to have watched these films and quite another to know what's behind each scene. Did you know the Genie in Aladdin has 16 hours of Robin Williams improvisation? That Frozen took 70 years to make? That The Lion King's stampede needed three years of animation?

If you're curious, try the Disney quiz on FilmerQuiz — with AI-generated questions that adapt to your level. You can play solo or challenge the whole family in multiplayer mode. And if you want more, the daily quiz brings a new movie every day.

The average score on our Disney quiz is 65%. Can you beat it?