All 56 Walt Disney Animated Classics: Ranked From Worst To Best
Steamboat Willie's come a long way.
Some eighty years ago, Walt Disney was still dreaming about animated feature films and reinventing the world with the advent of a new medium. He hadn't yet released Snow White, he had barely formulated what came next and he was making strides out into a great wide unknown that wasn't the welcoming environment it would become for everything labelled with his name.
The very idea that his vision would continue for so long, enduring slumps in quality, global conflict and financial concerns must have been someway far removed from conceivable back then.
Now though, Disney is THE brand. Thanks to the weight taken by the little mouse's shoulders and the money raked in from 55 animated features, countless (mostly inferior) sequels and a live action arm to rival all major studios, Disney now owns Star Wars, Pixar and Marvel. That might be the greatest, most powerful dream team ever imagined.
But even with all of that expansion, at the heart of Disney is the Classics series - a group of 55 animated features that have been as innovative and important as they have been cherished by children the world over. And their success shows no sign of slowing - the question for each subsequent release concerns their position on the ladder of quality.
So how DO the classics rank?
56. Home On The Range (2004)
In the wider context of Disney films, Home On The Range was a disaster: it was comparatively critically mauled, is utterly unmemorable and if you can name a single song from it, you deserve a Nobel Prize in mediocrity.
The story is uninspiring - lacking either the usual fairytale or mythological notes - and the fact that its most redeeming feature is that it is simply serviceable says a lot about it. There's a reason everyone thought Disney was lost in the wilderness before John Lasseter kicked it back into life: and this is it.