If the past decade has taught us anything about the leadership of the Walt Disney Company, it is this: They’re leaning into recognizable intellectual property, and they’re leaning in hard. For the film division, that has meant a string of live-action remakes of their beloved animated features—and the results have been, to put it charitably, spotty.
With Peter Pan & Wendy recently hitting Disney+, The Little Mermaid in theaters this month, and a dozen more in the pipeline, here’s our ranked list of the Disney remakes. We’ve limited it strictly to remakes, so that excludes spiritual sequels (like Tim Burton’s 2010 Alice in Wonderland) or villain spinoffs (like Maleficent and Cruella). And like all ranked lists, this one is very individual; we welcome your perspectives on where you think we were too harsh or too kind.
12. Pinocchio (2022)
Even if you don’t agree with me that the 1940 Disney Pinocchio marked the pinnacle of the studio’s golden age, and perhaps the greatest work of feature animation art of all time, you can still recognize how profoundly misguided Robert Zemeckis’ remake is. It’s an obvious but pointless tweak to make Geppetto (Tom Hanks) a father grieving an actual dead son, but without a willingness to address the burden that places on Pinocchio (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth); the classic songs sit alongside new tunes by Alan Silvestri and veteran lyricist Glen Ballard, doing the latter no favors; the decision to cast Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jiminy Cricket only draws attention to why he’s doing a pale imitation of Cliff Edwards. Throw in the manic CGI energy of Zemeckis’ late period, and you have something that, like the original Pinocchio is a cautionary fable—except about terrible creative decision-making.
11. Dumbo (2019)
You probably don’t remember that the 1941 animated Dumbo was only 64 minutes long, consisting of a series of vignettes where the most famous moment—the achingly sad separation of baby Dumbo and mother Jumbo to the tune of “Baby Mine”—is resolved approximately 30 seconds before the movie ends. There was room for improvement, but Tim Burton and company can only manage to make it longer. The story is so packed with new characters and new subplots that it feels like every five minutes, they’re trying something new in the hope that it will stick with the audience. The more humans are added to the story, with all of their own problems and desires, the farther this Dumbo gets from the only reason it even exists—an adorable, sad, lonely baby elephant. As cute as the CGI design of that elephant is, it’s in a movie that doesn’t really deserve him.
10. The Lion King (2019)
You can’t deny the impressive technical achievement of Jon Favreau’s CGI creation; it’s just as obvious, however, that this was a terrible way to tell this particular story. While there’s a Shakespearean sense of consequence to the story of Simba (Donald Glover) and his journey to redemption, these characters are designed first and foremost to look like actual animals, rather than to create distinctive characters the way the hand-drawn animation did. Timon’s line readings don’t become funnier by virtue of coming out of a face that’s not just that of an authentic-looking meerkat, but a face that is specifically, idiosyncratically Timon’s face. The character design of Lion King ’94’s adult Simba had a gentle shagginess appropriate to wondering whether he could challenge the ruthless Scar; this Simba simply looks like a big scary lion. The 1994 film had personality. This version can make animals look more real, but it can’t make them more alive.
9. Beauty and the Beast (2017)
There’s a version here of the ballroom sequence from 1991’s Beauty and the Beast, the one that included the title song and that I consider one of the most perfect pieces of filmmaking in movie history—and I’d be lying if I said that this one sequence isn’t 90 percent of the reason this version made me angry. There’s no radical shift involving bookish Belle (Emma Watson) and the cursed prince (Dan Stevens), though the filmmakers do deliver it with a more melancholy tone. That serious-minded approach could have been an interesting, risky way to do something original—until that ersatz ballroom sequence makes that pretense fall apart, attempting to duplicate a wistful romanticism this movie hasn’t earned. It’s not really a kid-friendly movie; it’s a movie that wants to be taken seriously, while abandoning almost all of the joy that made the original an actual kid-friendly movie.
8. The Jungle Book (2016)
The opening sequence is so promising, a high-energy chase involving Mowgli (Neel Sethi) and his wolf siblings that bursts with the possibility that director Jon Favreau might turn this light-hearted animated favorite into a full-on action movie. It’s pretty solid when it’s that kind of movie—one that really doesn’t feel like it’s meant for kids at all—so it’s a bummer whenever it stops dead in its tracks to serve up one of the familiar songs like “The Bear Necessities,” or provide shots of adorable animals, or to attempt comic relief from Bill Murray’s vocal performance as Baloo that falls surprisingly flat. There’s a “studio notes” vibe radiating from large chunks of this thing, as though some executive looked at a draft of the script built on the pure excitement of the story, and fumed, “Where the hell is the kid stuff?”
7. Cinderella (2015)
Director Kenneth Branagh’s version of the fairy-tale story does take a unique perspective, in that it focuses almost entirely on human characters like the put-upon stepchild Ella (Lily James) and Prince Kit (Richard Madden), rather than the animals who gave the original film so much of its charm. It’s a nice, slow-build romance between two nice people—and therefore, almost entirely a huge bore. When Helena Bonham Carter shows up as the Fairy Godmother, goofing her way through prosthetic teeth, you get a glimpse of the fun that’s otherwise missing through much of the movie.
6. Peter Pan & Wendy (2023)
Unable to take things in a completely new direction as he did with Pete’s Dragon (see below), director David Lowery awkwardly attempts to meld fresh perspectives with the familiar beats of 1953’s Peter Pan, as adolescent Wendy (Ever Anderson) meets the boy who never grows up (Alexander Molony) for a trip to Neverland. Lowery and co-scripter Toby Halbrooks dig deeper into the anxieties of leaving childhood behind, including an expanded back-story for Hook (Jude Law). But it’s clear they’re mostly tasked with delivering light-hearted adventure, plus making sure we get all the necessary touchstones—chasing shadows, a crocodile attack, pirate ship battle, etc.—and tweaking the original’s cringey racial material. That mostly results in another brand deposit, careful to include a musical nod to “You Can Fly” to accompany the Darling children soaring off on their fantastic journey.
5. Aladdin (2019)
All things considered, Guy Ritchie was probably just the right choice to deliver the goofy kineticism roughly equivalent to that of an animated feature, managing to find a solid sense of pacing for a version that’s nearly 40 minutes longer than its predecessor. It also wisely makes both Aladdin (Mena Massoud) and Jasmine (Naomi Scott) considerably more interesting than their bland animated counterparts. The problem comes in the inability to figure out what to do with Will Smith’s version of the Genie—attempt to replicate a Robin Williams performance that’s un-replicatable, or allow Smith to find his own vibe—or how to incorporate the familiar Ashman/Menken/Rice songs. When it carves out it’s own unique identity, it’s pretty good; when it tries to capitalize on nostalgia, it’s a reminder that this isn’t really a whole new world.
4. Lady and the Tramp (2019)
You probably remember 1955’s Lady and the Tramp almost entirely for the iconic spaghetti-dinner scene, and not so much for the fact that it otherwise consists almost entirely of broad ethnic stereotypes. So the updates here feel welcome in undoing a lot of the ugliness of its predecessor, while also providing a mostly-engaging expansion of the relationship between our two dog protagonists (voiced by Justin Theroux and Tessa Thompson). Sure, the flashback to Tramp’s past feels like someone took Toy Story 2’s “When She Loved Me” sequence and pasted a dog over Jessie, and it’s a little weirder seeing photorealistic dogs slurping pasta. This, however, is one of the remakes that feels like it has a reason to exist: looking at the stuff from the original that, in a better world, could be done better.
3. 101 Dalmatians (1996)
The one that started it all has aged surprisingly well, largely because it didn’t yet feel part of some grander plan to cannibalize Disney’s past. The bones of the story are largely the same as the 1961 animated film, but from a 21st-century perspective there’s a charmingly low-tech quality to the decision not to make the animals talk, while still allowing them to express a lot of personality. And Glenn Close’s diva turn as Cruella remains delightful after more than 25 years. Sure, there’s some silliness to the simple direction by Stephen Herek, but the script by John Hughes does include some welcome wit, like Cruella asking a toadying assistant, “What kind of sycophant are you?” and receiving the cringing reply, “What kind of sycophant would you like me to be?”
2. Mulan (2020)
Much more so than the 1998 animated feature, this version of the legendary tale of woman-in-male-disguise warrior Mulan (Yifei Liu) dives head-first into the question of who gets to believe they could be at the heroic center of a story, rather than merely serving as an extra. We get no dragon sidekick here, no musical numbers, very little in fact to evoke the previous Disney interpretation of this same material. Director Niki Caro strikes out almost entirely on her own, working wonderfully on a scale of grand action and epic historical drama. The center, however, is Mulan herself, and while her occasionally-comedic perils of being discovered as a woman certainly appear—including an interrupted late-night bath familiar from the animated version—this script is entirely about taking the chance of exposing your true self to a world that might not be ready to see it.
1. Pete’s Dragon (2016)
Largely because the 1977 live-action/animation hybrid Pete’s Dragon doesn’t hold as distinctive a place for generational nostalgia as many of these other remakes, no one cried bloody murder about director David Lowery’s remake. He had the freedom to take the raw material of the original and send it in a completely unique direction, focusing on an orphaned boy (Oakes Fegley) who winds up raised in the woods by a dragon called Elliot for six years before being discovered by a forest ranger (Bryce Dallas Howard). Lowery doesn’t play coy with hiding Elliot from the audience, allowing the relationship between him and Pete to develop early and effectively. There’s more than a whisper of E.T. in the story structure, which is one of the few places where it stumbles. Not even those plot contrivances, though, can spoil the charm and emotion that Lowery builds into the relationships here. Maybe just this once, Disney, we can let this whole remake thing slide.
And with that, we’ve reached the conclusion of this (highly subjective) ranking of all of Disney’s live-action remakes.
Discount Disney Theme Park Tickets & Hotels!!!
MiceChat brings you the BEST theme park ticket, hotel & package deals! (You’ll find extra nights free, big discounts, and special offers as well).
Check out the latest offers for Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, and Knott’s Berry Farm:
If you live in Southern California, there’s a very special ticket offer for you that runs from January 9th through May 25th:
(MiceChat works with Get Away Today to provide you with the best theme park travel deals and we may make a small commission on any sales made through our links)
Let’s Hear From You
Disney’s trend of remaking their animated films for modern audiences is going strong, with several more just around the corner. Have you seen any or all of these remade films in both versions? Are there any live-action remakes you like better than the original animated version? Is there an animated classic you’re hoping will get a live-action revival? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
