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Some things in life are inevitable: death, taxes, and Disney remaking their animated studio classics into live-action films. It’s no surprise why the studio has been so willing to remake so many of its originals: money talks. Despite being largely dismissed by critics, pretty much every film has raked in the big bucks. Four of the remakes—The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Alice in Wonderland, and Aladdin—have eclipsed $1 billion at the worldwide box office, with most of the other theatrical releases grossing well over $500 million. That could explain why Disney has so many more remakes in the pipeline, including Lilo & Stitch, Moana Hercules, Bambi, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, to name a few.
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We’re only ranking the films that are direct remakes of the Disney classics, so sequels including Mufasa: The Lion King and spin-offs like Cruella are not included here. Perhaps the biggest factor in ranking these 16 films is how they deal with the source material. How well do these stories translate to live-action? Are they mere carbon copies, or do they use their animated inspiration to expand on stories audiences have loved for decades? As Snow White, based on Disney’s first-ever animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, releases in cinemas this weekend, we’ve ranked every Disney live-action remake to see which one’s got the most pixie dust.
16. The Lion King (2019)
Directed by Jon Favreau, The Lion King is hyperrealistic to a fault—while the animal cast looks great, they’re incapable of emoting. That renders every emotional moment (what made the original Lion King so terrific) utterly lifeless. Turning one of the studio’s all-time classics into a complete bore is remarkable. Disney doesn’t even know how to classify this oddity, calling it live-action, despite only one of the 1,600-plus shots being non-computer generated. And though it feels like a (bad) copy of the original, it inexplicably adds an extra half an hour. (The sequel, Mufasa: The Lion King improves slightly on the emoting issue, but it’s still not much better). The single most pointless remake in the Disney canon.
15. Pinocchio (2022)
There’s plenty of pedigree behind the remake of Pinocchio, with director Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks, Cynthia Erivo and Luke Evans starring. In reality, it’s got straight-to-video (or Disney+) written all over it. Accents are wildly inconsistent, everyone seems bored, and the effects were dated the moment this premiered in 2022. The new songs are forgettable, and there’s a host of new characters (including a talking seagull and a puppeteer) that do nothing but weigh things down.
14. Mulan (2020)
Mulan is a fascinating study of removing everything that gave the original film its excitement—the rousing musical numbers, the lively supporting cast—transforming it into a pale Wuxia imitation. Credit where it’s due: 2020’s Mulan does do something new with the story, harkening back to the original folklore (granted, it does this poorly). Unfortunately, that does not stop it from being extremely boring.
13. Peter Pan & Wendy (2023)
David Lowery’s dreamlike filmmaking style makes him a smart candidate to retell the timeless tale of Peter Pan in Peter Pan & Wendy. But this is by some distance Lowery’s biggest miss. Performances range from bad to worse (Jude Law as Captain Hook is permanently running on fumes), Neverland is a dreary landscape of muted greens and browns, and the story becomes an insipid take on an adventurous classic.
12. Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is endlessly exhausting, with the cast coming off as unbearable and obnoxious as possible. It does have a unique visual style, but it’s an exceptionally ugly one; effectively turning the Queen of Hearts (Helena Bonham Carter) into a bobblehead is just one of the many baffling decisions made within. This is a film that takes the quirky absurdism of Lewis Carrol’s book and the 1951 Disney film and drives it off a cliff. The sequel, Alice Through the Looking Glass, is more of the same. At least it’s bright and colorful!
11. The Little Mermaid (2023)
Halle Bailey makes a sensational Ariel. Her inquisitive instincts and powerhouse vocals breathe new life into the wonderful “Part of Your World.” Everything else around Bailey, sadly, is a mess. The underwater visuals are frustrating and sterile—comparing the 1989 version of “Under the Sea” to this one, for example, is depressing. The new songs leave a lot to be desired, especially “Scuttlebutt,” a strong contender for the worst Disney song ever. The scenes on land, surprisingly, are much livelier. But this is a shockingly bloated version of the Disney classic. At 135 minutes, it’s nearly an hour longer than the original, and you feel every minute of that excess.
10. Lady and the Tramp (2019)
The best part of Lady and the Tramp is its use of real dogs instead of rendering them into CG horrors. They add plenty of personality to a film sorely lacking in it. It’s weirdly slight, like the whole thing was an afterthought, a shame since the dogs deliver plenty of charm. There’s a reason the 1955 version is a perfectly paced 75 minutes long; it’s a straightforward story, and the choice to add an entire half an hour without adding anything of substance makes this challenging to get through.
9. Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Emma Watson does make a charming Belle, even if she’s not a particularly gifted singer.
Garish, over-the-top, and bloated, 2017’s Beauty and the Beast feels particularly pointless, staying incredibly close to the original while still managing to weigh it down in unnecessary music and unwelcome character developments (why is the Beast so unlikeable this time around?) and an overreliance on computer-generated characters.
8. Aladdin (2019)
Guy Ritchie was the right person to helm the Aladdin remake, and the film captures some of the original’s giddy, irreverent sense of humor. That’s not to say it’s a particularly good film. It’s forgettable, and the performances leave plenty to be desired (save for Naomi Scott, who adds a nice fire to Jasmine). The musical numbers are stilted too, with characters just kind of hanging around while singing—a massive step down from the exuberant, layered choreography of the 1992 classic.
7. Maleficent (2014)
Switching the perspective of 1959’s Sleeping Beauty from Princess Aurora (she only had 18 spoken lines) to the beloved villain Maleficent is a great idea. Angelina Jolie makes a great villain, but the film’s efforts to over-explain the source of her evil is frustrating. Even worse is the reason: she’s evil because a boy betrayed her. Some people are just bad, and that’s okay! The film turns a legendary screen icon and makes her rather generic, thanks to flat dialogue and heavy plotting. Still, it looks great and Anna B. Sheppard’s costumes are wonderfully detailed. (The 2019 sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, is tough to get through.)
6. The Jungle Book (2016)
One of cinema’s best examples of blending live-action and computer-generated imagery, The Jungle Book, looks fantastic. The lush, immersive jungle is made with computers, and the film was filmed entirely in Los Angeles. It’s no wonder the film won the Oscar for visual effects. But the story is great too, expanding on the 1967 version in interesting ways while bringing some fun new characters into the mix. It’s not always cohesive and the world-building is messy, but the fantastic creature design and ingenious casting of Idris Elba as Shere Khan and Bill Murray as the carefree Baloo more than makes up for it.
5. Snow White (2025)
Marc Webb’s Snow White forges its own path from Disney’s first feature-length animated film, making the titular princess (Rachel Zegler) far more assertive rather than reactive. The new songs are mostly decent, and Zegler’s big solo number “Waiting For A Wish” is a terrific new “I Want” classic. It’s not all bright red apples: Gadot makes for an uninspiring Evil Queen, and the CG dwarfs, a choice which drew complaints even before the movie premiered, are badly rendered and unpleasant to look at. But Zegler’s sensitive, effective performance as Snow White gives new life to the classic princess. Thankfully, Snow White more than justifies its existence, and when it comes to these live-action remakes, that’s a pretty big deal.
4. 101 Dalmatians (1996)
The first of Disney’s live-action remakes before Alice in Wonderland started another wave, 101 Dalmatians is tons of cheesy fun. This is a film that exists entirely to support a brilliant, go-for-broke performance from Glenn Close, who channels a fabulous manic energy as Cruella De Vil. In pure high camp glory, Close vamps around, and every moment with her on screen is a blast. She’s terrifying, yet accessible to young audiences. The main romance is dull, but there’s plenty of fun slapstick and creative set-pieces in John Hughes’ script to make up for it. There’s plenty of silly family fun to enjoy in 101 Dalmatians. (The less said about the misguided sequel, 102 Dalmatians, the better, though it’s miles better than Cruella).
3. Dumbo (2019)
Tim Burton’s second outing in the Disney live-action remakes is a far better fit for his talents. Dumbo often feels like an entirely different movie than the 1941 animated masterpiece, and that’s a very good thing indeed. The human cast is impressive; Michael Keaton shines as a ruthless amusement park owner who exploits Dumbo, and Danny DeVito is spirited as a circus ringmaster with a heart of gold. The titular elephant looks fantastic and is almost unbearably adorable, and the excellent production design brings the world of the circus to haunting life.
2. Cinderella (2015)
Director Kenneth Branagh brings an epic scale to the intimate story of Cinderella in the welcome 2015 remake. It’s one of the best-cast live-action remakes; Cate Blanchett makes for a menacing evil stepmother in Lady Tremaine, and Lily James channels Cinderella’s longing and optimism beautifully. It looks and feels expensive—the sets are grand and wondrous, and the costumes immaculately detailed. But it’s the little things in Chris Weitz’s script that make Cinderella so worthwhile, like the expansion of the King (Derek Jacobi), whose backstory adds a poignant touch to the proceedings.
1. Pete’s Dragon (2016)
Pete’s Dragon is a perfect candidate for remake opportunities, which is to say the original 1977 film isn’t particularly good. David Lowery takes the few elements that worked—mainly the special kinship between a boy and a dragon—and injects his own unique vision into the proceedings. The result is something that feels like a complete departure from the original: a touching ‘80s throwback and an effective coming-of-age drama about Pete (Oakes Fegley), a lonely boy who inhabits the forest with his dragon named Elliot. Compassionate, tender, and dreamlike, this is the one Disney remake that stands head-and-shoulders above the material that inspired it.
