Every Disney Live Action Remake, Ranked

by Jason Dietz, Metacritic Features Editor – September 4, 2020

Updated May 2023 to add The Little Mermaid and Peter Pan & Wendy

For over 25 years, Disney has been looking inward for inspiration for its live-action films, using its vast and beloved catalog of animated features as source material for remakes. Buoyed by mostly strong box office numbers, those remakes have been increasing in frequency in recent years, with six arriving just since the start of 2019 and many more expected to arrive in the next few years.

In the gallery above, we rank each of Disney's live-action remakes (from 1994's The Jungle Book to the just-released The Little Mermaid) from best to worst by Metascore, which reflects the critical consensus for each film.

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61 #6: Peter Pan & Wendy

Remake of Peter Pan (1953)

While Disney's hit 1953 adaptation of J.M. Barrie's classic play made Peter Pan more kid-friendly and comedic, this 2023 live-action take from director David Lowery (The Green Knight, Pete's Dragon) hits many of the same story beats but takes a more modern and slightly more mature approach. While critics disagreed about the film's overall success, many reviwers praised the streaming-exclusive film's visuals and cast. The latter features a mix of established stars (including Jude Law as Captain Hook), unconventional choices (like Yara Shahidi as Tinker Bell), and film newcomers (including Alexander Molony as Peter Pan).

“On paper, the result is one of the more meaningful departures from convention that Disney has seen in recent years. In execution, though, it falls ever so slightly short, though not for lack of originality.” —Siddhant Adlakha, Polygon

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