On October 16, 1923, The Disney Bros. Studio was incorporated as a business in California. Today, what is known as The Walt Disney Company celebrates its 100th birthday. Over the last century, Disney has provided us with some of the greatest pieces of entertainment ever produced. Picking the best Disney movie in the last 100 years is a nigh impossible task, so we’ll limit it to the best from each decade of the company’s existence.
100 years of movies means 10 decades of existence, if we use October 16, every 10 years, as the point where we make our break between each decade. For the record, while both animated and live-action films from Disney are in the running, we’re limiting the options to Walt Disney Animation Studios and Walt Disney Productions live-action films, so no Pixar, Marvel Studios or 20th Century Studios choices here. Honestly, it would be impossible to judge the later decades if we included everything. It was hard enough when just looking at this much, but here's what we have.
1923-1933: The Three Little Pigs
Out of the gate, we, of course, have to cheat a little because the Walt Disney Studio didn’t produce a single feature film in the first 10 years of the company’s existence. It was exclusively in the business of animated shorts. Of course, it produced some of the most iconic animated shorts ever at that time, including the first cartoon with synchronized sound in Steamboat Willie, and the first Academy Award winner for an animated short, Flowers & Trees.
But if we’re going to pick the best, we have to consider the animated cartoon that was, without question, the most successful, and arguably the most important, in Disney’s history of animated shorts. The Three Little Pigs was a juggernaut of a film. It was not only critically well received, but a revolution in animation. It created characters with unique personalities in ways that had never been seen before, which paved the way for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
1933-1943: Fantasia
Disney’s second decade was the golden age of feature animation. It would be easy to give this spot to the movie that started it all, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. To be sure, it's one of the most important films ever made, but another movie came out just a few years later that was arguably just as important and possibly even more ambitious.
Fantasia was Walt Disney’s argument that animation was a medium that deserved just as much recognition as any other art form. So by combining it with classical music, Walt elevated animation. It’s not just the best Disney movie of this 10-year period, but in my opinion, the best animated Disney movie ever.
1943-1953: Alice in Wonderland
The early part of this decade of time was a difficult time for Walt Disney Studios. World War II closed off Europe to movie releases, which hampered the studio's attempts to make money. The result was the release of several “package movies,” i.e. collections of animated shorts strung together into a feature-length product. While many of the cartoons have their charms, as movies, most are not memorable.
Alice in Wonderland, by comparison, is quite memorable. Animation was clearly the right medium for a movie full of delightfully weird characters in an equally weird place. It was a big step toward returning Disney animation to its previous greatness.
1953-1963: Sleeping Beauty
When Disneyland opened its doors in 1955, it contained numerous attractions based on Disney’s previous animated hit movies. However, at the end of Main Street U.S.A. stood the park’s icon, a structure based on a movie that wouldn’t open in theaters for another four years: Sleeping Beauty Castle.
Sleeping Beauty is a true work of art and the greatest of Disney’s classic “princess movies.” It has an art design that is unique among Disney features which makes it truly stand out. It’s the pinnacle of Disney animation for decades to come.
1963-1973: Mary Poppins
As early as the 1940s, Walt Disney’s personal attention had begun to drift away from animation. While the studio continued making shorts and features, Walt was more focused on his theme park idea and making live-action movies. Among Disney’s live-action output, there is one film by which all others are measured.
Mary Poppins won Julie Andrews the Oscar for Best Actress, and it represented the only time Walt Disney, the man who has won more Oscars than anybody else, was nominated as producer of the Best Picture of the year. The soundtrack is one of the best in the history of film, and the movie has truly stood the test of time as one of the all-time greats.
1973-1983: Tron
The beginning of the second half of Disney’s century was, without question, the toughest the studio had ever seen. Walt and Roy O. Disney were both gone, but the studio pushed on, trying its best to do “what Walt would have wanted.” To be blunt, it’s difficult to find a great movie in this bunch. There are some fun movies from this era, like Pete’s Dragon, and some cult classics, like Freaky Friday, but few that feel truly great.
In the end, the honor needs to go to Tron. The movie wasn’t a critical or commercial smash, but it, like Steamboat Willie decades earlier, was a technological achievement that was still decades ahead of its time in its use of computer effects on film. And despite its challenges, Tron still spawned a franchise that exists to this day, with a brand-new Tron attraction at Magic Kingdom and a third feature film, Tron: Ares, on the way.
1983-1993: Beauty and the Beast
This decade of Disney's history includes the beginning of what would come to be known as the Disney Renaissance, and we certainly saw that rebirth here. The beginning of this decade is full of all the same struggles of the previous 10-year period, but with the benefit of hindsight, we can see the shift begin to happen. What began in 1989 with The Little Mermaid reached its pinnacle only a couple of years later with Beauty and the Beast.
Beauty and the Beast is the only Walt Disney Animation Studios film to be nominated for Best Picture, and while I might argue it deserves company, its own nomination is unquestionably deserved. If Fantasia didn’t prove that animation was art, then Beauty and the Beast truly does.
1993-2003: The Lion King
It’s difficult to pick just one great movie from the Disney Renaissance, and luckily, we don’t have to. While Pocahontas was supposed to be the movie that finally gave Disney Animation the Best Picture Oscar that Beauty and the Beast almost won, it would be the other movie in development around the same time that would ultimately be seen by many as the true heir apparent.
The Lion King wouldn’t win the Oscar or even be nominated, but it would break every conceivable box office record for an animated film. It’s fitting the story was inspired by Shakespeare since The Lion King is truly an epic. It’s unsurprising that the eventual remake would change so little, because original is near perfect.
2003-2013: The Princess and the Frog
Picking a great Disney movie from this period is tough. There are so many really good movies that it becomes hard to choose, but there are a pair of animated films that spring to the top of the list quickly: the last traditionally hand-drawn Disney movie, The Princess and the Frog, and the first computer-animated Disney Princess movie, Tangled.
In the end, we give the nod to Tiana. Considering that she is getting her own Disney+ animated series, and she’s also set to headline a revamped Splash Mountain attraction at Disneyland and Magic Kingdom, The Princess and the Frog is clearly the movie that has stood the test of time better. Add to that the beauty of its classic animation style, and we have to love it.
2013-2023 Moana
In the final decade of Disney’s first 100 years, it is necessary to give credit where it’s due. Few movies produced by the house that Walt built have been as big as Frozen, and there’s a reason for that, it’s actually that good. But as with many movies on this list, there was the movie that walked so another could run, or in the case of Moana, so it could soar.
Moana is an incredible journey, not just the physical journey of Moana and Maui, but the emotional journey of discovery as the title character goes out into the world, only to find herself. It’s one of Disney’s most visually stunning films combined with one of its most epic soundtracks.
As The Walt Disney Company begins its second century, we can only wonder what other great films the studio has in store for us. Will Wish, with a release date only a month away, be the next truly great Disney movie? Or will there be something we’re not even aware of yet that comes along and blows us away the way these movies all did? Only time will tell.
