Disney+ is the streaming service you need to look at for movies that will have you prepared for some major July theatrical releases, and this weekend is perfect for doing just that. On last weekend’s Disney+ movie recommendations, I talked about Moana, Deadpool 2, and Avatar: The Way Of Water, making it a fantasy film, a superhero action thriller, and a space opera.
At the time of writing, only one of those remains trending on the streaming service nationwide. That would be Moana, with the animated hit currently standing as the 6th most-watched movie on Disney+ in the United States. With that in mind, and looking at a film that has just been released in theaters nationwide, I know what is the perfect Disney+ follow-up.
July is a big month for movies. That is why I decided to not only come through with a Moana follow-up for Disney+ subscribers, but also another superhero film after Deadpool 2 last weekend. After all, Disney+ has all the best MCU movies for fans of the genre to enjoy over the weekend. One of them just so happens to be timely.
From Steamboat Willie to Encanto · Eight Questions How Well Do You Know Disney Movies? “When you wish upon a star…”
🐭Steamboat EraBlack-and-white Mickey
👑The PrincessesSnow White onward
🦁90s RenaissanceLion King & Aladdin
💡Pixar LampToy Story onward
❄️Modern EraFrozen & beyond
01
On November 18, 1928, Walt Disney premiered a seven-minute black-and-white short at the Colony Theatre in New York — the first Mickey Mouse cartoon released to the public, and one of the earliest sound cartoons ever made. Whistling Mickey at the helm of a riverboat became the studio’s first iconic image. Name the short.
✓ Correct! Steamboat Willie. Mickey actually finished production first on the silent short Plane Crazy earlier that year, but Walt and his brother Roy bet the studio’s entire future on retooling Steamboat Willie with synchronised sound — a brand-new technology that had only just appeared with The Jazz Singer (1927). The gamble worked: Steamboat Willie’s November 1928 release made Mickey an instant national icon and put Disney on the map. The short entered the public domain in January 2024, exactly 95 years after release.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Steamboat Willie. Plane Crazy was actually animated first (May 1928, silent) but didn’t find a distributor. The Gallopin’ Gaucho was the second Mickey short, also originally silent. The Karnival Kid (1929) is where Mickey first speaks. The breakthrough — the first publicly released, sound-synchronised Mickey short — is Steamboat Willie.
02
Walt Disney sank the studio’s entire balance sheet, plus a heavy mortgage on his home, into a project Hollywood derisively called “Disney’s Folly” — the first full-length cel-animated feature film ever made in English. It premiered December 21, 1937 at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles to a standing ovation. Name the film.
✓ Correct! Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). The 83-minute film cost $1.49 million — an enormous gamble at the height of the Depression — and grossed $8 million on its initial release, the highest-grossing sound film made up to that point. Walt won an honorary Oscar (one large statuette and seven small ones, presented by Shirley Temple). The film’s success funded the construction of Disney’s Burbank studio and effectively created the feature-animation industry.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Pinocchio (1940) is the second Disney feature. Fantasia (1940) is the third. Bambi (1942) is the fifth. Snow White was the bet-the-studio first — ridiculed in production as “Disney’s Folly” before becoming the highest-grossing sound film ever made up to 1937.
03
Walt Disney’s vision of a film-quality theme park opened to a chaotic, oversold “Black Sunday” debut — counterfeit tickets, a gas leak, and asphalt soft enough to swallow women’s heels. The Anaheim park was built on 160 acres of orange groves in just 12 months. In which year did Disneyland open?
✓ Correct! July 17, 1955 — press preview day, dubbed “Black Sunday” in Disney company lore. ABC broadcast a live two-hour TV special featuring Ronald Reagan, Bob Cummings and Art Linkletter (collectively winging the script as things went wrong). Disneyland was built on Anaheim orange groves Walt mortgaged his home to fund. Walt Disney World opened in 1971 in Orlando, six years after Walt’s death — that’s the date many people confuse with Disneyland’s opening.
✗ Wrong. The answer is 1955 — specifically July 17. 1948 is when Walt first sketched the concept. 1962 doesn’t mark a major Disney park milestone. 1971 is when Walt Disney World opened in Florida (six years after Walt’s death) — that’s the date most often confused with Disneyland’s. The original Anaheim park opened in 1955.
04
The Lion King (1994) was pitched internally as “Bambi meets…” a particular Shakespeare play — and the parallels are unmissable: a young prince’s father is murdered by his uncle, who usurps the throne; the prince later returns to avenge him. Which Shakespeare tragedy provided the bones of the story?
✓ Correct! Hamlet. The internal pitch was famously “Bambi meets Hamlet” (or, in some retellings, “Hamlet with lions”): Mufasa is the murdered king-father (Hamlet Sr.), Scar is the usurping uncle (Claudius), Simba is the exiled prince (Hamlet), and even the ghost-on-a-cliff appearance plays out beat-for-beat. The Lion King grossed $968 million worldwide and remained the highest-grossing animated film for 16 years until Toy Story 3 broke the record in 2010.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Hamlet. Macbeth is the “ambitious wife pushes husband to murder the king” story (the closer Disney parallel there is the Frollo/Esmeralda dynamic in Hunchback). Othello is the jealousy tragedy. King Lear is the divided-kingdom tragedy. The Lion King’s bones are unambiguously Hamlet’s — ghost, uncle-murderer, exiled-prince and all.
05
Frozen (2013) became the highest-grossing animated film at the time and won two Oscars including Best Animated Feature. Its standout song — performed by Idina Menzel as Elsa, written by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez — won the Oscar for Best Original Song and dominated radio playlists for an entire year. Name the song.
✓ Correct! “Let It Go” — the Oscar-winning power ballad that fundamentally rewrote the film’s plot in production: Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez wrote the song so persuasively that the directors threw out the existing script and rewrote Elsa from villain to misunderstood protagonist. The song spent over 30 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, was translated into 41 languages for international releases, and its Idina Menzel single sold 10.9 million copies. Frozen grossed $1.28 billion and held the highest-grossing-animated-film record until its own 2019 sequel.
✗ Wrong. The answer is “Let It Go.” The other three options are also Frozen songs by the same Lopez/Anderson-Lopez writing team. “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” is the early childhood-montage number. “For the First Time in Forever” is Anna’s coronation-day song. “Love Is an Open Door” is the Hans/Anna duet. The Oscar-winning monster hit is “Let It Go.”
06
In November 1995, Pixar — then a small Disney distribution partner founded by Ed Catmull, John Lasseter and Steve Jobs — released the world’s first fully computer-animated feature film. It became the highest-grossing film of 1995 in North America and won a Special Achievement Oscar for John Lasseter. Name the movie.
✓ Correct! Toy Story (November 22, 1995). Made for $30 million, it grossed $373 million worldwide and immediately rewrote what was possible in animation. Steve Jobs — who’d bought Pixar from Lucasfilm in 1986 for $5 million — took the company public a week after the film’s release at $22 a share, instantly making him a billionaire. Disney bought Pixar outright in 2006 for $7.4 billion in stock, making Jobs Disney’s largest individual shareholder. A Bug’s Life (1998) was the second Pixar feature; Monsters, Inc. (2001) the fourth.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Toy Story (1995). A Bug’s Life (1998), Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Finding Nemo (2003) are all later Pixar features. Toy Story was the studio’s first — and the first fully computer-animated theatrical feature in cinema history. Its release a week before Steve Jobs took Pixar public effectively turned him from struggling NeXT-era founder into a billionaire.
07
In a roughly seven-year span, Disney made a sequence of franchise acquisitions that transformed it from an animation studio into a global IP empire. Pixar (2006, $7.4B), Lucasfilm (2012, $4.05B) and 21st Century Fox (2019, $71.3B) bracket the era. The remaining major brand — bought in 2009 for $4 billion — brought Iron Man, Spider-Man and the Avengers under Disney’s roof. Name it.
✓ Correct! Marvel Entertainment, acquired August 2009 for $4 billion. The deal followed Marvel Studios’ first independent production (Iron Man, 2008) and gave Disney rights to over 5,000 characters — though crucially not Spider-Man (still under a Sony deal) or the X-Men/Fantastic Four (under Fox until the 2019 acquisition reunited them). Disney’s combined Marvel-Lucasfilm-Pixar-Fox portfolio is now the largest IP holding in entertainment history.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Marvel Entertainment. DC Entertainment is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery (since the 1969 Kinney/National acquisition). Image Comics and Dark Horse remain independent. Disney bought Marvel in August 2009 for $4 billion, two years after Marvel Studios’ first self-financed film (Iron Man, 2008).
08
Disney Animation’s Moana (2016) features Hawaiian newcomer Auli’i Cravalho as the title role and Dwayne Johnson as the demigod Maui. Its musical numbers — including “How Far I’ll Go” and “You’re Welcome” — were co-written by a Pulitzer- and Tony-winning Broadway composer who’d become a household name with Hamilton the previous year. Name him.
✓ Correct! Lin-Manuel Miranda — co-writing with Te Vaka frontman Opetaia Foa’i and composer Mark Mancina. Miranda’s Hamilton had opened on Broadway the year before (August 2015) and turned him into the rare Disney songwriter with crossover Broadway-rap credibility. Miranda has since become a Disney mainstay, returning for Encanto (2021), where his songs “Surface Pressure” and “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” topped the Billboard Hot 100.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Lin-Manuel Miranda. Stephen Sondheim wrote Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods and West Side Story’s lyrics — but never a Disney animated feature. Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote Cats, Phantom and Evita — also never a Disney film. Alan Menken is the great Disney Renaissance composer (Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin) but didn’t write Moana’s songs. Moana is Miranda’s, with Foa’i and Mancina.
The Castle Has Spoken · Final Tally Your Magic Kingdom Standing
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True Disney royalty — or just a tourist with churros?
Finally, the sci-fi genre has proven itself to be a fan-favorite when the topic is Disney+. As such, I decided to make the final entry on our new streaming list a sci-fi movie that presents an immersive original world with a star-studded cast. Take a look at the best movies on Disney+ this weekend:
3
Moana 2 (2024)
First up is Moana 2, the sequel to the animated hit that we explored last time around. Moana 2 was released in theaters on November 27, 2024, finishing its box office run with a mighty $1 billion. Initially, the film was supposed to be a TV show on Disney+, making the streaming service its intended home. However, the scope was too epic not to make it a movie.
Audiences spoke, with Moana 2 flashing a fantastic 85% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. The animated sequel follows Moana as she embarks on a new journey with Dwayne Johnson’s Maui and a crew of misfits, facing off against the storm god Nalo as she searches for the lost island of Motufetu. Moana 2 is Disney+’s 5th most-watched movie in the United States, making for the perfect viewing before or after the Moana live-action remake that debuted in theaters this Friday, July 10.
2
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
After Deadpool 2 made the cut on last weekend’s Disney+ movie recommendations, I felt continuing the Marvel connection through Spider-Man: Homecoming was the perfect next step. Not only do the heroes share a similar kind of humor, suited to their respective R and PG-13 ratings, but Tom Holland’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day will be released at the end of the month, debuting in theaters on July 31.
As such, it is time Marvel fans started their MCU Spider-Man franchise rewatch in preparation for the new film, and Disney+ is the place to do so this weekend. Spider-Man: Homecoming, like the upcoming Brand New Day, features a new start for Peter Parker, establishing his corner of the Marvel franchise with a stripped-down nature. It is funny, charming, action-packed, and tells an emotional coming-of-age tale with a frightening villain in Michael Keaton’s Vulture.
1
Free Guy (2021)
The final movie on our Disney+ weekend recommendations is Free Guy, which marked the first successful collaboration between director Shawn Levy and star Ryan Reynolds. The film is an original sci-fi adventure that focuses on a video game NPC (non-player character), Reynolds’ Guy, who comes to understand his reality and then decides to fight for it when the multiplayer game he lives in is put in danger of being discontinued.
Free Guy presents exciting sci-fi elements, stunning visuals, plenty of laughs, and charming performances from stars like Reynolds, Stranger Things‘ Steve Harrington actor Joe Keery, and Killing Eve‘s Jodie Comer. Whether you are a video game lover, or a fan of sci-fi movies, this wild ride is sure to entertain viewers on Disney+ this weekend.
