Every Disney Era of Animation, Ranked

The Walt Disney Company was founded in 1923 by brothers Walt and Roy O. Disney after Walt lost the rights to his first co-creation with animator Ub Iwerks, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, to Universal. From humble beginnings making animated theater shorts, Walt’s ambition would see the company expand into animated filmmaking. While they have branched into other areas, such as live-action filmmaking and theme parks, the animated catalog is still what Disney is best known for, and the timeless appeal of animation ensures that the movies won’t be forgotten anytime soon.

Fans and historians alike tend to break down the history of Disney animation into various eras. They are determined by several factors, including common themes among the films, major events in the company, and their overall impact on pop culture history. Each of these eras is an important building block in the company’s history, but a few are more highly regarded because of the masterpieces they produced.

8

The Dark Age (1970-1988)

The term Dark Age is used to describe when something, be it civilization or a long-running series, hits a point of creative and/or cultural stagnation and decline, which sums up Disney’s 4th animated era pretty well. Walt Disney died in 1966, and Roy O. Disney in 1971. Walt’s top animators, nicknamed The Nine Old Men, were also getting ready to retire, leaving the company in a period of uncertainty as to what its future would look like. As a result, films took longer to produce, and the ones that came out were made with a “What would Walt Do?” philosophy, resulting in cheap, safe movies that played to the lowest common denominator. Sure, they have their fans, and very few of these movies are objectively terrible, but when compared to the rest of Disney’s catalog, the differences are like night and day. One film, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, was an amalgamation of 3 shorts released between 1966 and 1974 with new animation to bridge them. Roy E. Disney, son of Roy O., and the only member of the Disney family still involved with the company, resigned as executive in 1977 over creative disagreements.

Meanwhile, new animators were joining from the California Institute of the Arts, and many of them were becoming frustrated that the magical films that inspired them were no longer being produced. Things reached a boiling point during the production of The Fox and the Hound, which saw Don Bluth lead a mass exodus of animators in 1979 and release his own animated movie, The Secret of NIMH, in 1982, giving Disney some competition. And things kept getting worse: by 1984, future big names in animation, like Brad Bird, Tim Burton, and John Lasseter, had either left the company or been fired for pushing back against the creative stagnation. That same year, Roy E. Disney left his seat on the Board of Directors, and a hostile takeover attempt saw Disney nearly dismantled. However, Roy E. and the Board of Directors worked together to stop the takeover and ousted Walt’s son-in-law and then CEO, Ron Miller, replacing him with Michael Eisner and Frank Wells as President. They would bring Jeffrey Katzenberg to oversee animation with Roy E. They had a rocky beginning with The Black Cauldron, but the moderate success of The Great Mouse Detective encouraged Eisner to put more faith into future movies. Thus, the Dark Age of Disney can be looked back on as the era that proved Disney could survive the death of its founder, but also shows the dangers of resting on one’s laurels and refusing new ideas.

7

The Wartime Era (1943-1949)

World War II hit Disney hard. Not only did the loss of overseas markets mean that many of their late Golden Age films bombed at the box office, but most of Walt’s best animators were drafted. Thus, the company needed to focus on conserving money until the war was over, and the global economy could recover. The first thing Walt did was partner up with the American government to produce wartime propaganda shorts like Der Fuehrer’s Face and Victory Through Air Power. The government also commissioned Disney to make films focused on Latin and South America as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s Good Neighbor Policy, resulting in Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros. Meanwhile, Disney’s main animation department was full of half-finished story concepts and not enough staff to complete them. Thus, Walt decided to keep the anthology train going by releasing “package films.”

Their animation quality was a far cry from the experimental and lavish details of the Golden Age, but they were quick to produce and kept the budget small. They alternated between two structures: musical anthologies and double features. Make Mine Music and Melody Time were musical films similar to Fantasia, but focused on more contemporary music and featuring more traditional narratives in their shorts compared to Fantasia’s more abstract segments. Meanwhile, Fun and Fancy-Free and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad featured two short movies with complete three-act structures, bridged together with live-action footage. While the package movies kept Disney afloat until his animators could come home, Walt viewed them as a necessary evil, since they didn’t turn in a big enough profit or let him push the boundaries of animation like he always tried. Thus, the first change he got, he would return to making standard animated features, ending the Wartime Era. The movies are certainly fun, and thanks to concept artist Mary Blair, their visuals became more surreal. However, there really isn’t a lot of substance to them, hence why they have become forgotten by all but the most die-hard Disney fans.

6

The Post-Revival Era (2018-Present)

Determining when an era ends and a new one begins usually takes a few years, so in the past, several of these films were considered part of the Revival Era. However, it’s been long enough now that we can say that the Revival Era ended in 2018 with John Lasseter’s departure from Disney following accusations of sexual misconduct. He was replaced as Chief Creative Officer of Disney Animation by Jennifer Lee, writer and co-director of Frozen, in one of many major shakeups that would take place at Disney before the 2010s were through. A year later, Disney finished their acquisition of 21st Century Fox, and they launched their own streaming service, Disney+. Bob Iger planned to step down as CEO to be replaced by Bob Chapek, but after COVID hit and Chapek made a series of unpopular opinions, Iger returned. He finally got his retirement in 2026, with Josh D’Amaro now at the helm, while Lee would step down as CCO in 2024 to focus on future Frozen films. She was succeeded by Jared Bush, who worked on several of the Revival Era’s biggest hits.

Post-Revival movies share one of two things in common: they are sequels to popular movies, or they bombed at the box office. They’re also far more divisive than previous movies. Many of the criticisms feel similar to the Dark Age, such as an over-reliance on safe, formulaic stories, especially through the sequels. Generational trauma has become somewhat of a meme, being almost as common here as twist villains were during the Revival. The movies also became more focused on spreading messages than telling good stories, as admitted by Iger himself in 2023. The most egregious example is Wish, which was supposed to mark the company’s 100th year, but it instead became a hated mess of a movie that smashed together as many references to classic Disney as it could with barely any plot connecting them. Since the Post-Revival era is still ongoing, it’s hard to truly judge what its place in Disney history will be, or its overall quality. There’s still time for it to turn itself around, but the movies we do have don’t paint the best picture.

5

The Post-Renaissance Era (1999-2008)

All things that rise must eventually fall, and such was the case for the influential Disney Renaissance. With the emergence of Pixar and DreamWorks as immediate competition for Disney, and other production companies trying to mimic Disney’s winning formula for animated musicals, the company decided to mix things up. Rather than simply adapting well-known books and fairy tales, Disney would produce more original stories in different styles, beginning with Fantasia 2000, a passion project of Roy E. Disney’s that bombed at the box office. Meanwhile, Disney’s first animated movie with CGI, Dinosaur, turned in a hefty profit, thus sending a clear message that 2D animation was out and 3D animation was in. Lilo & Stitch and Brother Bear were successful, but Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet weren’t. Meanwhile, Pixar was churning out hit after hit, and DreamWorks altered the pop-culture landscape forever with Shrek.

This era also saw a shakeup of leadership that led to Eisner’s exit and the hiring of Bob Iger as new CEO. Iger patched up relationships with Pixar, leading to its acquisition in 2006. John Lasseter was made CCO of both Disney and Pixar animation, leading to major story changes to the CGI movies still in production—Meet the Robinsons and Bolt, bringing an end to the Revival Era. Overall, this era can be looked back on as one of Disney’s most experimental and ahead of its time. Many of the films have found new life as cult classics since their release, and with how formulaic and uninspired modern Disney films are, there’s something to admire about how they broke the mold of what a Disney film is. The Post-Revival Era would also be the last to have any input from the Disney family, as Roy E. would sadly die in 2009 after a long battle with stomach cancer.

4

The Silver Age (1950-1967)

The Wartime Era kept Disney alive as a company, but they were running on life support. The package films didn’t turn in enough of a profit to offset the losses from the Golden Age or cover the relocation of Disney studios to Burbank, California. Once Walt’s animators were back from the war, he proposed that they return to making animated features. In 1950, Cinderella hit theaters, becoming the company’s biggest success since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and kicked off the Silver Age, so called because it’s a successor to the Golden Age, while not quite reaching the same heights.

The Silver Age saw a bunch of major changes to Disney animation. For one, the style became more universal, thanks in large part to legendary animator and draftsman Milt Kahl. As more and more animators came to him to help finalize their character designs, Disney characters shifted to more angular designs compared to the rounded ones during the company’s early years. The Nine Old Men, who worked on each film together, also started getting split up after Peter Pan. Walt also had greatly reduced input on the animated films compared to decades earlier, as his attention was now aimed at live-action movies and theme parks. The biggest shakeups came following Sleeping Beauty, which was a massive box-office bomb. To save on production costs, Walt reluctantly agreed to shift to using xerography to copy the animator’s pencil drawings directly onto animation cells. All in all, the Silver Age truly is the end of an era, with many of its movies not receiving the recognition they deserved until decades after it ended, and the loss of Walt’s personal touch. However, its movies are also some of Disney’s most magical.

3

The Revival Era (2009-2016)

With John Lasseter and Bob Iger now seated in their roles, Disney would undergo one of its biggest and brightest eras. It began with The Princess and the Frog, Disney’s return to 2D animation, and the beginning of Lasseter’s attempt to produce 2D animation alongside 3D. Sadly, a lack of audience interest and poor box office performances compared to both Disney and rival 3D films saw the project end after its second film, Winnie the Pooh. And when you consider both Princess and the Frog and Winnie the Pooh’s box-office numbers, to the CGI Tangled sandwiched between them, it was a no-brainer. 3D was here to stay, so Disney fully embraced it.

Disney also began an unprecedented rise beginning in 2009, when the company bought Marvel, and again in 2012 with the purchase of Lucasfilm. This further transformed Disney into the dominant media conglomerate in the world and saw the beginning of the ever-dominant Marvel Cinematic Universe. But in 2013, they would see unparalleled pop culture dominance with the release of Frozen. The film became the highest-grossing animated film until the release of the live-action The Lion King, and the first movie in the Disney animated canon to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Their next two films, Big Hero 6 and Zootopia, would also take home the award, while Moana was the first Disney movie to feature songs written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. In short, the Revival Era was a return to form for Disney, and the success of these movies, alongside the company’s other acquisitions, set Disney on a path of true global dominance.

2

The Golden Age (1937-1942)

The Golden Age refers to a period of the distant past where there was peace, prosperity, and tremendous cultural advancement. Disney’s Golden Age checked the last two, but it was far from peaceful. The idea for Walt’s first feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, came about as a means for Walt to both grow his company and push animation further as a medium. He spent the better part of the 1930s training his animators through his Silly Symphonies cartoons and developed the multiplane camera, all while people called the project “Disney’s Folly.” Yet, Snow White was a smash hit and the bedrock upon which the modern animation landscape is built.

Unfortunately, Snow White was the only major hit of this period. Dumbo would make a decent profit on account of Walt scaling back its budget, but Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Bambi bombed or failed to make enough to justify their cost, largely because of World War II, which had closed off the overseas markets. Walt also faced an animator’s strike in 1941, which cost him many of his best animators at the time, like Art Babbit, Walt Kelly, Tyrus Wong, and Bill Tytla, who felt ostracized due to sympathizing with the strikers. So then, why is this era called the Golden Age if it had so much trouble?

Simply put, the movies that came out during this time were revolutionary. Pinocchio was released only 3 years after Snow White, yet its character animation is leagues better, and it still possesses some of the most realistic 2D water animation. Fantasia is an ambitious audiovisual experience that pairs beautiful animation with classical music. Bambi saw a massive jump in quality when it came to animal anatomy, and the colors and shading perfectly evoked the sensation of a deep forest. Even Dumbo saw stellar character animation through its silent main character. Even with nearly a century of technological advancements, these movies remain visual masterpieces that represent Walt’s passion and ambition, perhaps the best of any movie made during his lifetime.

1

The Renaissance Era (1989-1999)

As amazing as the Golden Age is, there’s only one era of Disney that surpasses it in terms of quality and cultural impact. That is the Renaissance, born from the shakeup of leadership at the end of the Dark Age. With new animation techniques developed through working on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and a willingness to try more bold and ambitious storytelling, Disney would become the dominant force in animation throughout the 1990s. This era made animated musicals a mainstay at Disney, thanks to musician Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman, who brought a Broadway formula that made the songs integral to the story. As a result, all but The Rescuers Down Under would earn nominations at the Academy Awards for music and songs. One film, Beauty and the Beast, would make history as the first animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture, while the success of Robin Williams‘ Genie in Aladdin would lead to the modern era of hiring celebrity voices for animated movies.

The Renaissance also saw major advancements in technology. Disney started using CGI with The Black Cauldron, but for this era, they would come up with new, revolutionary programs to make the films even more dynamic. Some of the best examples include the wildebeest stampede in The Lion King, done using a program that simulated and animated hundreds of independent models that avoided collision, and the Deep Canvas for Tarzan, which allowed artists to paint on 3D geometry, resulting in dynamic camera angles. Pixar also developed the CAPS system, allowing movies to be drawn and colored digitally.

Not all was great for Disney during this era. Ashman would tragically pass away from AIDS complications a few months shy of Beauty and the Beast’s release, and in 1994, Frank Wells died in a helicopter crash, leading to a falling out between Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Katzenberg would leave to co-found DreamWorks, which, alongside Pixar, would become a major rival for Disney. Pocahontas also did not perform nearly as well as the company had hoped, and is remembered as one of Disney’s most questionable films due to the many changes it made to real history. And while the movies released after Pocahontas made money, they never reached the heights of the ones that came before. Nevertheless, the majority of the films from the Renaissance remain not just beloved by Disney fans, but iconic pillars of pop culture that are still referenced today. Only time will tell if Disney will ever have another era that equals it.