All Disney Animated Theatrical Movies Ranked by Tomatometer

Celebrate the 35th anniversary of The Little Mermaid!

Remember those shelves and shelves of Disney classics you used to have on VHS – the spines of their spongy plastic cases promising adventures with foxes and cats, lions and bears, princesses and puppets? They’re all on Disney+. (Except for Song of the South, because well, that one’s never going to see the light of zip-a-dee-ay again.) To celebrate this access to all the best Disney movies, we went ahead and compiled a list of every Disney animated film and ranked them the best way we know how, by Certified Fresh first, then Fresh, and then the Rotten ones.

We’ve been strict with our rules; we’re talking Disney animated movies, and excluding Pixar, and movies also had to be theatrically released in order to qualify. Plus, the movies had to be fully animated, which means you won’t find live-action/animation hybrid movies like Bedknobs and Broomsticks nor Song of the South on the list. You will find the studio’s earliest animated offerings: the one that started it all – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – and the ones whose box office receipts might have made a weaker-willed studio impresario end it quickly (Pinocchio, Fantasia). You’ll also find rousing adventures (Jungle Book, Sword In the Stone), make a foray into the experimental years (Black Cauldron, Oliver and Company), resurface in the second golden age (Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King), fall back into the second dark age (Treasure Planet, Home on the Range), and come back up again for some digital fun (Bolt, Big Hero 6) before coming full circle with the princesses (Tangled, Frozen, Moana). Except you won’t do it in that order, of course, because Disney’s Tomatometer highs and lows are spread across the decades.

So, Meter Meter on the wall, who’s the Freshest of them all? Find out in our guide to the Best Disney Animated Movies! —Alex Vo