The Walt Disney Company and its subsidiaries have published almost 700 feature films. To have a “complete” Disney movie marathon, you would have to do nothing but watch Disney movies, 24/7, for an entire month. That is a lot of homespun, family friendly, quality entertainment.
But let’s be honest. If you are thinking of having a Disney movie marathon, Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds concert is probably not what you are thinking of. I also doubt Mars Needs Moms will show up on your must-watch list.
The stuff produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios is what you want. They produced the great animated films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty. They have produced 56 animated feature films in all. They’ve been doing it so long (about eighty years) that their films can be classified into multiple major “eras”.
Disney Eras Explained
For an explanation of the Disney eras, watch this helpful YouTube video. Don’t worry – I’ll wait.
56 animated movies is more manageable than 700. But this is still too many movies for a 24-hour movie marathon. In fact, you could can get about four 24-hour movie marathons with that many movies. What’s a movie marathon planner to do?
You need to divide and conquer. Per the video above, you can roughly divide up all of the movies into two major eras – Pre-Renaissance and Post-Renaissance. I like to think of it as:
- Pre-Renaissance: “Everything that came before The Little Mermaid“
- Post-Renaissance: “Everything that came after The Little Mermaid“
Creating Your Disney Movie Marathon
If you want a Disney movie marathon that does both eras justice, then plan for two movie marathons! Pick the best movies from each era, place them in a movie marathon schedule, and you are good to go!
The key question is how we should pick the “best” disney movies to put in the marathons. Thankfully, half the internet is composed of lists of the best stuff ever. Let’s use Rotten Tomatoes list of best animated Disney movies. They “used a weighted formula that accounts for the Tomatometer, number of reviews, and release year of each Disney animated film.” That sounds like science to me!
Based on this methodology, I have produced sample schedules for your enjoyment.
- Disney Movie Marathon #1 – Pre-renaissance era
- Disney Movie Marathon #2 – Post-renaissance era
- Disney Movie Marathon #3 – (BONUS) Hand Drawn Animation Ultra-Marathon
UPDATE: 30 April 2017 – Some light editing for better readability, etc.
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