As of 2024, the Walt Disney Animation Studio has released 63 animated films in its over 100 years of operation, with its 64th, Zootopia 2, scheduled for November 2025. Film historians have broken this long history down into seven different eras, though we might be in an eighth. For the sake of this list, we shall be ranking all movies since 2009 as part of the Disney Revival Era, though keep in mind that a Post-Revival Era may have begun due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The best way to sum up the Revival Era is a roller coaster. The era has raked in more money at the box office than even the beloved Disney Renaissance of the 1990s, but recent years have also seen some of the company’s biggest financial losses. This is part of the reason why a Post-Revival Era has been proposed, as the movies show a clear divide in quality.
15
‘Wish’ (2023)
Directed by Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn
2023 was Disney’s centennial anniversary, and they planned to celebrate it with two releases. The first was the short Once Upon a Studio, which featured nearly all of Disney’s characters from both their movies and shorts. The second was Wish, a film that was meant to be a love-letter to Disney animation, but ended up as one of the company’s most hated products.
Wish is a hollow movie that tries to distract its audience with shallow references to beloved classics, such as Asha’s (Ariana DeBose) friends representing the seven dwarfs. Yet when you strip these away, all you are left with is a formulaic movie that plays it safe, a far cry from the Disney of the past that broke new ground and made risky gambles on films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella. It also has some of the worst-written songs in any Disney film, with melodies that sound more like radio tunes and lyrics that make no sense.
Wish
- Release Date
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November 22, 2023
- Runtime
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95 Mins
14
‘Ralph Breaks the Internet’ (2018)
Directed by Rich Moore and Phil Johnston
After the financial disappointment of The Rescuers Down Under, it fell to DisneyToon Studios to handle the sequels of their animated classics until it closed in 2018. That same year, Walt Disney Animation Studios released a sequel to their 2010 hit Wreck-It Ralph. This time, Ralph (John C. Reilly) and Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) travel into the internet to save Vanellope’s game, leading to new experiences and interactions with fellow Disney characters.
Ralph Breaks the Internet has the novelty of every single Disney Princess at the time appearing in the same room, but the rest of the movie is lacking, especially compared to the first. It trades away the retro aesthetic of the arcade world for one littered with tired, overdone jokes regarding the internet, including dated memes. Its biggest sin is how it throws away the rules established by the first movie to push a strange message about not being a clingy friend.
13
‘Frozen II’ (2019)
Directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee
Frozen was a cultural juggernaut on release, and for a time, was the highest-grossing animated movie. A sequel was inevitable, but unlike the original movie, which had a rushed production, Disney gave the creative team time to flesh out the world’s mythology and delve into the backstories of Elsa (Idina Menzel) and Anna’s (Kristen Bell) family. The result was a box office success, but it saw more mixed reception due to its story.
The plot of Frozen II feels like a dozen different ideas thrown together. It tries to present heavy themes of reparations and Elsa’s quest to discover her identity, but the B-plots involving the side characters are nonsensical and feel like they came from a different movie. The worst of these is Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), who spends the whole movie failing to propose to Anna and contributes virtually nothing to the plot.
Frozen II
- Release Date
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November 22, 2019
- Runtime
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103 minutes
12
‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ (2021)
Directed by Don Hall, Carlos López Estrada, Paul Briggs and, John Ripa
Like how the Disney Renaissance was dominated by animated musicals and fairy tale adaptations, the Revival Era, for the most part, focused on original ideas. One of the most obvious examples is Raya and the Last Dragon, which takes place in a world inspired by Southern Asia, where humans and dragons once lived together. Despite its creative setup and great animation, it falls flat in several ways.
The biggest problem is the story: it has a rather bloated story that feels more suited for a television series than a film, and botches its major theme of the importance of trust and forgiveness. Every time it tries to present this message, it offers a contradiction, usually by punishing the annoyingly trusting dragon, Sisu (Awkwafina), every time she puts her blind trust in others. It’s also littered with annoying, anachronistic dialogue that feels out of place in its supposedly timeless setting, and has too many side-characters that don’t get their necessary development.
11
‘Strange World’ (2022)
Directed by Don Hall
In 2002, Disney released two films: Lilo & Stitch in the summer and Treasure Planet in the winter. Lilo & Stitch was the biggest success of Disney’s hand-drawn animation in the early 2000s, but Treasure Planet was a huge bomb, largely due to poor marketing and competing with big releases like Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. 20 years later, history repeated itself with another science fiction bomb, Strange World.
The best thing about Strange World is its visual style, which is a throwback to sci-fi adventure serials from the 1950s. It also has some decent themes of exploring the consequences of generational neglect. However, the creatures and the world have nothing to pull in audiences and keep their attention, while the characters are among some of Disney’s most paint-by-numbers.
10
‘Moana 2’ (2024)
Directed by David Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, and Dana Ledoux Miller
The sequel to Moana was originally conceived as a streaming service for Disney+ and entered production at the same time as its live-action remake. However, it was shifted to a theatrical release in early 2024. Disney CEO Bob Iger claims that it’s because the story and animation were too good to put only on streaming, but the more likely reason is that Disney was having a string of bad luck between Strange World and Wish’s box-office failures, and they needed a financial win.
Moana 2 was a box-office success that made over $1 billion, but the reception was much more lukewarm, especially compared to the first movie. It has a few good moments, such as a few catchy songs and some gorgeous animation, but the new side-characters don’t contribute much to the narrative, and the villain’s antagonist is vague and feels like a setup for a third film. The pacing is also pretty wonky, an unfortunate casualty of hastily splicing five episodes into a single movie.
Moana 2
- Release Date
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November 27, 2024
- Runtime
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100 Minutes
9
‘Big Hero 6’ (2014)
Directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams
After acquiring Marvel Entertainment, Disney gained access to their massive superhero catalog. While they used the heavy hitter in the sprawling Marvel Cinematic Universe, they combed through the more obscure titles to make it into an animated movie because it would give the writers more creative freedom when adapting it. The one they settled on was Big Hero 6, which sees a young child genius named Hiro (Ryan Potter) team up with his deceased brother’s helper robot to confront a supervillain who stole Hiro’s invention.
Big Hero 6 is straightforward with its superhero clichés and its side-characters, but its animated world helps it stand out. The city of San Fransokyo feels lively and distinct, while the action scenes allow the animators to show off the various technology-based superpowers. Regarding the characters, the robot Baymax (Scott Adsit) stands out the most thanks to his childlike innocence, compassion, and terrific voice work.
Big Hero 6
- Release Date
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October 24, 2014
- Runtime
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1h 42m
8
‘Frozen’ (2013)
Directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee
As far back as the 1930s, Walt Disney tried to adapt Hans Christian Andersen‘s The Snow Queen, but a combination of World War II and a 1952 film about Anderson caused Walt to shelf the idea. The company finally got its adaptation in 2013, but it was a long, arduous production that saw numerous re-writes. Among the most famous are making the heroin and Snow Queen characters siblings, and then changing Elsa from villain to hero.
Upon release, Frozen became a cultural phenomenon thanks to its soundtrack, animation, and characters. Much praise was given to the relationship between Anna and Elsa, which was the first Disney film since Lilo & Stitch to focus on sisterly bonds, and its iconic music, especially Elsa’s song “Let it Go.” However, the story does suffer a bit due to the last-minute script changes, particularly with the trolls and the twist villain.
Frozen
- Release Date
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November 27, 2013
- Runtime
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102 minutes
7
‘Winnie the Pooh’ (2011)
Directed by Stephen Anderson and Don Hall
Many think The Princess and the Frog was the Mouse House’s last traditionally animated film, but they’re wrong; Disney’s last 2D film was Winnie the Pooh. Like their previous Pooh movies, it is based on the stories by A. A. Milne, and it saw Disney’s top animators at the time, like Andreas Deja, Mark Henn, and Eric Goldberg, bring their A-game to the character animations. Sadly, the film underperformed on release, and future 2D projects were scrapped.
Winnie the Pooh is a gorgeous swan song for Disney’s hand-drawn animation: it captures the spirit of the previous Pooh films through fourth-wall-breaking humor and gorgeous backgrounds. The songs by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez are beautiful, catchy, and feel like they could have been written by the Sherman Brothers themselves. Its only major downside is that, if you’ve seen the other Pooh movies, the story might feel a little recycled.
6
‘Moana’ (2016)
Directed by John Musker and Ron Clements
John Musker and Ron Clements are perhaps Disney’s best directing duo, having worked on films like The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Hercules. They were excited to adapt Sir Terry Pratchett’s Mort, but they ran into trouble acquiring the film rights, and the idea fell through. So they pitched original ideas to Disney and got the green light to go ahead with a film inspired by Polynesian mythology.
Moana became a love letter to Polynesian culture and tells a story that highlights their history as explorers. Its soundtrack became one of the most popular of the revival era, especially the song “How Far I’ll Go.” The dynamic between Moana (Auliʻi Cravalho) and Maui (Dwayne Johnson) is another highlight, thanks to their funny banter and mutual mentor/mentee relationship.
Moana
- Release Date
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October 13, 2016
- Runtime
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107 minutes
