My Disney Rankings – Ted's Blog

When I first thought about joining the Disney Movie Club, I took an average of different rankings of their animated features (the Disney canon) to prioritize what I should buy. I am now on my sixth enrollment in the Disney Movie Club and have bought about two thirds of the Disney canon. I had not seen a lot of the movies on the list or it had been so long that I didn’t remember much about them, so it has been fun going back and watching and seeing how the movies developed over time. The differences between the first movie, the hand animated Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and a more recent movie like the 3D computer animated Zootopia could not be more stark, but that isn’t to say they aren’t both good and they are both artistic in their own ways. The difference is kind of ironic in particular for Zootopia since it is based on noir movies of the time period when Snow White came out.

I was happy to get Disney Plus which has all of the Disney canon (except Make Mine Music for some reason), letting me watch some of the movies that I probably would never buy. I have had Disney Plus now for two years and still haven’t watched all of the canon yet, so that may never happen. So this list still has a few omissions (I really need to watch Pocahontas, which I own, but haven’t seen since its first release, before I was saving reviews. I was going to recalculate a ranking with the latest Disney movies, but instead, I decided to just plunge forward into my own list.

Ranking movies is kind of hard. I use letter grades because the grading scale is better known. With numbers, you never really know if a 6 is failing or better than average. And stars aren’t precise enough which is why people award fractional stars. I admit that I end up with a lot of movies in the B to A- range, but I don’t want to waste time with movies that would get lower than that and A’s are hard to come by. B- and C+ are almost the same. I haven’t ever given an A+, though maybe some of my favorites deserve that. Even with letter grades it is hard to be consistent.

When I rank movies at the end of the year, the first thing I do is group everything by the letter grade I gave it. Then I try to rank the movies in each grouping. Then sometimes the best B+ might be better than the worst A- and I need to break ranks in my list. Right now for this list I am sticking with the letter grades, so no broken ranks, though I see some candidates. Therefore this ranking isn’t quite finished.

A movies

These are the ones I liked the most. Only five.

I really liked Zootopia, but Aladdin is my favorite Disney movie. Beauty and the Beast has great music though so maybe it edges out Zootopia. Cinderella is a solid movie, with a good story and side characters, plus good music. I was really impressed with Raya this year, even watching it a second time.

A- movies

Moana is a good one too with a good story, animation, and music, like Aladdin and Beauty, barely missing an A. Meet the Robinsons and Bolt are underrated by most people and maybe a little overrated by me, but I think Bolt is the better movie. Pinocchio has some amazing animation for the time and good songs, but not a real strong narrative. Lady and the Tramp is solid. Treasure Planet has some flaws, but is neat to watch, a little overrated by me because I was expecting much worse:

B+ movies

These are all good movies, but there is a fair amount of range here. Some flawed classics with story issues like Snow White, Lion King, Little Mermaid, and Bambi show up here.

B movies

For me a grade of B is borderline: enjoyable but with some flaws.

B- movies

Not really recommended, but harmless. Saludos Amigos has a few bright spots so it edges out Oliver. Chicken Little was harmless and interesting.

C+ movies

These are not that good, but maybe have something going for them.

C movies

The Fox and the Hound

C- movies

The Three Caballeros

Unranked

I don’t have reviews of these, so I can’t rank them, but they probably would not fare well except for Pocahontas, which I liked originally, but I haven’t written a review.

Pocahontas
Dinosaur
Brother Bear
Make Mine Music
Home on the Range