All 56 Walt Disney Animated Classics: Ranked From Worst To Best

2. The Lion King (1994)

Once more, The Lion King's brilliance is all about hitting all of Disney's highest notes: great songs, great characters, a compelling villain who gets under your skin and a story that is simple without being boring.

There's a typically excellent vocal cast, with Jeremy Irons as Scar leading the pack alongside Nathan Lane as Timon and Rowan Atkinson as Zazu, and the songs are as good as you would expect from the musical team of Elton John and Tim Rice. It actually feels more like a musical than some of the other more modern cell-drawn animations, and there's a fitting theatricality, despite the cast being animals, that comes from its genetic similarity to Hamlet.

At its heart, The Lion King is simply about overcoming injustice and restoring order - a message that has been as integral a part of Disney history as love, evil and family have always been. And the African plains offered the artists the scope and scale to paint gorgeous landscapes that become almost as big a character as the lions.