Disney has been at the forefront of big-budget animation since the very beginning, creating some of the most visually stunning animated movies ever. Disney’s animated movies have often set the industry standard for animation styles. Just as other studios sought to emulate the style of early hits like Snow White, they have recently tried to ape Disney’s colorful 3-D animated CGI that can be seen in movies like Frozen and Zootopia.
Although Disney sometimes gets a reputation for making safe, homogenized animations, this reading ignores their many more experimental movies. Even if Disney sticks to its prevailing style, there are still ways that individual movies can innovate within this framework, and recent hits like Moana and Encanto highlight this atтιтude. Throughout its long history, Disney has created some of the most jaw-droppingly gorgeous animated movies ever, although they are sometimes taken for granted.
10
Beauty & The Beast (1991)
The Gorgeous Setting And The Music Work In Harmony
Beauty and the Beast is one of the highlights of the 1990s Disney renaissance, reinventing an old fable with humor and some catchy original songs. It’s also one of the most beautiful Disney movies of the era, especially the scenes which take place within the opulent castle. Belle’s iconic yellow gown is a striking focal point as she dances in the arms of the beast, and their surroundings are just as luxurious.
“Be Our Guest” is just one example of the way the music shapes the visual aesthetic of the movie,
Beauty and the Beast conveys a sense of lavish excess, and this often suits the musical numbers perfectly, giving them the grandeur of Old Hollywood musicals. The choreographed cutlery of “Be Our Guest” is just one example of the way the music shapes the visual aesthetic of the movie, and there are countless creative touches in the songs which create a dazzling, almost overwhelming sense of entertainment.
9
Alice In Wonderland (1951)
Disney Bring Carroll’s Strange World To Life
Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is filled with bizarre and fantastical creations, some of which make sense and some of which do not. The book came with illustrations by John Tenniel, but he chose to carefully exclude certain scenes which were particularly hard to picture. Disney’s movie adaptation faced the same problem, but the medium of animation allows for some unexpected solutions.
Alice in Wonderland is endlessly creative, drawing an image of Wonderland that taps into Carroll’s surreal imagination. There are psychedelic sequences that don’t make sense and maximalist splashes of color that defy logic, and this all creates a sumptuous feast for the eyes. The creative aesthetic means that Alice in Wonderland crams a number of unforgettable images into a relatively short runtime. In this way, it’s a worthy adaptation of Carroll’s book.
8
Encanto (2021)
Encanto Overflows With Color
Encanto is one of the best recent Disney animated movies, and also one of the most beautiful. The story follows the black sheep in a family each bestowed with magical powers, desperate to find her own gift and her own purpose. The magical gifts in Encanto are each rendered beautifully, especially Dolores’ super-powered hearing and Isabela’s ability to conjure perfect plants. These magical elements add a dash of unpredictable abstraction to Encanto‘s palette.
Of course, Encanto is far from the only Disney movie to portray magic, but there’s something new about its approach. It also has a wider variety of magic, creating the potential for some interesting dynamics and a less predictable visual aesthetic. Even without the magic, Encanto would still be a gorgeous movie, thanks to the lush tropical setting and the vibrant colors, which are embodied by the family’s house in the jungle.
7
The Lion King (1994)
The Lion King Understands The Majesty Of Its Setting
The Lion King often looks like a nature documentary, but the colors are far richer than in real life, the lighting is more dramatic, and the animals can be positioned in any way. The compositions often take inspiration from African art and old cave paintings, underlining the continent’s status as the cradle of humanity. The opening scene at Pride Rock is a great example of the way that The Lion King blends different influences together to create something special.
The Lion King is one movie that highlights the difference between Disney’s live-action remakes and the animated classics. While the remake was a thunderous commercial success, critics have accused it of lacking the visual flair of the original. Of course, it retains the influences of nature documentaries, but the angular animation and the vibrant colors are smoothed down and washed out. The animated version is more unique and more beautiful by far.
6
Moana (2016)
Moana’s Setting Creates Some Awe-Inspiring SH๏τs
Moana‘s exploration of Polynesian mythology manifests in several fascinating ways, from Maui’s sleek tattoos to the warm and inviting atmosphere of Moana’s village. The movie is symbolic of the way that Disney often adapts its style to suit the setting, paying tribute to different cultures. There are plenty of intriguing touches in Moana that refer to specific aspects of Polynesian ways of life.
Another big positive is Moana‘s depiction of the ocean. Water has always been notoriously difficult to animate, but Moana shows how far technology has come over the years. The ocean looks realistic without seeming uncanny, whether it’s seen in a dynamic close-up or in one of Moana‘s many wide sH๏τs. These sH๏τs evoke the endless possibilities of the open ocean, and Moana shows just a handful of the mysteries and dangers lurking over the horizon.
5
Coco (2017)
Coco Makes The Afterlife Look Strangely Joyous
Coco mostly takes place in the Land of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, but it decides against veering into horror territory. Instead, the afterlife looks even more vibrant and inviting than Miguel’s normal life. From the moment Miguel crosses the brilliant orange bridge that connects the world to the afterlife, he finds himself in a place overflowing with music and color. This is even more eye-catching than his life in Mexico.
Of course, the music is often just as beautiful as the visuals.
Coco is packed with fascinating background details, many of which go unexplained. The Land of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ is only meant to be understood to a certain extent, but it’s also designed to inspire wonder. This is all part of Coco‘s mission to destigmatize death, as Miguel’s journey allows his family to reconcile with their traumatic past and welcome music back into their home. Of course, the music is often just as beautiful as the visuals.
4
Treasure Planet (2002)
Treasure Planet Blends The Old With The New
The 2000s were an interesting decade for Disney’s animated movies, as the studio endured a slow transition between the boom of the Disney renaissance and the emergence of new 3-D animated hits like Tangled and Frozen. Treasure Planet is the most eye-catching product of this transition, mixing elements of hand-drawn 2-D animation and CGI into something completely new. While Pixar and DreamWorks set the standard for animation, Treasure Planet didn’t get the love that it deserved.
Since Treasure Planet‘s animation style mixes older and newer influences, it’s appropriate that the story is a spacebound sci-fi retelling of a classic adventure novel from 1883. Treasure Planet understands that outer space is the new frontier for exploration, capturing the same sense of danger and excitement that exists in Robert Louis Stevenson’s book. It’s one of the best Disney movies of the 2000s, and arguably the most beautiful too.
3
WALL-E (2008)
Pixar’s Sci-Fi Adventure Is As Beautiful As The Genre’s Live-Action Classics
WALL-E is one of Pixar’s best movies, and it’s certainly one of the studio’s most beautiful. It combines the striking landscapes of The Good Dinosaur, the exquisite lighting of Ratatouille and the balletic movements of Finding Nemo. Its aesthetic appeal is vital, since the main character barely speaks a word and he spends long periods of the movie on-screen alone. In these scenes, the intelligent visual storytelling and gorgeous art style keep the audience interested.
WALL-E‘s villain is a clear reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey, but this isn’t the only way that Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece influences the movie. From the dusty, wide landscape to the scenes of slow-moving white spaceships, WALL-E borrows motifs from 2001 and several other classic sci-fi movies. This makes it fit in with some of the most stunning sci-fi movies ever made.
2
Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Sleeping Beauty Stands Out From Other Old Disney Classics
Disney produced a few timeless classics in the 1950s, including Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp and Peter Pan. Sleeping Beauty stands out from these other movies, each gorgeous in their own right, as Walt Disney sought to create something different to his earlier fairy tales. It took almost ten years for Sleeping Beauty to finally come to fruition, as the studio practically invented a new style of animation from scratch.
Sleeping Beauty‘s ethereal design is inspired by medieval tapestries and stained-glᴀss windows, which perfectly fits the movie’s fantastical setting. Sleeping Beauty also earns its spot in animation history as one of the first movies to rely on background paintings, which give many scenes an appropriate sense of scale and occasion. Disney set out to create something original and revolutionary, and he succeeded.
1
Fantasia (1940)
A Perfect Marriage Of Beautiful Animation And Beautiful Music
Disney’s feature-length animated movies had an impeccable beginning, with Snow White, Pinocchio and Bambi all coming out within just a few short years of each other. Amidst these classics, Fantasia stands out as a musical anthology movie that is often held up as a curio, but it’s one of the most beautiful animated movies ever made. Like with most anthology movies, its segments aren’t all winners, even if they are all wonderfully crafted.
It’s the perfect synthesis of sight and sound that shows what animation is capable of.
The music of Fantasia includes some gorgeous classical pieces by the likes of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. The stories are crafted to correspond to these pieces, which highlights the music and gives each story a wonderful balletic quality. It’s the perfect synthesis of sight and sound that shows what animation is capable of, and it still looks as stunning as anything Disney has created in the decades since.
