In the game known as the streaming wars, Disney+ came out swinging, bringing with it a massive library of movies and TV shows—with new ones being added all the time. Watched everything on Netflix? Disney+ has a seemingly endless selection of Marvel movies and plenty of Star Wars and Pixar fare, too. Problem is, there’s so much stuff, it’s hard to know where to begin. WIRED is here to help. Below are our picks for the best films on Disney+ right now.
For more viewing ideas, try our guides to the best films on Netflix, the best films on Amazon Prime, and the best shows on Apple TV+.
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
While no one expected James Gunn’s (presumed) MCU swan song to top the giddiness of his first entry in the series, few people expected it to be so damn depressing either. In addition to giving us Rocket Raccoon’s gut-wrenching backstory, which could have easily been set to Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel,” the third Guardians film is also one of the only Marvel movies to delve into the psychological effects Thanos’ Snap had on the universe. Enjoy!
Avatar: The Way of Water
One week before Avatar hit theaters (for the first time) in late 2009, James Cameron announced his intention to turn the movie into a full-on franchise. But the director took his sweet time in following through. Avatar: The Way of Water—which checks in on blue lovebirds Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), now married with children—was released in late 2022, a full 13 years after the original made its debut. But Cameron smartly bought himself some time by setting the film 16 years after the events of Avatar. And while the critical reviews were mixed, it still ended up becoming the third-highest-grossing movie of all time, proving yet again that Cameron has some sort of Midas touch.
The Incredible Hulk
To Marvel fans, Mark Ruffalo is the only Bruce Banner. But that’s only after Eric Bana tried on the supersized superhero’s tiny purple pants in 2003’s Hulk—and then passed them on to Edward Norton for this 2008 flick, which had the misfortune of hitting theaters just one month after Iron Man. The MCU has always had a messy timeline, but audiences shouldn’t be too quick to write this movie off, particularly those looking to kick back with a solid summer popcorn flick. Norton may lack Ruffalo’s effortless charm, but he’s got the Doc Green part of the character down. While the movie has largely (and wrongly) been forgotten, it’s making headlines once again, both because it has finally arrived on Disney+ and because Liv Tyler will find her way back into (the new) Bruce’s arms when she reprises her role as love interest Betty Ross in 2024’s Captain America: Brave New World.
The Skeleton Dance
Fans of classic animation got some stellar news earlier this year when Disney announced it would be adding more than two dozen freshly restored old shorts to the Disney+ library. One of the most exciting titles among them is The Skeleton Dance, which revolutionized cartoon culture in 1929. Walt Disney himself wrote, directed, and produced this macabre comedy in which a group of resurrected skeletons rise from their graves and, yep, dance. This is actually much funnier and/or more impressive than it sounds.
Stan Lee
Easily the most recognizable name in comics, Stan Lee has had an impact on the medium—and on pop culture broadly—that simply can’t be overstated. Director David Gelb’s new documentary about “The Man” delves into not only his legacy, but also his history. Tracing the comics maestro’s life from his early years in New York City to his work cocreating iconic characters like Spider-Man and Black Panther to his time as everyone’s favorite Marvel movie cameo, Stan Lee is essential viewing for any fan.
Flamin’ Hot
Also available on Hulu, Flamin’ Hot tells the story of Richard Montañez (Jesse Garcia), the Frito-Lay janitor who brought Flamin’ Hot Cheetos to the masses. Directed by Eva Longoria, the movie might come off as a little cheesy at times, but its comedy and heart transform it into more than just a story about a beloved snack.
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
On June 30, audiences finally got to see Harrison Ford throw on his fedora and pull out his bullwhip for another last go at playing Indiana Jones. After you’ve seen The Dial of Destiny, go back and witness Indy’s origins in Steven Spielberg’s classic 1980s adventure film, which sprang partly from the mind of George Lucas. The film, set in 1936, sees a seemingly quiet archaeology professor turned adventurer duking it out with Nazis in an attempt to recover the Ark of the Covenant. Indy’s follow-up adventures—The Temple of Doom (1984), The Last Crusade (1989), and (if you must) The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)—are all available too.
Spider-Man
While Disney+ is known as a Marvel lover’s paradise, the streamer has been strangely devoid of live-action Spidey content (short of the Avengers movies). Fortunately, that has now changed as Tom Holland’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, both of Andrew Garfield’s The Amazing Spider-Man films, and all three of Tobey Maguire’s turns as the original web-slinger are now available. While Sam Raimi’s movies predate the official MCU, the famed director really set the stage for what that future universe would look like, with its mix of solid storytelling, genuine laughs, and impressive visuals. Maguire is perfectly cast as the awkwardly charming Peter Parker, who—having just discovered his superhero powers—is learning to harness them.
Venom
Venom may not have been a hit with critics, but WIRED senior editor Angela Watercutter nailed exactly what the movie was when she called it “a bad movie with great cult-movie potential.” While it rivals Doctor Strange for its stacked cast of serious talent—Tom Hardy in the lead, with Michelle Williams and Riz Ahmed costarring, plus Zombieland’s Reuben Fleischer as director—the end result was, well, a bit of a jumbled mess. Nonetheless, it somehow manages to be compelling, even if you just turn it on to watch Hardy mumble, eat Tater Tots, and almost literally chew scenery for 112 minutes.
The Original Star Wars Trilogy
Naturally, Star Wars is one of the big attractions on Disney+. And it goes without saying, or at least it should, that the films that comprise the original trilogy are the best of the bunch—and the only Star Wars movies you should watch if you’re opting not to binge all dozen or so features. The caveat for pickier fans is that these are the versions that have been messed with by George Lucas post-release. Some things, like the improved visuals in and around Cloud City, are thoughtful additions, but others are more controversial.
The Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
More than 20 years after Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope (aka simply Star Wars) helped to define the Hollywood blockbuster, George Lucas returned to the space opera well with an all-new trilogy for an all-new generation of moviegoers. It went about as well as you’d expect. We won’t pretend that The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), and/or Revenge of the Sith (2005) have even an ounce of the heart, humor, or heroism of the original films. But they’ve become essential pop culture viewing, and a rite of passage for sci-fi fans, if only to get what all the Jar Jar Binks hate is about.
The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
When Disney purchased Lucasfilm for $4 billion in 2012, it was essentially George Lucas handing over the keys to the Millennium Falcon. While fans were rightly skeptical about whether the Mouse House would be able—or even want—to recapture the slightly countercultural environment in which the series was originally created, one hopeful thought united them all: Whatever Disney concocted could not be worse than the Prequel Trilogy. And they were right. By giving the reins to J.J. Abrams (The Force Awakens), Rian Johnson (The Last Jedi), then Abrams once again (The Rise of Skywalker), the series became more of a love letter to the original films and the generations of filmmakers—and fans—they inspired. Happily, actors Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, and Adam Driver proved worthy successors to the smugglers, scavengers, Jedi masters, and Sith Lords who preceded them.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
As WIRED senior writer Jason Parham wrote in his review of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, this movie is haunted by the absence of Chadwick Boseman, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s original King T’Challa who died following a battle with colon cancer in 2020. To that end, writer-director Ryan Coogler had to make a much different kind of superhero film, one that addressed the loss of its main character while also pushing Marvel’s cinematic storyline forward into its next phase. “It’s rare for MCU films to channel the turbulence of grief with such unflinching focus,” Parham wrote. “Coogler has equipped his sequel with a changed vocabulary: It speaks equally from a place of loss as it does triumph. Grief is its mother tongue.” To that end, the director uses the death of T’Challa to usher in a new Black Panther as well as new heroes (Ironheart) and adversaries-turned-allies (Namor).
Thor: Love and Thunder
After blowing up the franchise (in a good way) with Thor: Ragnarok, WIRED cover guy Taika Waititi hopped back in the director’s chair for its follow-up, Thor: Love and Thunder. The movie didn’t shake fans up quite as much as its predecessor, but it’s still a rocking good time with a fun turn by Natalie Portman as Jane Foster (aka the Mighty Thor, the new wielder of Mjolnir) and other surprises. (Ted Lasso fans should definitely watch the end-credits scene.)
Turning Red
Mei Lee is a 13-year-old with a problem: Whenever she’s overcome with any sort of overwhelming emotion, which is just about every emotion at that age, she transforms into a giant red panda. Eventually, Mei comes to learn that it’s an inherited family trait. And while there are people who would like to exploit her supernatural powers, she slowly learns that only she has the power to control them. Think of this as a spiritual sequel to 2015’s Inside Out, which explored the complex inner workings of an 11-year-old’s constantly changing emotions.
If These Walls Could Sing
Abbey Road Studios is best known as the place where the Beatles recorded some of their most iconic albums, including 1969’s Abbey Road. But the hallowed halls of this legendary music studio have played a much bigger role in the music industry, as it has hosted the likes of everyone from Elton John, Pink Floyd, and Aretha Franklin to Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga, Radiohead, Adele, Oasis, Kate Bush, and Frank Ocean. This documentary, which comes on the heels of Peter Jackson’s docuseries The Beatles: Get Back (which is also streaming on Disney+ and is highly recommended), is directed by Mary McCartney—daughter of Sir Paul—who practically grew up in the studio and, as such, is able to treat her subject with the reverence it deserves.
Avatar
James Cameron’s Avatar was all anyone could talk about when it was released in theaters in 2009 and promptly went on to make more than $1 billion, becoming the cinematic iceberg that sank another Cameron epic, 1997’s Titanic, from its place as the highest-grossing movie of all time. For a movie that made so much bank, it never occupied a huge space in the cultural conversation about movies. Like so many of Cameron’s works, much of its innovation came from the technology that essentially had to be invented to make it possible.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Sam Raimi’s sequel to 2016’s Doctor Strange isn’t the beloved director’s first superhero movie, but it is his first foray into the Marvel Cinematic Universe style of making movies, which ultimately proves to be both a blessing and a curse. On the plus side, the movie is probably the closest thing the Marvel franchise has gotten to a straight-up horror film, and it’s full of Raimi’s signature practical effects (plus the ever-important Bruce Campbell cameo). Yet, because the MCU is such a box office powerhouse, the movie never goes full Raimi—which is understandable, but somewhat disappointing for fans of The Evil Dead maestro. Still, it’s ultimately a fun ride with multiple versions of Benedict Cumberbatch’s cocky Doctor and Elizabeth Olsen as the power-seeking Scarlet Witch.
Iron Man
The MCU has produced more than two dozen films since 2008, yet the very first of them—Iron Man—remains one of the best. It’s almost hard to believe how hard director Jon Favreau had to fight to get Robert Downey Jr. the leading role, as he’s arguably one of the MCU’s most beloved figures. Before there was a whole franchise plus a shared TV universe, Downey, as Tony Stark/Iron Man, was just allowed to do his thing. It was a gamble that paid off for all involved.
West Side Story
From Martin Scorsese to Spike Lee, pretty much every great director has made—or at least tried to make—a grand Hollywood musical, perhaps one of the toughest genres to successfully pull off. Steven Spielberg made the task even more difficult when he decided to adapt Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and Arthur Laurents’ West Side Story—which Robert Wise already did to great acclaim in 1961. But, Spielberg (being Spielberg) managed to create an updated take on the story of Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Maria (Rachel Zegler), two love-struck teens caught in the middle of an escalating rivalry between two street gangs, the Sharks and the Jets. The update gives nods to the original (like casting Rita Moreno, who won an Oscar for her role as Anita in Wise’s film) while improving on some of its controversial aspects (like casting Natalie Wood in the role of a Puerto Rican teen).
Lady and the Tramp
Sure, you can watch the live-action/CGI version that Disney+ released shortly after it launched, but why bother when the 1955 original is here too? Put aside the rather vulgar stereotypes that were common at the time (the movie now comes with a warning) and Lady and the Tramp remains one of the most iconic Disney animations, and a love story for the ages. When a spoiled cocker spaniel named Lady finds herself competing with a new baby for the attention of her parents, she ends up getting loose and befriending a mangy but charming mutt named Tramp. Ultimately, Lady needs to choose the pampered life she’s always known with Jim Dear and Darling, or a life of spaghetti dinner discards with the hopelessly romantic Tramp—unless there’s another way.
The Rescue
In the summer of 2018, people around the world were transfixed by the story of a dozen young soccer players and their 25-year-old assistant coach, who became trapped in the Tham Luang Nang Non cave in Thailand due to monsoon conditions. Eighteen days later the team was rescued, with all 12 boys and their coach surviving the incident. While it was happening, filmmakers were already scrambling for the rights to tell the story—no matter how it ended. Tom Waller’s The Cave (2019) and Ron Howard’s Thirteen Lives (2022) are two of them. But, in this particular case, the truth is far more compelling than fiction, as this documentary from Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi—the Oscar-winning husband-and-wife team behind Free Solo–certainly attests.
The Muppet Movie
Between The Muppet Show and The Muppet Movie, Jim Henson and the Muppets were everywhere in 1979. Their first big-screen outing serves as more of a prequel, as it follows Kermit the Frog’s journey from a swamp in Florida to Hollywood, where he’s headed to pursue his dreams of becoming a movie star. Along the way, we get to witness where and how he meets the fellow members of his felt-made crew, from Fozzie Bear to Miss Piggy. Hijinks ensue when a restaurateur named Doc Hopper doesn’t take too kindly to Kermit turning down his offer to serve as the official legs of his chain’s famous fried frog legs, and follows the frog in order to seek revenge.
Luca
Enrico Casarosa’s Luca earned an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature in 2022 for its sweet and soulful story about a young boy named Luca who is hiding a dark secret: He’s a sea monster living in a town on the Italian Riviera that absolutely despises his kind. Ultimately, Luca is a moving coming-of-age film about friendship, family, and overcoming our own prejudices—and truly one of Pixar’s best features.
Captain Marvel
Marvel’s biggest mistake in the entire MCU canon (so far) was not commissioning Captain Marvel sooner. The film, set in the past, sees the rise of Marvel (Brie Larson) as she discovers her origin story and develops her powers. The film, the first entry in the Marvel universe with a female lead, channels the spirit of the 1990s both in its setting and in style, with heaping spoonfuls of Samuel L. Jackson and all the plot and subtlety of a blockbuster action movie. Larson adds a healthy dose of sarcasm to undercut her character’s immense power, and Jackson is eerily brilliant, making for a super fun 123 minutes.
Ant-Man
Who doesn’t love a heist movie? Paul Rudd’s MCU debut acted as something of a palate cleanser after the heavy, literally Earth-shattering events of Age of Ultron. Rudd plays Scott Lang, a reformed criminal who teams up with Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his daughter (Evangeline Lily) to keep Pym’s shrinking technology from falling into the wrong hands. The film’s depiction of quantum physics wouldn’t hold much water at CERN, but it’s terrific fun—thanks in part to Michael Peña’s star turn as Lang’s former cellmate Luis and, of course, Rudd’s legendary likability. If you want to make it a Rudd-athon, both Ant-Man and the Wasp and this year’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania are streaming, too.
Mulan
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and its shutdown of almost the entire movie industry, Disney decided to try something new with its live-action version of Mulan by making it available to Disney+ subscribers instead of releasing it in theaters. The film itself is one of the latest in Disney’s recent string of live-action remakes and sees Liu Yifei in the title role, with reviews praising the cast, visuals, and action sequences.
Avengers: Endgame
There’s a moment in the event-movie-to-endgame-all-event-movies when you realize that writers Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus have gone full Harry Potter and the Cursed Child all over the MCU. Once you get past the rather glum beginning, you can settle in for what you have come to expect from any Avengers movie: Tony Stark cracking wise; Doctor Strange doing weird things with his hands; Professor Hulk explaining the science of what’s going on; and Black Widow and Captain Marvel kicking ass, both emotionally and physically. It’s a messy but epic baton-pass in the form of an angsty portal-powered mega-battle. And we’re not going to lie: We’ve watched those audience reaction videos, and they too are a thing of joy.
Togo
The year is 1925 and a deadly epidemic has struck the Alaskan town of Nome. The only cure is 600 miles away, and a massive storm is about to strike the region. Leonhard Seppala and his lead sled dog, Togo, are the town’s only hope of getting the vaccine. The dog may not be the biggest of the sled crew, but it is tenacious. The entire mission to save the town relies on Togo’s ability to face the challenging conditions. Added to all that, Togo is based on a true story.
Deadpool 2
This foul-mouthed superhero movie marks a definite departure from the vanilla content that was available on Disney+ in its first couple years of operation. Ryan Reynolds plays Deadpool, who has the ability to heal from pretty much any injury—and is an angry, violent, wisecracking mercenary tasked with protecting a young mutant from a time-traveling soldier.
Hamilton
If you only know Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical from the obscenely high ticket prices and snippets of the soundtrack, here’s your chance to find out what all the fuss is about. A version of the production, recorded via a six-camera setup over two performances by the original Broadway cast, was put on Disney+ after plans to release it in cinemas were scrapped. Aside from a couple of censored swear words and the fact that it’s directed (by Thomas Kail), it’s essentially the same show—an energetic, empathetic, witty, quippy hip-hop musical about US founding father Alexander Hamilton.
All the Pixar Shorts
Now’s the time for a Pixar short sesh. You could do as the studio intended and pick out the correct short to watch before the main animated showing, or you could head to the Shorts tab and go wild with Pixar, Disney, and new Sparkshorts. WIRED’s faves are Lava (8 minutes), Bao (7 minutes), Purl (12 minutes), Smash and Grab (8 minutes), La Luna (6 minutes), Sanjay’s Super Team (7 minutes), and Day and Night (7 minutes). Out (9 minutes) is one of the latest, and for a slice of Pixar history, check out 1997’s Geri’s Game (4 minutes) and see if you recognize the chess player.
Moana
One of the potential answers to “What, oh, what to put on after Frozen and Frozen 2?” Moana is in fact better than Frozen. By that we simply mean better soundtrack, better heroine, better visuals, and better side quests. There’s also 100 percent more Dwayne Johnson as a tattooed demigod and Jemaine Clement as a giant crab doing a Bowie impression. Set thousands of years ago on the fictional, Polynesia-inspired island of Motunui, Moana’s hero’s journey is fairly classic, but the sumptuous animation and Lin-Manuel Miranda tunes are top-tier Disney. (Sure, we’d love to see Taika Waititi’s original script, but we can live without it.)
Free Solo
If your friend told you they’d decided to solo-climb up the sheer 3,000-foot granite El Capitan wall in Yosemite, California, with no rope, you’d think they had gone mad. But that’s exactly what Alex Honnold set out to do back in 2017. Honnold’s quest to climb the vertical wall was documented by his two director friends, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, as he took on the ascent to become the world’s first person to free-climb El Capitan. But it’s not just about the ascent, it’s also about Honnold’s complicated life, his emotional issues, and all the things that have driven him to pursue one of the most dangerous missions ever attempted by any free climber. The cinematography in Free Solo is also dizzyingly beautiful, and the entire thing will have you gripping the arm of your chair in terror.
Honey, I Shrunk The Kids
Wayne Szalinski (Rick Moranis) is an experimental inventor who creates an electromagnetic shrinking machine. Naturally, he accidentally shrinks his own children (if you didn’t already guess that from the title), plus the kids from next door, then unwittingly throws them in the trash. To have any chance of becoming their normal size again, the teeny tots must navigate their way across the family’s (now seemingly gigantic) yard and back to the house. It’s something fraught with peril when you’re half the size of an aspirin.
Toy Story (All of Them)
While it might have seemed that Pixar could never make anything as good as the original 1995 Toy Story, each of the three subsequent films add depth to the franchise’s canon. All of the movies are critically acclaimed—and they’re all available on Disney+. When combined, the four films tell a story about growing up and how everything in life, inevitably, changes. Woody (Tom Hanks) and the gang go from learning how to deal with new people to understanding loss. It’s something that’s also followed the cast: In Toy Story 4, the voice of Mr. Potato Head was created through archive recordings after Don Rickles, as the man behind the voice, died ahead of the film’s release.
The Lion King
Remember the terrifying wildebeest stampede in the 1994 version of The Lion King? That was actually computer animated, because drawing them by hand would have taken a long, long time. Special attention was taken to blend it into the cel-shaded backgrounds, and this was all before Toy Story came out the following year. Which is all to say that not only is the ’90s version a perfect movie that had absolutely zero need for a charm-deficient 2019 remake (which is also streaming on Disney+ in case you want to compare), it’s also the best Lion King to use CG animation.
10 Things I Hate About You
Heath Ledger singing “Can’t Take My Eyes off You” on the bleachers. That’s the iconic scene in this top-caliber high school romcom. The plot is taken from The Taming of the Shrew, the cast—including Ledger, Julia Stiles, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt—are all adorable, and the late ’90s nostalgia is potent. Offering some much-needed variety from the sci-fi and animation that dominates the Disney+ launch catalog, 10 Things I Hate About You is as good as comfort-food movies get.
Tron & Tron: Legacy
Tron and its modern sequel, Tron: Legacy, aren’t your typical Disney films. The original sees a programmer (Jeff Bridges) become trapped inside a computer system where he meets and befriends programs, including the eponymous hero Tron, who are resisting the power of a growing artificial intelligence, the Master Control Program. It became a sci-fi cult classic, leading to the creation of a modern sequel that continues the story and features an epic score cowritten by Daft Punk. Both are watchable distractions, even if the sequel feels a little thin in places.
Willow
Another nostalgia fest, this time for fans of ’80s fantasy. Willow is a family-friendly, mythic quest that’s best seen as George Lucas and Ron Howard’s fun, $35 million Tolkien fan fiction. The story of a farmer tasked with protecting a magic baby from an evil queen is not exactly the most original story in the world, but that hasn’t stopped this from becoming a classic, with Warwick Davis as Willow Ufgood and Val Kilmer waving a sword around. Classic Sunday afternoon fare.
Wreck-It Ralph
This sugary sweet animation tells the story of Ralph, a villain from an 1980s arcade game who wants to be something more than just the bad guy throwing debris off the top of an 8-bit building. One day, he goes AWOL from his game and ventures into the wider arcade—encountering a mish-mash of video game characters loosely based on your childhood favorites—from Hero’s Duty (a combination of Halo and Call of Duty, so basically Gears of War) to Sugar Rush (a weird mash-up of Mario Kart and Candy Crush), where he strikes up a friendship with a young girl racer.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Winter Soldier is among the best Marvel movies. It makes time for quieter character moments, and the action, while still spectacular, feels a little more grounded and real than the CGI-fueled shock and awe of the mainline movies. In this outing, Captain America faces off against a rogue element of SHIELD led by Robert Redford’s Alexander Pierce.
Thor: Ragnarok
The first two Thor films were among the worst in the whole series—Chris Hemsworth’s thunder god was dour and charmless. But here, director Taika Waititi injected some much-needed color into the proceedings, borrowing heavily from the Planet Hulk storyline from the comics. Thor finds himself stranded on a bizarre planet, ruled over by Jeff Goldblum (who is pretty much playing himself). There, he crosses paths with Bruce Banner’s Hulk, who has been missing since the events of Civil War. It’s hugely funny, and arguably the best film of the series.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
The newer Star Wars one-off films attract strong opinions, and Rogue One is no different. But while it has its issues, it fills an important hole in the universe and features some of the best action sequences in the entire saga. Its main black mark is the rather iffy CGI recreation of Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin, but it’s still a fun romp that lacks the narrative baggage of the new trilogy.
Black Panther
Black Panther had a huge cultural impact. It was refreshingly unusual to see a blockbuster superhero film with such a diverse cast—and the Afrofuturist setting was unlike anything Marvel had ever done before. Michael B. Jordan steals the show as Killmonger, who returns to his father’s home to claim the throne from T’Challa (the late Chadwick Boseman).
WALL·E
Released in 2008, a time when, for many, the climate crisis felt like a distant, abstract threat, WALL·E is classic Pixar. It’s a love story—sort of—that focuses on two robots. But it’s also a story about survival, believing in yourself, and dancing through the vacuum of space propelled by a fire extinguisher. The animation, especially on the desolate, barren Earth, is a sight to behold. The opening scenes of the film are also basically a silent film, with the score and robotic sound effects doing a fantastic job bringing out the emotion and drama of what’s happening.
Peter Pan & Wendy
Between Pete’s Dragon (2016) and The Green Knight (2021), David Lowery has mastered the art of reimagining stories you’ve seen told hundreds of times in completely new and original ways. This straight-to-Disney+ live-action adaptation of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan is yet another example of this very specific kind of talent, even if a large part of its purpose seems to be to erase the racist elements that existed in the classic Disney cartoon. The boy who refused to grow up (here, played by Alexander Molony) never felt so of-the-moment.
Inside Out
Don’t cry. But also cry. A lot. Inside Out is the perfect realization of what every Pixar film strives to achieve. On the surface, it’s a comedic look at human emotion, the complexity of a child growing up, and the delicate balance of family life. But by literally getting inside the head of 11-year-old Riley, the film finds a way to bring emotion to life in a way that is at once comedic, profound, and often ingenious.
Up
Pixar’s Up can claim one of the most moving opening scenes of any movie. Despite being released more than a decade ago, in 2009, the animation hasn’t aged or lost any of its charm. In a little over 90 minutes, director Pete Docter takes us on the journey of Carl, an old widower who is seeking out Paradise Falls. Carl’s trip in his flying house is made in memory of his wife, Ellie, who had always wanted to visit the falls. The film won two Oscars—Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score—but was also nominated for three more. These included Best Picture, which at the time made it only the second animated film to have received the nomination (1991’s Beauty and the Beast—which is also streaming on Disney+, and most definitely worth a rewatch—was the first).
The Straight Story
David Lynch has built a career on being wonderfully bizarre and surreal. But the strangest thing he might have ever done was to make this G-rated family drama for Disney, which seemed to fly way under the radar. Richard Farnsworth earned a well-deserved Best Actor Oscar nomination for his role as stubborn—and ailing—old man Alvin Straight, who decides to reconnect with his estranged brother (Harry Dean Stanton) after a decade of not speaking. So Alvin hits the road, on his riding lawn mower, to make the 300-mile journey.
The Jungle Book
Whatever mood you’re in, Disney+ has The Jungle Book to suit it. The streaming service has both the 1967 animated classic, with its catchy soundtrack and moments of humor, plus the live-action version released in 2016. The two films couldn’t be more different. If you want to go for full family entertainment, pick the original, but if you’re after something a little darker, the modern remake is where you should head. (Bonus fact: The entire live-action film was shot in a warehouse.)
Guardians of the Galaxy
The first volume of Guardians of the Galaxy didn’t burst into the MCU until 2014, which is relatively late considering Phase One began with Iron Man in 2008. However, it’s become a firm fan favorite, providing some of the Universe’s most memorable (and important) characters. Quill, Rocket, Groot, Gamora, and Nebula are all distinctive and in many ways more likable than other key MCU characters. Guardians is worth returning to if you want to remember a slightly simpler time before Thanos’ Snap.
