For more than 100 years the Walt Disney Company has made some of the most popular and beloved films of all time. The best Disney animated movies are classics and Marvel and Star Wars have provided numerous modern blockbusters It seems like everybody loves at least the occasional Disney movie and today nearly every film the studio releases is an event unto itself.
But that hasn't always been the case. There have been entire eras in Disney's history where the vast majority of what the studio released was forgettable, and even in years when Disney released great films, they sometimes would also release less than memorable ones. Many of these you can watch with a Disney+ subscription but several are apparently so forgotten even Disney doesn't acknowledge them by making them available.
Dragonslayer
In the history of sword and sorcery films, Dragonslayer tends to get overlooked. Even if you do remember it, there's a decent chance you had no idea it was technically a Disney movie, as it was a far cry from their normal output in the early '80s and thus the Disney name was largely left off the film.
The Island At The Top Of The World
A wealthy industrialist charters an expedition into the Arctic to search for his son who has gone missing from a whaling vessel. The movie has no major stars and is seen by some as an attempt to recreate the magic of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, swapping out the submersible for an airship.
The Adventures Of Bullwhip Griffin
The year before Roddy McDowell appeared in the iconic Planet of the Apes he starred in the much less memorable The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin. As the title character, McDowell plays the butler of a young boy during the California Gold Rush. The movie has some laughs and some music from Disney's intrepid songwriting duo the Sherman Brothers, but it doesn't have songs you'd remember.
Baby: Secret Of The Lost Legend
Baby...Secret of the Lost Legend is a movie where the guy who played The Greatest American Hero discovers a dinosaur that still lives in the modern day. What could go wrong? While everybody loves a good dinosaur movie, Jurassic Park this is not. The dinosaur effects were only possible in the '80s and there's a reason nobody since then remembers it.
The Great Mouse Detective
After Disney's golden era of animation but before the Disney Renaissance of the '90s, there are several films that fall through the cracks. In between the bomb that was The Great Cauldron and the smash hit that was The Little Mermaid, there was The Great Mouse Detective, a movie that wasn't at either extreme and thus tends to get overlooked.
Blackbeard's Ghost
Dean Jones and Suzanne Plushette, who would both make several movies for Disney, co-star in the film about a high school track coach who accidentally finds himself haunted by the ghost of Blackbeard the pirate, played by the great Peter Ustinov. The movie was actually reasonably successful in its day but it's had difficulty surviving the test of time.
The Castaway Cowboy
James Garner plays a man who jumps ship from where he was forced to work and finds himself washed up in Hawai'i. He ends up helping out a woman and her young son who are trying to survive farming the land. Even James Garner has admitted he didn't love the movie, and it seems most agree with him.
Candleshoe
Jodie Foster made several movies for Disney as a child actor. Most notably the original Freaky Friday. Candleshoe, in which Foster cons her way into a wealthy household, is far less iconic. The most notable thing about is that it is the film that prevented Jodie Foster from taking the role of Princess Leia in the original Star Wars
Condorman
Decades before Disney bought Marvel, the studio's first superhero movie, Condorman is about a comic book writer who fashions a functioning flying suit as part of the creation of his new hero character. He then ends up involved in a real espionage plot where finds himself in over his head and eventually has to rely on his superhero alter ego to escape. There's a reason this one didn't become a franchise.
Emil and the Detectives
Child detectives foiling a bank robbery is just the sort of movie that you would expect from Disney in 1964. However, the movie is based on a German novel, and thus would not have been that well known to most American audiences. Perhaps that's why this film was largely forgotten.
The One And Only Genuine Original Family Band
The second consecutive Disney live-action musical to star the duo of Leslie Ann Waren and John Davidson, The One And Only Genuine Original Family Band, is mostly known for a really long title and being the last movie that The Sherman Brothers worked on as employees of Disney. Unfortunately, the music is a far cry from Mary Poppins.
The Happiest Millionaire
The Happiest Millionaire is one of the last films that Walt Disney himself produced before his death. It was meant to be the movie that might follow in the footsteps of Mary Poppins as a major awards contender. But the movie is very long, and only has one memorable song in its entire three-hour run time.
Third Man On The Mountain
The only claim to fame that Third Man on the Mountain has is that it allegedly inspired the Matterhorn Bobsleds roller coaster at Disneyland. Unfortunately, chronology makes that claim dubious. Even so, the fact that most people don't know the story is just another reason this film remains largely forgotten.
North Avenue Irregulars
Old ladies in church versus organized crime. That's the elevator pitch for North Avenue Irregulars and it's a perfect example of a late '70s live-action Disney movie. Utterly inoffensive, and utterly forgettable.
Now You See Him Now You Don't/TheStrongest Man in The World
It's possible that you do remember The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, the Disney movie that starred frequent Disney movie star Kurt Russell as a college student who gets a computer-like brain. But did you know that Russell's character from that film Dexter Riley, appeared in two sequels? I didn't think so.
Ride A Wild Pony
There comes a point when you get the feeling that Disney just threw darts to decide what their next movie would be. The only questions were which cute animal would be involved and what semi-exotic location would be included in a story with what sort of children. Ride a Wild Pony fills in those blanks with a story about a boy and girl fighting over a pony in Australia.
So Dear To My Heart
While you've certainly heard of Disney's controversial film Song of the South even if you've never seen it, you're less likely to know So Dear to My Heart. It's a sort of spiritual sequel as it came out a couple of years later and also combines live-action sequences with animation. It tells the story of a young boy's attempts to raise a lamb. The movie was well-loved by Walt Disney himself, but few others have given it much thought since its release.
Unidentified Flying Oddball
A twist on Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. This one follows a NASA astronaut and android duplicate back in time. It's not as much fun as that sounds.
The Watcher In The Woods
One of the last film roles for screen icon Bette Davis, The Watcher in the Woods was actually pulled from theaters so its wild ending could be reshot. It didn't help and the movie was still panned, which is a shame because it's about as close to a horror movie as Disney ever got.
The Moon-Spinners
Haley Mills made six movies for Disney, including the original Parent Trap, but this is one of the films you probably weren't aware of. Mills is old enough to be a romantic lead in this one and it's an unusual film in that regard as the film is devoid of kids, animation, or cute animals. It's a straight mystery drama, though it's still designed for younger viewers. Maybe it needed a cute animal.
The Adventures Of Huck Finn
There have been numerous adaptations of The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn over the years. The one made by Disney in the 1990s is notable if only because the title role is played by a young Elijah Wood, but that's about the only thing that is memorable about it.
The Story Of Robin Hood
The animated version of Robin Hood made by Disney with anthropomorphic animals in the '70s is a film you're likely aware of. However, decades earlier Disney's second-ever life-action film was also a Robin Hood story, though one that made considerably less impact.
The Sword And The Rose
One of Disney's early live-action films was a costume drama telling a heavily fictionalized version of the life of Mary Tudor, a sister of Henry VIII. Even today this one seems like an odd choice for a Disney movie and based on the fact that it's a movie even Disney doesn't talk about it much, it seems maybe the studio agrees.
Rob Roy: The Highland Rogue
You may be familiar with the Rob Roy movie that came out in the 1990s and starred Liam Neeson and got Tim Roth an Oscar nomination. You are likely less familiar with Rob Roy: The Highland Rogue, a version of the story of the Scottish folk hero that Disney made in 1953. The Liam Neeson version is much better.
Tonka
Tonka is the story of a horse, a stallion who is tamed by a Native American boy, played by an American of Sicilian descent. Perhaps it's the fact that the casting from 1958 hasn't aged well that has led to this one being completely overlooked.
Greyfriars Bobby
Many Disney movies that have stood the test of time are focused on animals rather than people. Greyfriars Bobby is the story of a terrier that will not leave the grave of its deceased master. It's a more interesting story than that sounds, but Greyfriars Bobby certainly isn't among the most well-remembered Disney animal characters.
The Misadventures Of Merlin Jones
The Misadventures Of Merlin Jones was an early case of a project originally designed for TV getting a theatrical release instead. Unfortunately, the movie, about a teen who attempts to read people's minds, probably didn't deserve such treatment. Ironically, the sequel The Monkey's Uncle, is actually a more well-known movie thanks to a banger of a title song, written by the Sherman Brothers and sung by Annette Funichello and the Beach Boys.
The Ugly Dachshund
The Ugly Dachshund is about as paint by numbers for a 1960s live-action Disney movie as you can get. It stars Dean Jones and Susanne Pleschette, who both appeared in many Disney films of the era, and focuses on a funny animal. In this case, it's about a dog, a Great Dane, who is raised by a Dachshund mother and thus grows up believing he is one.
The Million Dollar Duck
The Million Dollar Duck, a film about a duck that lays golden eggs, was so bad that famed film critic Gene Siskel is reported to have walked out of it before it ended, one of only three films that ever caused him to do that. Knowing that it's not hard to guess why this one doesn't get talked about anymore.
The World's Greatest Athlete
Disney has made many iconic sports movies over the years, from Remember the Titans to Miracle. The World's Greatest Athlete is not one of them. It's basically "What if Tarzan ran track?" It's about as good as that sounds.
No Deposit, No Return
Don Knotts style of comedy worked well in family-friendly Disney movies like The Apple Dumpling Gang and Hot Lead And Cold Feet. Those are movies that people of a certain generation at least will likely remember fondly. However, No Deposit, No Return, about two kids who stage their own kidnapping, is not nearly as successful.
Treasure of Matecumbe
Treasure of Matecumbeis a classic adventure story about set in post-Civil War America that follows four people on a quest for a lost treasure. National Treasure this is not.
