Why isnt feast on disney plus

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Of all the companies to enter the streaming wars, Disney has significant advantages with Disney+. It can draw from a deep vault of its own animated and live-action movies and from popular shows on its own cable networks — as well as from company properties like Marvel, Pixar, National Geographic and Star Wars. And that’s not counting the platform’s slate of original TV shows and movies.

That’s a lot of material: nearly 500 films and 7,500 TV episodes at the time of its debut. Below is our guide to the 50 best titles on Disney+, arranged in reverse chronological order with an eye toward variety. As the service continues to build its catalog, this list will change too.

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In this clever workaround to the standard prequel, Buzz Lightyear isn’t the sentient six-inch plastic Space Ranger from the “Toy Story” movies but the hero of Andy’s favorite space big-screen adventure. So “Lightyear” is that adventure, with Chris Evans stepping in as the intrepid, comically self-serious Buzz, who wants to get back to earth from deep space but first needs to square off against his archnemesis, Zurg. A robotic cat companion named Sox steals the show. A.O. Scott called it an “energetic, somewhat familiar adventure, with a few moments of lovely deep-space animation.”

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Hugh Jackman as the title character (a.k.a. Wolverine) in “Logan,” directed by James Mangold.Credit...Ben Rothstein/20th Century Fox

Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine character had broken out from the “X-Men” film series twice before, but “Logan” feels like a truly distinctive stand-alone project, placing the grizzled superhero in the context of a modern Western. In a future where the mutant population is nearly extinct and those still alive are scattered to the winds, Logan (Jackman) embarks reluctantly on a mission to drive a special girl named Laura to the Canadian border with hostile agents in hot pursuit. Manohla Dargis called it “old-school meets new-school pulp filled with intimations of mortality, and raw, ugly violence.” (In other words, not for the little ones.)

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Lexi Underwood and Chosen Jacobs in “Sneakerella.”Credit...Disney+

The world doesn’t need another rehashed “Cinderella,” but this modern, urban, gender-reversed musical version of the fairy tale mixes up the formula, making it seem fresh again. It also has an enormously appealing hero in El (Chosen Jacobs), a stock boy from Astoria whose passion for sneaker design leads to a serendipitous meeting with the privileged heiress to a shoe empire (Lexi Underwood). The hip-hop song-and-dance numbers, owing more than a little to Lin-Manuel Miranda, are a highlight. The critic Natalia Winkelman wrote that “the music is never mere emotional embroidery.”

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Ral Agada, left, and Uche Agada in “Rise.”Credit...Disney+

Before Giannis Antetokounmpo went from an obscure European prospect to one of the best players in the N.B.A., he and his Nigerian-Greek brothers lived hand-to-mouth with their immigrant parents in Athens, selling sunglasses and other wares while sharing a pair of basketball shoes. The inspirational Disney sports drama “Rise” narrows its focus to this humbling period of his life, when the Antetokounmpos had to grind their way through poverty and racism in order for Giannis to realize his dreams. The critic Calum Marsh praised the “warm, earnest wholesomeness that perfectly suits the disposition of its charismatic subject.”

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From left, Dale (voiced by Andy Samberg) and Chip (voiced by John Mulaney) in “Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers.”Credit...Disney+

It may seem curious to revive a cartoon duo from a relatively short-lived cartoon series from over 30 years ago, but “Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers” turns its own obscurity into part of an ingenious movie-long joke about reboot culture and trends in animation. As two mismatched chipmunks, the uptight Chip (John Mulaney) and the dimwitted Dale (Andy Samberg) reunite to find a missing friend, the film mixes live-action and animation in a “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”-like tour through Toontown. Calum Marsh praised the film’s “irreverent, self-referential attitude.”

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Jennifer Garner in a scene from "Alias."Credit...Vivian Zink/ABC

Created by J.J. Abrams, this ABC action series starts with the slick, episodic adventures of Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner), an undercover agent who works for a “black ops” C.I.A. unit called SD-6 while leading a double life as an undergraduate student. But as the show continues to unfold, a complicated and twisty mythology builds up around precious artifacts and the true nature of Sydney’s role in SD-6. Think “La Femme Nikita” meets “The Parallax View.” The critic Joyce Millman wrote that “Garner’s agile, soulful performance is one of the many pleasures of this stylish action show.”

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Iman Vellani (with Matt Lintz) in “Ms. Marvel.”Credit...Marvel/Disney+

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been around long enough now that Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), a 16-year-old superfan from Jersey City, can legitimately say she grew up watching the Avengers take form. When a family heirloom gives her superpowers akin to those of her idol, Captain Marvel, Kamala reacts with infectious excitement, albeit tempered by new dangers and tensions within her traditional Pakistani American family. “Ms. Marvel” is a bright, aspirational series with a welcome cultural perspective, led by a newcomer actress who is thriving in her new role, too.

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Ewan McGregor in a scene from the series “Obi-Wan Kenobi.”Credit...Disney+, via Associated Press

Returning to his role as a Jedi Master in the “Star Wars” prequel trilogy, Ewan McGregor plays an even more reluctant hero than usual in this rousing series, having lost his star student, Anakin Skywalker, to the dark side while other young Jedi are on the run from the Galactic Empire. Exiled to Tatooine, where he keeps an eye on Anakin’s son Luke, Kenobi tries to rescue Princess Leia (Vivien Lyra Blair), whom a trio of Inquisitors, led by a sinister Rupert Friend, have kidnapped in a scheme to draw him out. In contrast to “The Mandalorian,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi” feels more like a serialized movie than an episodic show.

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Xochitl Gomez, left, Benedict Wong and Benedict Cumberbatch in the newest “Doctor Strange” entry.Credit...Marvel Studios

Because the Marvel Cinematic Universe vies to create a seamless narrative flow between movies and TV projects, there’s rarely been much room for individual directors to put their stamps on it. Sam Raimi does his best to muck up the works with his “Doctor Strange” sequel, which channels the demented comic energy of Raimi’s “Evil Dead” trilogy as Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) fights various beasties from alternate universes. The best parts of “Multiverse of Madness,” according to A.O. Scott, are “the sequences that traffic in zombiism, witchcraft and other dark genre arts.”

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Jack Skellington (voiced by Chris Sarandon), left, in “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”Credit...Touchstone Pictures

Based on a story by Tim Burton and informed by the look and feel of his offbeat gothic fantasies, this stop-motion animated musical has aged into a holiday favorite, not least because it straddles two different holidays at once. Hailed as the “Pumpkin King” of Halloweentown, Jack Skellington (voiced by Chris Sarandon) sparks a revolution of sorts when he stumbles into a portal leading to Christmas Town and comes away with exciting new ideas for reinventing Halloween. The critic Janet Maslin called the film “a delectably ghoulish fairy tale.”

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Vyacheslav Fetisov in "Of Miracles and Men," a "30 for 30" documentary about the American and Soviet hockey teams, on Sunday on ESPN.Credit...ESPN Films

Among the large influx of ESPN “30 for 30” documentary on Disney+, “Of Miracles and Men” stands out for taking the familiar story of the U.S. men’s hockey team’s triumph at the 1980 Winter Olympics and viewing it through another lens. For Americans, the Soviet team was the enemy, a faceless and ruthlessly efficient product of their bitter Cold War adversary. But Jonathan Hock’s documentary reveals the devastating impact of their loss on the athletes themselves while marveling at the innovations of the Soviet hockey style. The critic Neil Genzlinger called it “a much deeper, more thoughtful film than a pocket description might lead you to believe.”

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Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler as Tony and Maria in Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story.”Credit...Niko Tavernise/20th Century Studios

It took four decades for Steven Spielberg to make a musical, and “West Side Story” seems to bridge an even larger gap in time, modernizing the stage classic while reviving the dazzling spectacle and craft of a much earlier age in Hollywood. In many respects, it improves on the 1961 Best Picture winner, including Tony Kushner’s thoughtful reworking of the book and the better-developed Puerto Rican characters. Several individual performances also add shine, led by the newcomer Rachel Zegler as Maria, the tragic heroine of this gangland “Romeo & Juliet.” A.O. Scott called it “bold, surprising and new.”

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The Fifth Dimension performing at the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969, in the documentary “Summer of Soul” from Ahmir Thompson, better known as Questlove.Credit...Searchlight Pictures

As Woodstock became a generational event in the summer of 1969, with an estimated 400,000 attendees and a feature film, the six-week Harlem Cultural Festival unfolded in Mount Morris Park to much less media fanfare. But “Summer of Soul,” from Ahmir Thompson, better known as Questlove, makes the case for its significance as a musical and political revelation. The documentary unearths stirring footage of Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Mahalia Jackson, Sly and the Family Stone and others performing at an anxious time for Black people in America. Our critic Wesley Morris called it “a mind-blowing moment of American history.”

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Yara Shahidi, left, and Marsai Martin in a scene from “Black-ish.”Credit...Kelsey McNeal/ABC

Many network sitcoms have attempted to harness the same warmth, humor and racial awareness as the peak seasons of “The Cosby Show,” but “Black-ish” is the truest heir apparent to that tradition, squaring up to serious issues while delivering infectiously silly family comedy. Like the Cosbys, the Johnsons are an upwardly mobile Black family with four kids and an abundance of chaos, but their lives in an upper-middle-class, mostly white neighborhood lead to identity problems. Our critic James Poniewozik admired what “a terrific show” it had become and “how lucky we are to have it.”

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A scene from the Australian cartoon “Bluey.”Credit...via ABC Kids

For parents of very young children, “tolerable” tends to be the low bar that shows have to clear. But this delightful Australian cartoon about a family of dogs living in Brisbane appeals to all ages with its imaginative playtime scenarios and its genuinely clever and sweet observations about domestic life. The episodes are a digestible seven minutes long, enough time for low-key vignettes about, say, a chaotic wait for a takeout order or about when Bluey, the oldest child, dreams of being a fruit bat. In an NYT Parenting column on favorite TV shows for kids, “Bluey” was “by far the most popular reader submission.”

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Mirabel, center, voiced by Stephanie Beatriz, is the non-magical member of the Madrigal family in “Encanto,” the new animated Disney film.Credit...Disney

Living in the impossible lushness of a Colombian paradise, the Madrigals are a family in which everyone has magical talents, like super-strength, healing powers and the ability to communicate with animals. “Encanto” focuses on the one Madrigal without any special gifts and her touching quest to figure out what role she has in the family dynamic. With songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda that cover a wide emotional spectrum, this whimsical and heartfelt film is also a feast for the eyes. Our critic Maya Phillips calls the computer animation “some of the best from any major studio in the last several years.”

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The Beatles on a London rooftop in January 1969, as seen in the documentary series “Get Back.”Credit...Apple Corps

Culled from over 60 hours of footage and 150 hours of audio around the making of the Beatles album “Let It Be” and the extraordinary rooftop performance that followed, Peter Jackson’s three-part, nearly eight-hour documentary may be a fans-only proposition. But those fans will be treated to a unique creative journey, chronicling the ardors of songwriting and recording at a moment when a great collaboration was coming to an end. Jackson’s focus on process requires patience, but once these lads from Liverpool step onto the London rooftop of their Apple Corps headquarters, the catharsis of their final live performance is fully felt.

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A scene from “Oceans,” by Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud.Credit...Disneynature

Of the Disneynature documentaries, “Oceans” is perhaps the least interested in scientific utility, leaning instead on the poetic flourishes of Pierce Brosnan’s narration. But for the directors Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud, the Frenchmen responsible for the awe-inspiring “Winged Migration,” this attention to the abstract wonders of the sea is entirely by design. Their survey of four oceans marvels at synchronized harmonies of behavior, the alien beauty of deep-sea creatures and even a night shot of a rocket through an iguana’s eyes. Jeannette Catsoulis praised its “crystalline imagery and poetic immediacy.”

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A scene from “Bambi.”Credit...Disney

No one can forget the trauma of watching a hunter kill a young deer’s mother. But after that notorious moment, “Bambi” is watercolor poetry, following the fawn as he learns and grows alongside his woodland friends and eventually becomes a father himself. Without spelling it out in a big production number, the film quietly teaches children about the “circle of life” in all its beauty, wonder and occasional loss. “The colors,” our critic raved, “would surprise even the spectrum itself.”

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Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen in “Wandavision.”Credit...Marvel/Disney

One persistent criticism of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that all the movies look and feel basically the same, a natural consequence of its intersecting characters and story lines. Casting two lesser M.C.U. characters, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany), as misfit newlyweds in a ’60s-style suburban sitcom, “WandaVision” is an audacious departure, which critic Mike Hale called “a high-concept combination of paranoiac mystery and nostalgic pop-culture burlesque.” Between the silly misunderstandings and winking references to old standards like “Bewitched,” the show plants some odd disruptions that suggest everything is not as it seems.

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Boss, with the voice of Bill Murray, in Wes Anderson’s “Isle of Dogs.”Credit...Fox Searchlight/20th Century Fox

Wes Anderson’s second attempt at stop-motion animation, after 2009’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” applies the same meticulousness to an original entertainment that uses whimsy and adventure to mask dark themes about a future teetering on the brink of authoritarianism. With a “canine flu” epidemic gripping Japan, its demagogue leader sends the nation’s dogs to quarantine on a garbage island, underestimating their frisky resilience and camaraderie. Manohla Dargis called these droll pups “surprising, touching and thoroughly delightful company.”

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Pedro Pascal in “The Mandalorian.”Credit...Lucasfilm/Disney

A promotional image from “The Simpsons.”Credit...Fox

Let’s face it: Of the 31 (and counting) seasons of “The Simpsons,” only about the first nine are any good, but that impressive run had such a cultural impact that quotes from and references to it have become a linguistic shorthand. The creator Matt Groening and his animators conceived the Simpsons and the town of Springfield as an endlessly elastic source of colorful characters and sharp jibes about American families, institutions and values. Our critic called its animation “ingenious” and its scripts “consistently inventive.”

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Madina Nalwanga and Lupita Nyong’o in “Queen of Katwe.”Credit...Edward Echwalu/Disney

Disney live-action films don’t exactly have a tradition of gritty realism, but with “Queen of Katwe,” the director Mira Nair scrapes some of the gloss off the rousing true story of a Ugandan girl whose prodigious gifts as a chess player allow her to see the world beyond a Kampala slum. By taking the time to detail the day-to-day struggles of a desperately poor family, Nair adds power to the girl’s efforts to maneuver around the board. If “Hoosiers” made you cry, predicted A.O. Scott, “‘Queen of Katwe’ will wreck you.”

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A scene from “Gravity Falls.”Credit...Disney

Crossing the leisure-time sibling dynamic of “Phineas and Ferb” with a much smarter version of the comic mysteries of “Scooby Doo,” this lively and sweet animated series is about Dipper and Mabel Pines, 12-year-old twins who are shipped away to the middle of Oregon to live with their crazy “Grunkle” Stan. Stan runs a beaten-down tourist trap called the “Mystery Shack,” which becomes the nexus of supernatural happenings. Voiced by Jason Ritter and Kristen Schaal, the twins have a winning banter that’s underscored by real affection.

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This is what we call “The Muppet Show.”Credit...Disney

Four decades after it went off the air, Jim Henson’s “The Muppet Show” might seem alienating to younger generations, who will not only scratch their heads over the dated pop culture references but might also be unfamiliar with the variety-show format. Yet Henson’s beloved creatures have stood the test of time, and there’s no better showcase for them than this delightful patchwork of sketches, musical numbers and silly interstitials. “The Muppet Show” has been difficult to access over the years — this collection offers all but two of the original 120 episodes, many of which were unavailable on DVD — so this is a great chance to sample classic moments or skip ahead to favorite characters.

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A scene from the Saturday morning educational series “Schoolhouse Rock!”Credit...via ABC

Saturday morning cartoons were always short on educational opportunities for children, but ABC decided to do a public good by producing “Schoolhouse Rock!,” a series of three-minute animated interstitials that proved to be surprisingly sticky mnemonic devices. Disney+ doesn’t have the complete run of episodes — it has 51 of the 64, the vast majority made in the mid-1970s — but it has all the classics, including the call-and-response of “Conjunction Junction,” the heart-rending multiplication song “Figure Eight” and “I’m Just a Bill,” a civics lessons that was parodied on the “Simpsons” episode “The Day the Violence Died,” which is also available on the service.

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A scene from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” the first feature-length animated film.Credit...Disney

The first full-length animated feature remains a treasure and an institutional touchstone, establishing the outsized clashes between good and evil, the comical interludes and the lush house style that would endure as Disney hallmarks for decades. A princess’s beauty, a queen’s vanity, a magic mirror, a poisoned apple and a cottage full of diminutive miners are among the classic elements plucked from the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale. Our critic called it “sheer fantasy, delightful, gay and altogether captivating.”

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Lin-Manuel Miranda, left, as Alexander Hamilton and Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr in the filmed version of the show.Credit...Disney

The original production of this audacious pop musical from Lin-Manuel Miranda was a near-impossible ticket on Broadway, but now it comes to streaming as a vital and stubbornly optimistic ode to the American experiment. Leading a cast of mostly Black and Latino actors, Miranda plays Alexander Hamilton as an immigrant made good, a “young, scrappy and hungry” embodiment of an emerging nation. “Hamilton” has been described as a hip-hop history, but the music is as varied as the history is idealized and thorny. A.O. Scott wrote that the film is “motivated, above all, by a faith in the self-correcting potential of the American experiment.”

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Jamie Foxx voices the character Joe Gardner, right, in “Soul.”Credit...Disney/Pixar

Death isn’t usually negotiable, but when Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx), a middle-school music teacher, falls down a manhole shortly after booking his first big gig as a jazz pianist, he is willing to defy the laws of heaven to realize his dream. Although this touching and whimsical Pixar movie gets into the bureaucratic intricacies of the afterlife, “Soul” is most affecting as a tribute to the small, myriad pleasures of New York City. A.O. Scott called it “a new chapter in Pixar’s expansion of realism.”

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A scene from “Sleeping Beauty.”Credit...Disney

Photographed in Super Technirama 70, “Sleeping Beauty” is notable especially for eye-catching color and spectacle that sprawls across its wide-screen frame — particularly during a climax when a prince confronts a hedge of thorns and a fire-breathing dragon. Yet it’s just as elegant when Princess Aurora, cursed to eternal slumber by the vengeful Maleficent, dances to “Once Upon a Dream” against a lovely forest backdrop. Our critic encouraged readers to see it on a large screen to appreciate its “gorgeous and stirring vistas.”

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Daisy Ridley in a scene from “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”Credit...Lucasfilm, via Associated Press

The most divisive “Star Wars” movie is also one of the boldest and best, defying the orthodoxy of the Jedi traditionalists in order to embrace a more operatic vision of the overmatched Resistance doing battle against the First Order. It starts with the shock of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) casually tossing a light saber off a cliff and keeps the heresies flowing from there, all in an effort to heighten the emotional stakes for the battles to come. Manohla Dargis called it “a satisfying, at times transporting entertainment.”

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From left, Janelle Monáe, Taraji P. Henson and Octavia Spencer in “Hidden Figures.”Credit...Hopper Stone/20th Century Fox Film Corporation

Tucked away in a segregated building at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., in the early 1960s, Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) joins her Black colleagues as a “human computer” until her computational brilliance becomes too valuable for NASA to deny. The irresistible history lesson “Hidden Figures” follows Johnson and two other Black mathematicians as they break down barriers at a crucial time for the space program. A.O. Scott called it “a well-told tale with a clear moral and a satisfying emotional payoff.”

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Moana (voiced by Auli’i Cravalho) and Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson) in “Moana.”Credit...Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Disney has spent decades laboring over the creation of more strong-willed heroines, but few have embarked on a mission as consequential as Moana, who travels the seas to save her Polynesian village from environmental ruin. Her adventures are rendered in pleasingly lush ocean blues, and Dwayne Johnson has a fun role as the egotistic demigod Maui. But the true star of “Moana” is the songs, which range from the soaring (“How Far I’ll Go”) to the silly (“You’re Welcome”) to the Bowie-esque (“Shiny”). A.O. Scott wrote that they “anchor the film’s cheery globalism in a specific South Pacific milieu.”

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Julie Andrews in “Mary Poppins.”Credit...Disney

In this boisterous musical, Julie Andrews descends from the sky to bring discipline and magic to two spoiled English schoolchildren — and she did the same for a studio that had struggled to make live-action fare on par with its animated classics. With a twinkle in her eye, Andrews’s nanny leads the children through chores with “A Spoonful of Sugar” and more whimsical numbers like “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and “Feed the Birds.” Citing the legacy of P.L. Travers’s original novel, our critic praised it as “a most wonderful, cheering movie.

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A scene from “Wall-E.”Credit...Disney/Pixar

The first third of “WALL-E” is a high-water mark for Pixar, quietly and wondrously detailing the solitary life of the only trash-compacting robot left on an uninhabitable future Earth. The film doesn’t drop off much, either, when the robot befriends a sleeker android sent to the planet to search for signs of life — and perhaps hope for surviving humans to return home. “We’ve grown accustomed to expecting surprises from Pixar,” wrote A.O. Scott, “but ‘WALL-E’ surely breaks new ground.”

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A scene from “Ratatouille.”Credit...Disney/Pixar

Riding high off a nonstop run of hits after “Toy Story,” Pixar gambled on the almost perversely unappealing premise of a Parisian rat with a passion for finessing haute cuisine. But “Ratatouille” pays off in the fast-paced kitchen slapstick of a rodent on the loose, a sensual appreciation for food and a rousing message about pursuing your dreams, no matter your seeming limitations. A.O. Scott called it “a nearly flawless piece of popular art.”

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Richard Farnsworth in a scene from the G-rated David Lynch film “The Straight Story.”Credit...(AP Photo/Billy Higgins, via Walt Disney Pictures

The director David Lynch shocked the film world by following the hard-R mind-melters “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” and “Lost Highway” with a G-rated, fact-based Disney film about an elderly Midwesterner (Richard Farnsworth) who travels 370 miles on a riding lawn mower to visit his ill, estranged brother. There’s plenty of Lynchian eccentricity and style, however, to his heartfelt slice of Americana, and a genuine conviction in the decency that evildoers in his other films often work to snuff out. Janet Maslin called it “a supremely improbable triumph.”

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Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Tim Allen) and Woody (Tom Hanks) in a scene from “Toy Story.”Credit...Disney

The first feature-length Pixar movie was also the first entirely computer-animated feature, representing an evolutionary leap for Disney on par with “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” The sequels would add a more emotional component, but the original “Toy Story” may be the funniest and most fast-paced, scoring jokes off the interplay and adventures of Woody, Buzz and other toys that come to life when they’re not being watched. Our critic called it “the sweetest and savviest film” of 1995.

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A scene from “Beauty and the Beast.”Credit...Disney

The renaissance of Disney animation that started with “The Little Mermaid” peaked with this romance between the book-smart Belle and the tempestuous Beast, a former prince who holds her captive in his enchanted castle until the curse that turned him into a monster is broken. The technical and artistic contributions are first-rate all around, none greater than the songs by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, which include “Be Our Guest” and the title number. Our critic praised its combination of “the latest computer animation techniques with the best of Broadway.”

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Robert Loggia, left, and Tom Hanks star in the 1988 comedy “Big.”Credit...AP Photo/Touch Museum, 20th Century Fox

Within a two-year span in the 1980s, studios released four “Freaky Friday”-style body-swapping comedies, but none have had the staying power of Penny Marshall’s deft coming-of-age film “Big,” which uses its fanciful premise to access the funny and bittersweet experience of growing up. Tom Hanks is perfectly cast as a 13-year-old trapped in the body of a 30-year-old, faking his way through a job as a toy-company executive while blowing his salary on trampolines and arcade games. Janet Maslin called it “a buoyant summer comedy.”

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Bob Hoskins with Roger Rabbit, as voiced by Charles Fleischer in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”Credit...Disney

Walt Disney Studios had experimented with live-action-animation hybrids for decades before “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” but it never achieved anything close to the fluidity and sophistication of Robert Zemeckis’s one-of-a-kind noir. Through the story of a hard-boiled private detective (Bob Hoskins) who helps a cartoon rabbit on a murder rap, the film pays homage to Disney and Warner Brothers animation while delivering an all-ages “Chinatown.” Its best moments, our critic wrote, “are so novel, so deliriously funny and so crazily unexpected that they truly must be seen to be believed.”

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Cary Elwes and Robin Wright in “The Princess Bride.”Credit...MGM

Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music.”Credit...20th Century Fox

A year after “Mary Poppins,” Julie Andrews’s ebullience proved even more crucial in boosting the three-hour adaptation of this Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, which sets a bright songbook against the grim backdrop of Nazi-occupied Austria. Andrews plays another maternal-figure-for-hire, a struggling nun who leaves the convent when a widower (Christopher Plummer) asks her to look after his seven children. Memorable songs like “My Favorite Things,” “Do-Re-Mi” and the title number help her do it. Our critic didn’t care for the Broadway hit, but admired Andrews’s “air of radiant vigor.”

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Fairuza Balk in “Return to Oz.”Credit...Buena Vista, via Everett Collection

Disney would come to regret making a sequel to perhaps the greatest children’s film ever made, but Walter Murch’s “Return to Oz” has picked up a deserved cult following over the years for its half-wondrous, half-nightmarish reading of L. Frank Baum’s Oz novels. This time, Dorothy (Fairuza Balk) goes back to a far less enchanting place, with the Yellow Brick Road and the Emerald City in ruins, her old friends turned to stone and the land patrolled by people with wheels instead of hands and feet. Our critic warned that “children are sure to be startled by [its] bleakness.”

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A scene from “Tron.”Credit...Buena Vista

What did the future look like in 1982? This Disney science-fiction-adventure offered one distinctive vision, although not many people flocked to see it at the time. The film has endured as a cult favorite and technological curio, however, presaging inside-the-grid scenarios like “The Matrix.” It also provides a jaundiced look at corporate-controlled tech realms, pitting a computer engineer (Jeff Bridges) against the Master Control Program in a virtual environment. Our critic Janet Maslin praised its “nonstop parade of stunning computer graphics,” even if they weren’t accompanied by more “old-fashioned virtues.”

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Billy Campbell in “The Rocketeer.:Credit...Disney

Though it flopped at a time when superhero movies were neither common nor a sure thing, “The Rocketeer” is crackerjack entertainment, a pulpy retro adventure about the F.B.I. and the Nazis fighting over a Howard Hughes invention in 1938 Los Angeles. Bill Campbell plays a go-getting stunt pilot who stumbles upon a jetpack that transforms him into a self-styled hero but makes him a wanted man. Our critic found the overall effect merely “benign,” but conceded that it’s a “bustling, visually clever film.”

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Hayley Mills playing twins in “The Parent Trap.”Credit...Disney

Set aside the implausibility — and cruelty — of divorced parents’ including identical twins among the assets they divide, and “The Parent Trap” is a delightful screwball comedy, with Hayley Mills playing 13-year-old twins who meet for the first time in summer camp. The two decide to switch parents in a crazy scheme to bring their mother and father back together, assuming that they never married other people after the divorce because they still loved each other. Our critic admired Mills’s “cheerfully persuasive lead performance.”

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Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones in the 1955 film “Oklahoma,” directed by Fred Zinnemann.Credit...Fox Home Video

The big screen version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s hit musical is notable mainly for how big that screen is: Shot simultaneously in Todd-AO 70 mm and CinemaScope, this Technicolor production places its singing cowboys and farm girls against a staggeringly beautiful backdrop. Set in the Oklahoma territory at the turn of the century, where “the corn is as high as an elephant’s eye,” the film isn’t much more consequential than the two love triangles it labors to resolve. But the songs are still memorable, and the scale, as the critic Bosley Crowther wrote, “magnifies and strengthens all the charm it had upon the stage.”

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A scene from “Pinocchio.”Credit...Disney

When the Italian woodworker Geppetto wishes upon a star that his marionette Pinocchio will become a real boy, a blue fairy brings the puppet to life, but that’s only the beginning of a difficult odyssey before Geppetto’s dream comes true. Modern audiences may be shocked by how dark Pinocchio’s journey becomes, particularly when he arrives at Pleasure Island, but the beauty, horror and moral simplicity of the film are still resonant. The movie bombed on initial release, but our critic praised it as Walt Disney’s “happiest event since the war.”

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