Every Disney Animated Film, Ranked Worst to Best
Updated November 2022 to add Strange World
The king of all animation houses, Walt Disney Animation Studios has been releasing feature films for over 80 years. Many of those films are all-time classics of the genre, though some have failed to impress reviewers. In the gallery above, we rank every one of Disney's animated features by Metascore from worst-reviewed to best.
To keep things manageable, films from subsidiaries/related studios are excluded—these are only Walt Disney Animation productions—though you can find films from Disney's Pixar label in a separate gallery. We are also excluding mostly live-action films that also include some animation (Song of the South, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, etc.) as well as Disney's many direct-to-video sequels produced by its Disneytoon subsidiary.
Note that one official Disney animated film (1977 anthology The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh) does not have enough reviews available to calculate a Metascore.
The financial (though not critical) peak of Disney's 1990s resurgence, The Lion King remains to this day the highest-grossing traditional (i.e., non-computer) animated film in history, with worldwide grosses in excess of $960 million. The film combines an impressive cast (including James Earl Jones, Matthew Broderick, and Jeremy Irons) with songs by Elton John and Tim Rice and a long-gestating African wildlife story that is oh so loosely borrowed from Shakespeare's Hamlet (or, some would argue, the Japanese television series Kimba the White Lion).
The Lion King's box office domination apparently wasn't enough for Disney, as the company then commissioned a Broadway musical adaptation (directed by Julie Taymor) which went on to almost unfathomably massive financial success and six Tony Awards. Next up is a live-action-ish (mostly CGI) film adaptation from director Jon Favreau. The new Lion King, set for release in July, is almost certain to be another huge hit given that it counts Beyoncé, Donald Glover, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Seth Rogen among its impressive roster of voice stars.
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