10 Best Documentary Films To Watch On Disney+
6. Frank And Ollie
Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston were one of the two key animators for Disney's early years and this film serves as both a loving tribute to the pair of them and the first couple of decades of the Disney company.
This film is a must watch for fans of animation. It depicts the two men relating annecdotes about their hiring in the years before Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was released, through the success of Pinnochio and Fantasia and then the downturn in production during the Second World War.
They discuss the death of Walt Disney in 1966 and the important of the success of The Jungle Book.
Throughout the film, the interviews are interspersed with interviews with other contemporary animators. They often act out scenes from the cartoons they worked on, before those scenes are then shown in animated form. This serves to highlight the importance of acting, even in an animation setting, to properly capture the correct expression that they are trying for.
Above all else, this film is a loving tribute to these two men and to the work that they delivered in the early years of the Disney Company. Thanks to them, and others like them, Walt Disney animations remain as prevalent today, perhaps even moreso, than during their lifetimes.
The film was originally released in 1995 and fell into obscurity for a few years until it was released on special edition DVD in 2003.