ANIMATION – Top 10 Disney Animated Movies

Simpsons Quote:

Dr. Hibbert: Well, only one in two million people has what we call the “evil gene”. Hitler had it, Walt Disney had it, and… Freddy Quimby has it.

When I was getting into the animation industry and trying to become an animator, I really, really enjoyed watching and studying Disney movies. Today, I’m going to talk to you about my top ten Disney movies.

You can watch the video below or read the post with the links. I’ve embedded a trailer to each movie below:

Some of the links below are affiliate links, thanks for your support.

Studying Disney Movies

I couldn’t get enough of Disney movies, once upon a time. I say once upon a time because, now, I’ve studied them, I love them, they’re fantastic, but my tastes have changed so much.

I don’t mind family movies. I love family movies. I have four kids. Four kids, okay? We watch a lot of family movies. I love having something to watch with them.

But, as a work of art, for me – look, as an animator, watching Disney movies, I watch them in a very different way. I don’t watch them just purely for entertainment purposes. I watch them for a lot of different things.

Disney movies, I love to watch, because they’re always, always, always technically beautiful and fantastic.  But, they tend to be very samey. If there’s a critique from me about them is that, at least lately, they’ve been very samey. They took more risks early on.

So, here’s my top ten:

10. Tarzan

Tarzan, my Number Ten. Why?

I don’t like the comedic sidekick. That stuff always bugs me, and the stuff with the comedic sidekicks in here really, really bug me. Like, really.

But the reason it’s my Number Ten is because Tarzan‘s awesome! And there’s action, adventure, and excitement. And there’s just fighting, and it’s Tarzan! It’s Tarzan.

Seeing him go through the jungle and the way that Tarzan’s drawn and animated, and the characters are great. And the foliage and the background, the way it’s painted on there. There’s just a lot of great stuff.

It’s exciting. I do enjoy this movie, and, you know, Glen Keane, what can you say? He’s the lead animator on Tarzan.

Fantastic movie. It’s a lot of fun. My Number Ten is Tarzan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfciC33t3M0

9. Snow White

Now, Snow White was the first movie. It still holds up. It is beautiful. The animation is beautiful. It just works. And it works, and it works.

There’s a reason why this sucker is a classic.

So, my Number Nine is Snow White.

8. Fantasia

I’m going to cheat. I’m going to say Fantasia, and Fantasia 2000.

A masterpiece in just pure animation. The music is great. It’s hard to beat what an incredible work of art this is.

I sure did not appreciate this for a very long time, growing up. It wasn’t until after I got older and understood animation, and all those other things, that I really, really started opening up to this movie.

My Number Eight is Fantasia.

7. Little Mermaid

Little Mermaid: beautiful music, it’s responsible for the new renaissance of Disney animation.

Great. Fun. Very exciting. Classic. Disney formula stuff.Great movie.

Little Mermaid, my Number Seven.

6. Bambi

Incredible animation, again. Water colors are fantastic in this thing.

It’s an amazing movie. Highly influential movie, too.

Bambi is my Number Six.

5. Aladdin

I remember when this came out. It was senior ditch day, and I ditched school to go watch Aladdin.

So, I was in there by myself, freezing, while watching Aladdin. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed this movie. I laughed, I cried.

Great designs. Glen Keane animating Aladdin. It was very influential on me with that crazy mouth, that, you know, with the teeth, that Glen Keane tends to do a whole lot. And then you just try to copy it as an animator, and it looks like a copy instead of something that is you know, sort of looking like real life like you’re supposed to.

I really enjoyed Aladdin. Arabian nights, fantasy. That’s, that stuff was you know, right up my alley.

4.  Peter Pan

I really like the Peter Pan story.  The Disney version is a fantastic telling of the story.

This is such an incredibly well animated movie.  It has a great sense of magic and fun.

The character designs are fantastic.  How can you not like Tinkerbell, such cute girl design.

Captain Hook is so fun to watch. His acting is dead on.

Not the most Native American politically correct movie, it makes the movie unusually funny.  I love watching this movie. It make me feel like a kid when I watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K83Ix1R9Mc

3. Pinocchio

Pinocchio is, hands down, one of the greatest animated masterpieces ever. The Monstro whale sequence is mind-blowing. The acting, the animation. It’s creepy as heck.

When I was growing up, I hated, hated this movie. I didn’t want anything to do with this movie. This movie creeped me out.

Nowadays, when I watch this movie, I’m just in awe of how incredibly beautiful and well-animated – the story’s dark.

It’s – oh my gosh, it’s so good. Monstro the whale, like I said, is incredible. I can go on. I’m not going to.

2. Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast, what can I say? There is a reason why it won the Oscar for Best Picture. It’s fantastic.

Unfortunately, if you watch the animation now, you can see the flaws in the animation. Well, I can anyway.

Like, I can see when the animators changed, and there’s just some wonky drawings of the Beast in here, and all kinds of stuff.

Like, I can’t un-see the errors in the movie. In spite of being able to see that with my crazy animation eyes, this is a fantastic movie. It still holds up.

I hate the fact that they added an extra song. It kind of slows down the movie and messes up the pace, but, overall, it’s a fantastic movie. It still holds up, and it’s great.

1. Sleeping Beauty

Why? Because it is, hands down, the most beautiful animated Disney movie that’s ever been done.

If you know anything about animation, first of all, the backgrounds. The backgrounds are works of art, just the backgrounds themselves. This is just worth watching, just because of the backgrounds.

Okay. But then, on top of that, it’s a masterpiece of animation, and the designs of the characters are really graphic.

On top of that, the fact that the ink and paint department, which was an actual ink and paint department, it hand-inked every single line, so  that it had a different color. So, like, if you looked at the colors – like, they do that now digitally, but they had to do it by hand on cells when they did this movie.

Okay. So when you look at, you know, Aurora’s hair, and it’s a yellow, and it has a yellow self in line on it, and then it’s painted yellow on top of that, somebody had to hand, with a brush, ink that hair – you’ve got to understand, it’s about twenty-four frames per second, which means the drawing has to be exposed for one or two frames at a time for the animation to work.

Insane that it was all hand-inked, every single one of those drawings. Okay. That alone is incredible.

All right, but, then, on top of that, it’s got the greatest Disney villain in it.

Maleficent, giving nightmares to little kids since 19-whatever, 40 or whenever this movie was made.

My sister, when she was little, she had the record of Sleeping Beauty, and she never listened to the second side where Maleficent showed up because it scared the crud out of her. She turned into a dragon. It’s awesome, an awesome-looking dragon.

Like, it’s – come on. Number One, the best Disney animated movie. At least, according to my personal taste.

What Say You?

What do you think? Am I crazy? Let me know. Let me know what you would have picked as your number, as your ten top favorite Disney animated movies.

I had fun doing this list.

Get a FREE Digital Book

While your here, you can subscribe to my newsletter where you get a free PDF copy of my book, Angel Cowgirl, which, if you don’t want the PDF, you can purchase on Amazon.

So, I’ll see you next time.