Best Disney Plus Movies You Can Watch Right Now (Sept 2020)

Beyoncé’s visual album Black is King has its origins when the singer researched her role in the live-action The Lion King. It was during this she discovered how Solomon Linda, a composer for the song “Mbubu,” which served as the basis for “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” He didn’t receive any credit or royalties. Beyoncé wanted to make an entire film that told the stories of such forgotten Africans that didn’t rely on animation. The result is a spectacle for the eyes as native Africans are celebrated. From production design to costuming, Black is King is just as in-depth as any motion picture you’ll find out there.

Hamilton brings a 2016 performance with the original Broadway cast to the masses. The show won 11 Tonys and reignited people’s interest in musical theater. And you get a similarly thrilling experience watching a filmed version.

The way they filmed the show was to record two live performances and one where the camera crew could actually be onstage. Seeing the emotion on the actors’ faces makes you feel like you have a front row seat to the best show in town.

T’Challa is the new king of Wakanda who must decide what kind of leader he will be. But the character who steals the show in Black Panther is the villain, Killmonger. Much has been said about how he’s arguably the best antagonist in an MCU film. And the reason for this is that in some scenes… you actually find yourself agreeing with him. He makes a lot of sense, and you could make an entirely new film with him as a protagonist. And it would probably work. It’s a more sophisticated kind of superhero film. Even if it does have some Marvel trademarks, it remains a distinctly Ryan Coogler film.

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6. Toy Story

Toy Story went through numerous iterations. At one point, Woody was described as plainly “a jerk.” But the team at Pixar stuck with it and kept reinventing the story. All the while, they pretty much came up with a bold new animation style that no one had used for a feature-length film before. But of course, movie history was made instead.

Fantasia may seem quaint by today’s standards. But it was revolutionary at the time of its release in 1940. Over 500 animated characters had to be created, which resulted in over 1,000 artists and technicians coming onboard to work on the massive project. The combination of animation with classical music is still incredible to watch to this day. It’s essential viewing for any budding animator.

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9. Togo

Most people have heard of Balto, the brave dog that helped in the transportation of medicine to help with an outbreak of diphtheria in a remote Alaskan town. But what got glossed over in history is the fact that the dog, Togo, took the medicine a majority of the way. A reporter simply got the story mixed up. Togo is a prime example of how movies can do more than entertain. They can educate and reveal insights into history we may not have known before.

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10. Avatar

Avatar deserves praise for what it did for motion picture technology. New motion capture filming techniques were utilized, and the film served as a breakthrough for stereoscopic filmmaking. It created the illusion of depth so incredibly well. Other films in the following years tried to hop aboard the 3D train, but none of them had the same care and precision as Avatar. We can’t wait to see how good the sequels look compared to the first one.

To make sure the documentary crew didn’t get in Alex Honnold’s way, they had to develop a special recording device. Honnold kept this item in his chalk bag, so they could still capture every single sound. It’s an innovative solution and shows how even the most difficult to capture documentary subjects can still end up in gripping detail on camera.

So many adaptations of older properties try to mold them into modern reimaginings. But you don’t need to fix what isn’t broken. The Peanuts Movie sees Charlie Brown trying to win favor with the Little Red-Haired Girl, and Snoopy imagines himself as a legendary pilot. It takes what worked so well all those years ago and simply reintroduces these beloved characters to a new audience.

Combining live-action with animation is no easy feat. But even back in 1964, Disney was up for the challenge. To accomplish this, the film relied heavily on rotoscoping. Mattes were created via Sodium Vapor screens. Extensive wire work required the film’s VFX team to take them out of the final frame. It was a marvel at the time, and one in which such care and precision is tough to replicate today.

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16. The Incredibles 2

It’s not every day you see an animated children’s movie where two characters have a lengthy discussion about public perception. But The Incredibles has always been something unique with Pixar’s canon. The sequel excels because it doesn’t merely take what works in the original. It pushes the characters in new, interesting directions. Plus, you can’t go wrong by having a baby beat up a raccoon.

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18. Tangled

The story of Rapunzel has never seemed quite so… magical. Tangled utilized a mix of traditional animation and computer-generated imagery to create a unique artistic style at the time of release. When all was said and done, the movie took six years and an estimated $260 million to bring to life, making it one of the most expensive films of all time. Frozen may have gotten a lot of the glory out of the new Disney animated renaissance we’re currently in, but Tangled deserves some special attention.

In hindsight, it may seem like Pirates of the Caribbean was always destined for success. However, pirate movies were always a big gamble. None were really big moneymakers, and they’re notoriously expensive to make. Pirates of the Caribbean changed the game thanks to its performances, visuals, and score.

Directors John Musker and Ron Clements did research on the Polynesian demigod Māui and traveled to Tahiti, Samoa, and Fiji to brush up on Pacific Islander culture. The result is numerous accurate details to make Moana feel like it exists in a lived-in world, such as the scene where one islander receives a tattoo in the traditional manner in that part of the world. With songs from Hamilton scribe, Lin-Manuel Miranda, there’s something for everyone.

The Mighty Ducks is must-watch viewing for any ‘90s kid. The film about an attorney who has to do community service by coaching a kids’ hockey team falls into many tropes of the genre. But if you want to relive your nostalgia with this classic sports movie that inspired two sequels and a very bizarre animated series.

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23. Tron

A computer programmer gets trapped inside his own video game. The premise may be straightforward, but Tron was a landmark in visual effects when it came out in 1982. In fact, the reason why so many of the backgrounds in Tron are pure black is due to the fact it was easier to have instead of filling the entire frame with computer-generated effects. It may seem quaint today, but Tron helped push VFX forward.

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23. Coco

What should a good song in a musical do? In addition to being catchy and well-sung, it should also advance the plot. “The Other Side” in The Greatest Showman captures that perfectly with one verse being a sales pitch while the second is the rebuttal. P.T. Barnum and Phillip Carlyle show so much chemistry within the span of a few minutes, and anyone who wants to write a song for a musical just needs to watch that part to know how to structure lyrics memorably and in service of the plot.

One of the biggest selling points for Disney Plus was how all 30+ seasons of The Simpsons would be on it. For our money, you really just need to watch seasons three through nine and cap it off with The Simpsons Movie. Plans for a movie for the eponymous sitcom family have been around since the '90s, and the script went through over 100 revisions before it finally went into production. Revising your own script five or six times seems a lot more manageable by comparison.