12 December 2009

DISNEY ANIMATION: MY RANKING

The listmaker in me couldn't help it: I've ranked the animated Disney features from best to worst, including a score out of ten. This list is subject to change without notice.

But for right now, I'll offer notice: throughout 2016 (and onward), I'm rewatching the Disney canon on my downtime, and I'll potentially tweak a lot of this list throughout that process.

Masterpieces (10/10)
1. Pinocchio (1940)
2. Bambi (1942)
3. Fantasia (1940)
4. Sleeping Beauty (1959)
5. Beauty and the Beast (1991)
6. Dumbo (1941)
7. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Near-Masterpieces (9/10)
8. The Little Mermaid (1989)
9. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)
10. Lady and the Tramp (1955)
11. One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)
12. The Three Caballeros (1944)

Very Good Movies 8/10
13. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
14. The Emperor's New Groove (2000)
15. Lilo & Stitch (2002)
16. The Princess and the Frog (2009)
17. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
18. Aladdin (1992)
19. Winnie the Pooh (2011)
20. Alice in Wonderland (1951)
21. Tangled (2010)
22. Tarzan (1999)

Good Movies (7/10)
23. Mulan (1998)
24. Moana (2016)
25. Hercules (1997)
26. Frozen (2013)
27. The Rescuers (1977)
28. Melody Time (1948)
29. Saludos Amigos (1942)
30. The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
31. Peter Pan (1953)
32. Bolt (2008)
33. The Sword in the Stone (1963)
34. The Rescuers Down Under (1990)
35. The Black Cauldron (1985)
36. Wreck-It Ralph (2012)
37. Cinderella (1950)
38. The Lion King (1994)

Credible Efforts (6/10)
39. Zootopia (2016)
40. Fantasia 2000 (2000)
41. Big Hero 6 (2014)
42. Home on the Range (2004)
43. The Jungle Book (1967)
44. Make Mine Music (1946)
45. Meet the Robinsons (2007)

Weak Efforts (5/10)
46. Fun and Fancy Free (1947)
47. The Aristocats (1970)
48. Brother Bear (2003)
49. Pocahontas (1995)
50. The Fox and the Hound (1981)
51. Robin Hood (1973)
52. Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

Failures (4/10)
53. Dinosaur (2000)
54. Treasure Planet (2002)
55. Oliver & Company (1988)

Wretched Failures (3/10)
56. Chicken Little (2005)

18 comments:

  1. Surprisingly charitable! I would have thought you hated The Fox and the Hound and Robin Hood, say, much more than this would indicate, and I would have expected it to go lower than four.

    Of course, perhaps that's just a reason to stay away from numerical ratings--they encourage reductive readings.

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  2. I read a lot of that hate in the context that it's still a Disney movie, and they only get so bad.

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  3. That's pretty much exactly the case. Ain't none of these anywhere near, say, Transformers 2 levels of jangling awfulness. Most of the worst Disney movies are just boring and mediocre.

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  4. And I think it's fair to say that it's one of the only rankings that would put, say "Hunchback" over "Cinderella" or "The Great Mouse Detective" over "The Lion King." Not by any means a bad thing, but it's nice to see the consensus bucked.

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  5. Mr. Tim, if it weren't for The Silence of the Lambs I would have named Beauty & The Beast the Best Picture. However, I think The Lion King is WAY too low. I'd have moved it up to Near-Masterpiece to Masterpiece status. Other than that, it looks good.

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  6. You're way too harsh on "The Lion King," but at least you recognized the greatness of "Beauty and the Beast," as that is my favorite film in the canon. You are forgiven.

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  7. Wow! Your job done here is really appreciable towards movie ranking of animated Disney movies. I am not worthy to judge you, but I must say you had put very hard effort from your end to have this enlarge display of Disney movies.

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  8. (Got uploaded before I had finished so had to delete the post, let's try again).
    I was invited to a Disney marathon one of my friends was hosting. I and a few others voted to start with Beauty and the Beast, citing how great it was in every respect. When asked what features I hadn't seen they became concerned with two films in particular that they felt I had to see and so we started with those. And so I sat through first Oliver and Company and then Treasure Planet. I was then asked what I'd thought about them. I wanted to say that I'd been humming 'something there' and 'belle' to get through it but I didn't want to upset them, they'd been so sure that I was about to have this amazing childhood experience that I'd missed out on. I hadn't missed out. It's nice to know it isn't just me who found them both so disappointing.

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  9. Holy Adjustments Batman! That's a lot of changes and most of them have got much higher scores than I remember. The softness that age brings?

    Also, if you're going through the Disney films, there's one film not in your ranking list (technically). In Europe, Dinosaur isn't canon, but The Wild (2006) IS. Feel free to check out that aberration when you have time.

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  10. Hi Tim! Do you have any plans to rank the Pixar films?

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  11. Tim has already reviewed most of the Pixar films...you just have to search for them individually. Also, ranking them is a difficult thing. At least 3 are among the best films of all time, and there are only a couple that are anything less than phenomenal (Cars 2, I'm looking at you).

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  12. Before I go talk about Moana, LOOK AT ALL THE REJIGGERING YOU'VE DONE!

    Things that have surprised me or made me irrationally happy:

    1. Your admission that Bambi is basically one of the best films of all time. Perfectly reasonable.

    2. That Mulan is a lot better than the other 7/10 movies in the list (I personally would have bumped this up to an 8, but to-may-to to-mah-to.)

    3. That single biggest jump ever. Probably wouldn't have moved Saludos Amigos all that way like you did, but having said that, I'm waiting for that double Blu-ray box set with The Three Caballeros with much anxiety.

    4. You've really cooled down on Frozen haven't you? (Sorry I couldn't phrase it any other way.)

    5. Ah yes, Big Hero 6 is indeed a Marvel movie in Disney drag and should be ranked as such. (I'm more happy about that than Zootopia's inevitable downslide. It fails to live up to its ambitions, but at least it had them, compared to literally every other movie released by the Disney conglomerate this year, Moana included. And I liked Moana way more than Zootopia.)

    6. You finally coming to the right mindset, that Atlantis: The Lost Empire may make no sense whatsoever, but at least it looks better than that ugly shitstain that is Dinosaur.

    7. Now, repeat the above, except replace Atlantis: The Lost Empire with Treasure Planet and Dinosaur with Oliver & Company.

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  13. Your dislike towards Zootopia (6/10?) confuses me greatly. I thought that film was great. I can understand not giving it an 8 but it deserves at least a 7, which was your original score.

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  14. I truthfully did not realise people kept up with this list.

    I would like, if I may, to explain some of the method behind the in-progress re-ranking. For starters, I ran out of free time after watching Saludos Amigos, so anything post-'42 is still subject to extensive tinkering.

    Also, I would like to clarify that some of these films are much less securely placed than others in my mind. There are six films I've only ever seen one time, and which are accordingly unusually prone to volatility on this list: Dinosaur, Chicken Little, Wreck-It Ralph, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, and Moana. And there are another 10 I've only seen twice, and which are thus also more vulnerable to being shifted around, though perhaps not so much so: Saludos Amigos, Make Mine Music, Fun and Fancy Free (only seen twice in full), The Black Cauldron (only seen twice as an adult), Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, Home on the Range, Meet the Robinsons, and Winnie the Pooh.

    In other words, it ain't definitive by a long stretch. And even some of the films I've seen a dozen times or more can still wobble around: hence The Lion King graduating from 6/10 to 7/10.

    In other words, the opinions expressed in this post are not necessarily those of the author.

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  15. Well, I wouldn't put Robin Hood to one of the weak Disney efforts. It is the best Disney movie. And i'm also very surprised that you put Zootopia on Credible Efforts. And you went a little too harsh on The Lion King.

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  16. I would put Robin Hood as the best Disney Movie, and The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh, The Sword in the Stone, The Aristocats, The Rescuers, 101 Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, Zootopia, The Lion King, and Tarzan in the Masterpieces.

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  17. Actually, instead of Tarzan, I would put Oliver and Company in the Masterpieces.

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    Replies
    1. And I think Robin Hood has AWESOME animation.

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