The 54 Best Movies On Disney Plus To Watch Right Now

With its killer Kendrick Lamar soundtrack, eye-popping Afrofuturist world and some stupidly charismatic performances, ‘Black Panther’ is sleek, fast-moving and tons of fun. We walked away wanting to see Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong’o, and Londoners Letitia Wright and Daniel Kaluuya in another superhero movie as soon as possible – which thanks to the epic Wakandan bits of ‘Avengers: Infinity War’, we shortly did.

The rare remake that outdoes the original in just about every facet, Steven Spielberg’s take on the beloved 1963 musical about star-crossed lovers in 1950s New York practically bursts off the screen – and those great Leonard Bernstein tunes prove ageless.

Disney’s second animated movie opens with a sweetly singing cricket before plunging into scenes from a nightmare: Pinocchio’s extending schnozz is animation’s most sinister and profound metaphor. Containing a universe of anxiety and wonder, this movie does ‘timeless’ like very little else. Time Out once called it ‘the high point of Disney’s invention’.

The first and still the best of Marvel’s superhero team-up adventures, ‘The Avengers’ brought together the heroes of three existing franchises - Thor, Captain America and Iron Man - chucked in a few fan favourites like Black Widow and Hulk for good measure, and set them all on the trail of the series’ best villain, Tom Hiddleston’s smirking Loki. Sharply scripted and epic in scope, it’s an overstuffed pinata full of delights.

The film that revolutionised animation, proving for the first time that an entire film could be created in a computer provided you continued to give audiences what they really wanted: great characters, smart jokes, and a little dash of soul. The emotional combat between outdated cowboy Woody and new-fangled space captain Buzz Lightyear is something we can all relate to, from the playground to the old folks’ home.

Pixar has built an empire on the tears its films jerk out of both kids and adults alike, but nothing cranks the waterworks quite like this supernatural folk tale. Young Miguel is an aspiring guitarist, despite the fact that his family has long forbidden any of its children from playing music – and when he accidentally transports himself to the Land of the Dead, he discovers why. 

A high school-set update of William Shakespeare’s ‘The Taming of the Shrew’, this lovely teen romance is not only considerably better than its ropey source material, but also contains as brilliant a moment of anti-romance as you’re likely to find anywhere. A young (and very lovely) Heath Ledger plays Patrick, the local ‘bad boy’ tasked with dating Julia Stiles’ unimpressed Kat in order to pass a  dating rule set by Kat’s dad. Truly a movie that punches above its teen rom-com label weight. 

‘Hamlet’ gets reimagined in the animal kingdom in one of Disney’s most revered and well known animated movies. Still the highest grossing traditionally animated film of all time, this story about a young lion cast out of his pride by his evil uncle only to rightly reclaim his place as the leader of the land might well be the perfect film. It has everything: inventive animation, a heart wrenching story, two extremely memorable sidekicks and songs written by Elton John and Tim Rice. It’s so good that Disney made it twice. 

It’s famous for that ‘spaghetti kiss’ – a legendary scene that Walt Disney almost cut. But ‘Lady and the Tramp’ has many other charming moments: the script evolved out of years of personal pet stories shared by the studio's animal-loving writers and executives. Lady is a pampered pooch whose life of luxury is interrupted by the arrival of a new baby, followed by two Siamese cats. Luckily for Lady, the world has some love in store for her.

Is this the best Charles Dickens adaptation of all time? Probably. You didn’t know you needed to see the story of Scrooge and the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future but with muppets until you’ve seen a slightly bemused Michael Caine surrounded by puppets. That they made Gonzo play Dickens himself was an inspired move. 

Witty and charming, sunnily confident and filled with cockle-warming innocence, ‘Beauty and the Beast’ harks back to the Disney glory days. But it also took the studio to a new level – becoming the first animated film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. What works? The emotional heart of the story plus a soaring, Broadway-on-steroids score. Not to mention the adorable talking objects in the castle. 

Mei Lee is a headstrong 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian girl living in Toronto who discovers that her experience with teenage emotions comes with an odd familial quirk: whenever she feels a particularly strong feeling, she turns into a giant red panda. Hey, it could be worse – those things are pretty cute.

This ain’t the Chip and Dale you remember watching after getting home from elementary school in the ‘90s. Well, technically it is, but director Akiva Schaffer of the Lonely Island crew takes a Who Framed Roger Rabbit approach to rebooting the chipmunk detectives as cartoon actors from a once-popular TV show living among flesh-and-blood humans in LA. Nostalgic millennials will guffaw at the zippy dialogue and pop-culture crossovers – just be prepared to explain half the jokes to your confused children. 

Imagine ‘LA Confidential’ with a cast of talking animals and you’ve got a basic grasp of this inventive, witty and unexpectedly disturbing modern Disney classic. All her friends laugh when fluffy bunny Judy announces her intention to join the Zootopia police force, but she’s soon hot on the trail of corruption, crime and carnivorous murder, proving that you should never under estimate your cute-looking chums.

Bringing back the time-honoured traditions of stop-motion animation was a bold move back in 1993, but writer-producer Tim Burton and director Henry Selick’s story of a pumpkin-headed outsider who longs to experience the wonders of Christmas was a huge hit with audiences, and remains a festive family favourite. It can feel a little overcooked - all the usual ooky-kooky-spooky Burton-isms are present and correct - but there’s tons to enjoy here.

The film that started it all – not just the most lucrative franchise in film history, but the entire culture of the summer blockbuster. And ‘Star Wars’ is still a giddy, wide-eyed wonder: working on a budget that would barely cover biscuits on the more recent instalments, George Lucas and his team built an entire universe out of spare parts and model kits, reinventing the art of visual effects pretty much from scratch.

Sweet, scary (the woodcutter scene is nightmare fuel for tiny minds) and full of hummable ditties (‘Whistle While You Work’), ‘Snow White’ is Disney’s first animated feature – and one of its most enduring. It’s impressively true to the spirit of the Grimm brothers’s tale om which it’s based, albeit with more adorable wildlife. One question: what did the dwarfs do with all those uncut gems?

Directed by a childhood uber-fan of the franchise, Gareth Edwards’s prequel (the action’s set sometime before the first ‘Star Wars’ film) is a punchy standalone action tale about a spunky resistance group within the Rebel Alliance. Okay, it’s a little baffling in parts, but it can’t be faulted for its energy levels or commitment to being constantly fun. It also explains how Princess Leia ends up with the plans for the Death Star in the 1977 movie, and fleshes out the rebels with compelling individual backstories. 

In this indeed-soulful Pixar entry, Jamie Foxx voices Joe, a music teacher who never achieved his dream of becoming a popular jazz musician. When an onstage accident leaves him stranded in a realm between life and death, he must fight to reconnect his soul and body, and learn valuable lessons along the way.

Like a juggernaut gathering speed, the MCU was changing into a higher gear by the time this beefy superhero crossover arrived. It all gets a bit political at this point in the story, as Cap (Chris Evans) and Tony (Robert Downey Jr) fall out in epic style and super-hitman Bucky Barnes falls under HYDRA's foul spell. But even if office politics bores you, the spectacle is off the chain here as it all builds towards that mighty airport showdown. Oh, and you get to say hello to Tom Holland’s Spidey, too.

A group of intergalactic outlaws zip from planet to planet exchanging hilarious put-downs and narrowly avoiding a variety of unfortunate fates, all of them in the ‘worse than death’ bracket. One of them is the annoying kid on the playground who wants everyone to think he’s cool? Sure. Another is a ‘muscle-bound whack job’ with rage issues? Okaaay. Another one is a tree. Huh?! It must have sounded mad on paper. On screen, it’s awesome. 

Luca is a young boy spending an exciting summer in the Italian Riviera, riding scooters, eating heaps of gelato and running around town with a rambunctious new friend named Alberto. All the while, he lives in fear of his pal discovering his secret: he’s actually a sea monster. Consider it a gender-swapped, coming-of-age take on The Little Mermaid, with wondrous CGI and a Miyazaki-ish feel. 

From its sleazy humour (‘Is that a rabbit in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?’) to its labyrinthine, ‘Chinatown’-like plot, from its use of obscure, pre-war cartoon figures to the wonderfully bizarre casting of leading man Bob Hoskins, Robert Zemeckis’s live action / animation hybrid absolutely refuses to underestimate its audience, and is all the more brilliant for it. A magnificent one-off.

Years before ‘Shrek’, Eddie Murphy voiced another irascible non-human sidekick – the dragon Mushu in Disney’s adaptation of a classic Chinese legend. ‘Mulan’ is based on a piece of ancient Chinese folklore and sees the heroine disguise herself as a soldier in order to protect her father from being conscripted into the Imperial army. It also means she gets to have a bit more fun than she would otherwise have had staying at home and getting married. Contains the neatest haircut-with-a-sword in cinematic history.  

For our money, ‘The Muppet Movie’ is Jim Henson’s ‘Citizen Kane’. Look at the parallels: both star Orson Welles in some form of tycoon role; both feature tempestuous romances; both made a splash at the Oscars; both investigate what it means to be American and/or a frog. The swinger? Kermit has the monopoly on awesome cameos (Telly Savalas! Madeline Kahn! Steve Martin!) and at no point does Charles Foster Kane sing ‘Rainbow Connection’.

When public opinion of superheroes shifts following the backlash to the collateral damage caused by their crime-fighting ways, heroes are sent into hiding and given new identities. Can superheroes acclimatise to life as a normy?  And what about when they have kids? This is the premise for ‘The Incredibles’, and it’s one that works quite fabulously. 

Robin Willams playing the role of an estranged father who dons prosthetics to transform himself into a Scottish-accented female nanny so he can continue to see his kids, sounds like the stuff of nightmares (and perhaps a lengthy lawsuit). Thankfully, director Chris Columbus delivers a film brimming with pathos, humour and enough sentimentality that any sinister whiffs are easily sugar coated over. 

Proof that, yes, it’s okay to be sad sometimes, this Pixar animation takes us quite literally inside the mind of 11-year-old Riley. It’s here that we’re introduced to Joy, Anger, Sadness, Fear and Disgust, who control Riley’s life and actions via a computer-like control centre in her brain. It might not necessarily sound accessible, especially for a film aimed at kids, but ‘Inside Out’ deftly and miraculously turns the human psyche into a colourful adventure playground in a way that’s insightful and moving yet always playful too.

Not exactly a hidden gem (it made $853m at the box office) but always worth considering when tossing up which of the service’s monster Marvel movies to kick off with. With its hilarious revolution-fomenting rock monster – part Che Guevara, part geography field trip – buddy-comedy-meet-’Gladiator’ action, and Jeff Goldblum as a kind of intergalactic Peter Stringfellow, ‘Thor Ragnarok’ is escapist fun at its purist.

Without a doubt, ‘Empire’ is the best ‘Star Wars’ film (although narrowly followed by ‘Rogue One’). What started a fairly simple space opera take on Campbell’s hero journey was blown apart like the exploding Death Star. Simmering with tension, our heroes separated and given their own sense of agency and with one hell of a final act, the force is strong with this one.

It’s this John Hughes classic that (briefly) made adorable moppet Macaulay Culkin a star. Sure it might not be one you’ll be queuing immediately to watch, but when Christmas time hits, the film’s festive sentimental streak shines through, even if Culkin’s character, Kevin, doesn’t seem all that upset that his Paris-bound family have accidentally left him behind for the holidays. He’s lucky it wasn’t ‘GoodFellas’ Joe Pesci who turns up to rob his house.

Superhero sequels have a habit of being a cut above their predecessor (see also ‘Superman 2’, ‘Spider-Man 2’, ‘The Dark Knight’). And while the first X-Men movie is perfectly serviceable, this second instalment is superior in every way. It’s got more memorable supporting characters, like Alan Cumming’s slippery Nightcrawler. It’s got pacier action sequences, like the attack on Professor Xavier’s Academy. And it’s got a fantastic villain, in the form of Brian Cox’s sadistic Colonel Stryker.

Stories of plucky princesses realising their potential aren’t exactly new. But what makes ‘Moana’ soar is its total commitment to feminist principles, witty script and strong tunes, and most of all Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson as demi-god Maui. He’s the kind of muscular, self-involved but well-meaning doofus that Disney animations do so well.

It was a double whammy for Julie Andrews who in 1965, fresh from playing ‘Mary Poppins‘, went from one singing child care gig to another. This time, though, the magic didn’t come from a bag or an overly familiar chimney sweep, but from the Austrian mountains, a knack for evading Nazis and the songbook of Rodgers and Hammerstein. 

There’s just something about Mary. From that first moment she descended from the clouds, carpet bag in hand, the mouse house’s take on P. L. Travers’s magical nanny has charmed and delighted us. The blend of live-action and old school animation is charming (those dancing penguins!), the songs are still brilliant and Julie Andrews is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. No wonder it was nominated for a whopping 13 Academy Awards. It’s Disney’s finest live-action film. 

It all started here. The sprawling multimedia soap opera that is the Marvel movie series now dominates our summer viewing and end-of-year box office charts. As a statement of intent, ‘Iron Man’ is pretty near unbeatable. Here, fully formed, is the template for all future Marvel movies: wisecracking heroes, world-threatening villains, explosive action sequences, throwaway gags and just a hint of a social conscience (the movie could probably have lent in harder on the weapons-industry-is-bad subtext, but we’ll let it go).

At night in an empty arcade, Donkey Kong-ish video game villain Ralph (John C Reilly, inspired) wants a career change badly. As the anti-hero of ‘Fix-IT Felix Jr.’, Ralph has to contend with being excluded from everything - even the game’s thirtieth anniversary party. While loaded with eight-bit nostalgia, ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ somehow feels fresh: a sincere tale of finding your own identity. 

There’s a whole world underwater, but ‘Finding Nemo’ is way more than a film about fish. Sure, the clownfish are cute, the turtles totally rad and Dory the forgetful fish, voiced by a surprisingly good Ellen DeGeneres, will make even the stoniest of folks laugh. But this smart film is really about the lengths a parent will go to save their child. The results are the warmest, most universal of all the Pixar home-run hitters. 

Can a naive, ambitious rat, the baby-eyed Remy (charmingly voiced by Patton Oswalt), long inspired by his reading of a famous French chef’s recipe book, realise his dream to become a chef? Disney Pixar seems to think that yes, he can (health and safety standards be damned). Thankfully, ‘Ratatouille’ is also a film filled with sympathy, detail, intelligence and a lack of pretension that you won’t mind that a rat made all those computer animated people food. 

While finishing up Mickey Mouse short ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ (based on a Goethe poem – who said Disney couldn’t do highbrow?), Walt Disney decided to add similar classical-music-scored vignettes and make some movie-length out of. Lo,  ‘Fantasia’ was born. Silly and sublime, in which a hippo and an alligator do ballet, a mop does the houseworld and even the devil turns up, it’s one of the studio’s best. And it might well have been your first intro into the classy world of classical music when you were a kid. 

This magical comedy-fantasy kickstarted a whole new era of animation. The cave of wonders sequence saw a major Disney feature employing computer animation for the first time, while the appearance of Robin Williams was a landmark in the use of celebrity voices. Most importantly, the film’s success proved that people were again ready to hand over their cash to a cartoon spectacular – especially when the tunes were as catchy as they are here.

One of the cuddliest mad scientist movies ever made, this basic but likeable family comedy sees physicist and father Rick Moranis accidentally shrinking his adorable moppets - hey, it’s all there in the title - and panicking when they get lost in their suddenly vast and danger-filled suburban house. The giant ants and oversized household appliances may look a little creaky, but the film has enough old-school charm to keep you watching.

A veritably Disney classic, ‘The Little Mermaid’ uses a tried and true formula (Hans Christian Andersen fairytale given a funky, modern update) and delivers it with pizzazz. Princess Ariel made everyone watching want bright red hair and a fish for a best mate, while the husky-voiced Ursula remains a quintessential Disney villain (Cruella de Vil is her evil-sister-in-arms). Oh, and the songs are so catchy it’s necessary not to Google them if you plan on getting any work done for the rest of the day. 

It could have been so cutesy, so saccharine: a geeky kid with Coke-bottle glasses dreams of being an explorer. The girl down the street wants the same thing. Then we see them grow up, fall in love, share the highs and lows of life together – marriage, family, work, sickness, eventually death – and it’s neither cute nor saccharine but a glorious tapestry of honest emotion and meaning (and this, lest we forget, is a kids’ movie). The rest of ‘Up’ is ‘only’ hilarious and smart – but that opening is a true masterpiece. 

The wonderfully atmospheric opening of ‘WALL•E’ follows Earth’s last remaining drone as he silently goes about the Sisyphean task of cleaning up a bespoiled planet. The first line of dialogue only arrives after 45 minutes, as Wall-E falls under the spell of state-of-the-art recon robot EVE (he calls her ‘Eva’) and  her sleek, Apple-Store lines. If it sags a little in the second act as cinema’s cute ‘bot joins the human race (read: Americans) on its spaceship, its critique of consumerism and waste makes it Pixar’s boldest work by far.

There was a ridiculous amount of pressure on ‘Infinity War’. Marvel had given us so many great films (as well as ‘Iron Man 2’) and this was part one of the finale. But, boy, did it deliver. Aside from the phenomenal action scenes and stunning visual effects, co-directors Joe and Anthony Russo managed to balance the egos of a literal army of heroes perfectly, providing some funny, relatable and even emotional moments. Our favourite moment? The spine-tingling touchdown of Thor in Wakanda. Seriously, goosebumps. 

In medieval times, they tested for witchcraft by dunking suspects in water. Perhaps they could test for serial killers today with the scene of Bambi’s mother dying. Walt Disney called ‘Bambi’ ‘the best picture I have ever made, and the best ever to come out of Hollywood’. And he might have a point. At any rate, Disney’s edenic animation is still filled with joy, love and forest goodness. Oh, and Thumper really should have won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. 

If you love ‘Captain America: The First Avengers’, this love letter to matinee movies will be just the ticket. They’re both directed by the same man – Joe Johnston – and both are infused with the same boy’s own, never-say-die, holy-shit-look-at-my-awesome-hair spirit. Oh, and both have devious Nazis schemes needing foiling. This one has a cool, art deco jetpack too.

After a slight stumble with their second film ‘A Bug’s Life’, Pixar hit their winning streak with this magnificently creative and unashamedly idiosyncratic fairytale set in a city populated by monsters. Partly improvised by a wonderful voice cast – the entire ‘Put That Thing Back Where It Came From Or So Help Me’ routine developed from an off-the-cuff comment by Billy Crystal – the film is loose, loveable and crammed with ideas.

Surely the warmest movie ever set in the snow, this unlikely true-life tale is inspired by the real Jamaican bobsleigh team at the 1988 Winter Olympics. It inverts classic sports movie training montages in all sorts of hilarious ways (you never see Rocky training in an ice cream van), and with the great John Candy providing one of the most loveable sports coaches in cinema, it carries you along in a feel good bubble. Altogether now: ‘Feel the Rhythm, feel the Rhyme, get on up, it's bobsled time!’ 

You used to have to take out a second mortgage to get a ticket to Lin Manuel Miranda’s rappin’ Founding Fathers musical. So this filmed Broadway version is the closest many will get to seeing what all the fuss was about – and it’s an immersive enough experience that it’s really the next best thing to being there, and you don’t have to sell your first-born child to afford it. Win-win!

‘Avatar’ wears its debt to Edgar Rice Burroughs on its sleeve, with its hero Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) following firmly in the footsteps of Tarzan and John Carter. Typically, though, James Cameron goes bigger than anyone else. Having come up with the idea in his ‘Titanic’ days, he waited for motion-capture photography tech to catch up.The results are awe-inspiring, especially in 3D, and bagged  the film Oscars for cinematography, VFX and art direction, as well as helping it claim the title of the highest grossing movie of all time at the box office. One day those sequels will arrive, too.

An epic documentary tracking the original Star Wars trilogy from first ideas to the release of Return of the Jedi. Featuring talking head interviews with everyone from George Lucas and Carrie Fisher to backroom legends like Richard Edlund and Ben Burtt, this is essential viewing not just for Star Wars fans but for anyone interested in the nuts and bolts of filmmaking. Oh, and the footage of Kurt Russell auditioning for the role of Han Solo is just priceless.

We try not to look down when we’re climbing the stairs, so watching cucumber-cool rock climber Alex Honnold scaling El Capitan without ropes feels like an extreme sport in itself. This artery-pumping, Oscar-winning NatGeo doc takes you right to the centre of Yosemite National Park’s steepling granite slab and deep into the psychology of courage, technique and, surprisingly, relationships. Unsurprisingly, Honnold’s other half isn’t entirely wild about the whole ‘death-defying’ thing.