What are the Best and Worst Disney movies?

Disney is a hodge podge of brilliant effort and cheesy results. When I was a boy, Walt Disney was a god. Everything he touched seemed to be magic. As I grew older and his live action films went from When Knighthood Was in Flower and Rob Roy to Herby and Million Dollar Duck, while the cartoons went from Snow White to Sleeping Beauty and beyond, I began losing my loyalty. Now I judge Disney films on a one on one basis. Some Pixar films are beyond brilliant, but I can't sit through each and every one. My favorite Disney films are
Snow White
Bambi
Lady and the Tramp
Treasure Island
Darby O'Gill
Robin Hood (live action)
Wind in the Willows

I think I will like his new live action Jungle Book.

I think modern Disney went on a great run from Little Mermaid through Lion King to an absolute peak with Mulan and Tarzan. To me, both of those represent a zenith of both animation and storytelling. Older Disney animation was very good for its day, but I don't think the story telling holds up all that well. The old Disney live actions movies were hit and miss, but I remember as a kid enjoying them. Best: Tarzan or Mulan, take your pick. I'll take Tarzan. Worst: Black Cauldron(?)

Best
Fantasia is the best, IMHO

Worst
...thinking...
be back in a bit

I like a few modern Disney cartoons, but not as favorites. I would add Lilo and Stitch and Tarzan to my list of favorites. I thought Mulan was good.

Worst

Pollyanna

You just have to love Lilo and Stitch for the sound track.

I did not realize Ratatouille is Disney. One of my favorites for sure.

I'm pretty much a Disney dumbbell now but I saw some of the earlier ones when they came out.

As I've rambled on before, some of my cousins' family worked there in the thirties/forties. I'll look at the Wiki list to refresh my memory.

Snow White, I wasn't born yet so saw it later, liked it.
Pinocchio, saw it later, I think I at least liked it
Fantasia, saw it when I was somewhat older, guessing older than nine, bored out of my little tree, whenever it was.
Dumbo, seen later, and I think I loved it.
Bambi, loved it, cried a river. Definitely when it came out.
The Three Caballeros, never saw the movie, had the book, must have been a gift from the cousin family. What an idiot, me. That must have been from Aunt Nan (the one I call my hundred year old aunt). She worked there in the thirties, was a smart woman and knew the collector value of stuff, in contrast to me. I gave that away at some point, probably to the Salvation Army in the early seventies.
Song of the South, saw it when it came out in theater. Liked it. I would have been 5 or 6.
So Dear to My Heart, saw it, don't remember it at all, and that would have been when it showed up in theaters.
Cinderella, saw it New York that good year, and loved it.
Treasure Island, saw it, remember liking Bobby Driscoll.
Alice in Wonderland, saw it, didn't like it
Peter Pan, saw it in Wilmette, Il. theater, ok but, eh.
The Living Desert, saw it, maybe at the library, um, didn't mind it
Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, didn't see it, liked the tv show.
Old Yeller, didn't see it, read and liked the book
Sleeping Beauty, not sure I saw it, maybe not.
Big Red, not the movie, but read the book sometime before the movie
Mary Poppins, dragged to it, if I remember, bored and annoyed, I think.
Mighty Joe Young (what is that doing there? Disney must have bought the rights) - I saw it when it was made, dad working for RKO in New York at the time.. I wasn't particularly interested.

See? I've always been picky.

edit to add, I remember turning against Walt about stuff I read re his business and politics; don't know where I read it. We used to take The Reporter, and Variety, but I'm not sure those were the source, as I think my parents had stopped with subscriptions by then. Anyway, a friend and I worked at a local hospital after school and I remember arguing, or at least mentioning about Walt, and she, complete fan, was aghast.

I did want to see that, haven't.

Ratatouille is Pixar after Disney bought them. I count it as Pixar with Disney distribution.

Except for a weak beginning, I thought it one of the best cartoons ever.

For all its flaws, I did like Mary Poppins. My first wife did not enjoy it at all.

I adored it (Mary Poppins), and even more, Bedknobs and Broomsticks. I was in love with that one so much that my poor children know a lot of the lines...
http://movies.disney.com/bedknobs-and-broomsticks

Lady and the Tramp was another family love. My favorite soundtrack (besides Mary Poppins) is The Little Mermaid.

The Best(IMHO of course) wasUP


The Worst (That really lame live action one with "The Rock") . I really did not like "How Dear to My Heart"-it was a lame lamb movie .
Fantasia could be remade today with all the CGI tricks we have nowadays. The original Fantasia was too flat for me and the sound quality in the theaters was only mildly entertaining.

Ratatouille is my second favorite

as an early student of the "flat arts" I was unimpressed with most ALL of the Disney Full length cartoons. The colrrs were ashed out and the dimensions were only 2 even with the three level scenery .
Todays cartoons are superior in their delivery . (Not the whole thing)>
EG I think anything MANGA is a waste of pixels.

I never saw So Dear to My Heart.
I have only walked out of a theater two times in my life. One of the times was when they were showing Disney's Headless Horseman.

Heres a teaser from UP. Just look at the graphics, amazing

These days they crank out amazing graphics like sausages. Snow White took seven years of painstaking labor.

yeh but was the end product really that good? (I have to say not so much)
"Cranking out like sausages" requires a lot ,more real artists. The only thing that is left to technology is continuity shots and the final renderings. Having to draw and ink bazillions of gel cels (and you can still see the blots of ink on the celluloid and spy a shaky hand) was a process that has gone away(Thank goodness). I dont like art just because its old , Its gotta be good..
The creativity of the artists and the "story board folks" is never lost.

Matte painting till is used as an artistic tool except now they can dovetail matte paintings in with real photos elements of real world scenes. (Examples are in the long range shots of Hogwarts and the forests from all the Potter Filsm, or the epic backgrounds in Staw Wars or Lord of the Rings.
Many cartoons use matte artists to achieve a heightened realism in a scenery diorama.