We classified the Live-Action remakes of Disney from the worst to the best
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While Lilo & Stitch land in the cinema this Wednesday in theaters, we make the top new versions in real shots produced by the studio in recent years.
17. La Belle and Le Corchard (2019)de Charlie Bean
With Justin Theroux et Tessa Thomson In the hair of romantic cabots. Certainly the least ambitious of all the remakes produced until present by the studio. Released directly on Disney+ – in full confinement – This already forgotten remake is based on very real dogs … Doubled by CGI. Visually, it’s horrible and on the background, it’s particularly boring. Looking at all costs to keep the tenderness of the original story, the film becomes terribly cute and soporific.
16. Pinocchio (2022), by Robert Zemeckis
With Tom Hank In Gepetto. Possibly one of the worst film of Robert Zemeckiswhich never manages to justify the existence of this remake. The scene is lazy and the digital effects too poor. The puppet that dreams of becoming a real little boy comes to life live in a tasteless way. The film does not manage to innovate or move. And suffers the comparison with the Pinocchio De Guillermo del Toro released the same year, stop motion version for Netflix., Who has been able to free himself from Carlo Collodi’s classic in a spectacular way.
15. Maleficent: the power of evil (2019), de Joachim Rønning
With Angelina Jolie In not very good fond. A suite that we could have done without, without a doubt, and which finds its reason for being in the $ 750 million in revenue from the first opus. At least, the Norwegian director (who had done Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s revenge) was able to go beyond the framework of Sleeping Beauty To try to upset the imagination of fairy tales … without ever getting there. A beautifully made tale, but without much interest.
14. The little mermaid (2023), The Rob Marshall
With Halle Bailey In Ariel. The bet was risky: the seabed form a universe difficult to adapt to real shots, not very conducive to emotion and human movement. Contrary to Cinderella or Mulanwhose stories are more naturally anchored in reality or epic, Ariel’s world seems to resist photorealism. If her young star actress, brilliant and inhabited, saves the ship from the sinking with a soft and bright interpretation, Marshall fails to breathe out in the story. Its staging without relief makes the musical sequences strangely frozen, almost asphyxiated. The new songs of Lin-Manuel Miranda fall flat, and costumes – including a Javier Bardem As a laughable triton – do nothing.
13. Snow White (2025), by Marc Webb
With Rachel Zegler In Snow White and Gal Gadot By bad queen. The disaster announced did not take place. Worn by good songs and a good duo of actresses, this modernized version takes up certain visuals of the classic of 1937 (the dress), assumes the fantasy of the original (the horde of digital animals, the haunted forest) and kindly updates the film in its time without too much pain. The main good idea is to have hired the duo Justin Paul/Benj Pastek – who knitted the tubes of LA LA LAND et The Greatest Showman – To compose the new songs of the film. Even if it is true that the dwarfs – sorry: the “magic creatures” – can be a big drock for the public.
12. Peter Pan & Wendy (2023), de David Lowery
With Jude Law In crochet captain. Between two daring arty films, the director attacks a new live action remake for Disney, after the successful Peter and Elliott the dragon (read below). He signed a sober rereading of the 1953 classic. Far from a simple food project, the film is part of the continuity of his work. But if the reflection is there, magic is sorely lacking. The staging is dull, the young actors (the daughter of Milla Jovovich at the head of the poster) struggle to convince, and the empty sets accentuate a feeling of permanent floating. Some songs try to brighten up the whole, without success. Without being bad, the film remains a disconcerting blandness.
11. Evil (2014), Robert Stromberg
With Elle Fanning In Princess Aurore. An impressive rereading of the tale Sleeping Beautyreplayed from the point of view of the wicked, where Angelina Jolie Book one of its most amazing, sharp, acute, protruding services. It is enough for him of three expressions and a well felt approach to succeed in giving relief and making credible a character who was only an iconic croquemitaine without thickness. If the overly prudent scenario trampled between tragedy, romance and emancipation tale, this remake is doing with its great visual and aesthetic success.
10. The Lion King (2019) by Jon Favreau
With Donald Glover In Simba and Beyoncé in nala. With $ 1.7 billion in world box office revenue, it is one of the biggest successes of all time in the cinema. However, this adaptation in photo-realistic mode is far from perfection. Too long, without real narrative interest, this remake is worth first and foremost for its technical feat. Unheard of before. No animal is real. Simba, Sfar, Mufasa and Nala are created in synthetic images. And the excellence of special effects is just breathtaking. We are amazed by the way in which the film manages to provide emotional animals. But it never goes further.
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9. Aladdin (2019), by Guy Ritchie
With Will Smith in genius. Carried by its superstar overflowing with energy, the whole film sparkles in a festive atmosphere, surfing on the emblematic songs. If you find it difficult to find the paw rithe in this big colorful entertainment with 2:10 am, this remake remains one of the most entertaining on the list. A pure musical like a nod to Bollywood.
8. Alice in Wonderland (2010), de Tim Burton
With Johnny Depp Under the hat of the crazy hat. More indirect suite to the original tale than remake of the 1951 classic, this version shows an adult Alice returning to Wonderland. The Gothic director injects his universe and his Cartoon nightmare aesthetics into this uneven kaleidoscopic fresco, but which has the merit of carrying in it a good big grain of madness. Admittedly, there are too many effects, and maybe not enough magic. The adaptation is more baroque than poetic here. But Burton puts us in full view and enchants us by succeeding in reinventing an adventure already a thousand times adapted.
7. Dumbo (2019), de Tim Burton
With Danny DeVito as a circus boss. The filmmaker signs one of his most personal remakes. Rather than copying the animated classic of 1941, he reinvents the essence by refocusing history on a broken family that collects the elephant with large ears. Exit the speaking mouse, place in Holt and its children, also orphans. Emotion, melancholy and Burtonian grace operate through a fluid animation, respectful of the animality of Dumbo. Visually controlled, the film also offers a delightful speech: a giant amusement park led by a cynical magnate (Michael Keaton) symbolizes a dehumanized entertainment industry, which Burton denounces with biting irony … at Disney.
6. Mulan (2020), by Niki Dear
With Donnie Yen by ordering Tung. Perhaps the most realistic Disney remakes. Getting away from the animated film and its fanciful elements, this warrior version – unfairly unnoticed because of the covid – the audacity to go to the end of his idea, a modern fable imbued with assumed feminism. A blockbuster at 200 million dollars who also knows how to put a full view, with its sumptuous choreographies skillfully filmed, which inscribe this live-action version in the vein of a Tiger and Dragon.
5. Beauty and the beast (2017), from Bill Condon
With Emma Watson in beautiful and And Stevens In the beast. Impossible to overcome your model. But this remake tries with class, assuming an almost plan fidelity by plan to the cartoon of 1991. The new songs and unpublished elements enrich a film which tries to accomplish the impossible: to enchant the real, to bring up in the flesh and in bones of the dreams of animation. The result is as pleasant as a Disney musical on stage, in real stage, where actors make cosplay with talent and energy.
4. Cinderella (2015), Kensh Bunsh
With Cate Blanchett as a horrible stepmother. The tale – repeatedly spent at the Hollywood reel – Mets Lily James in the pumpkin transformed into a coach. The Oscar -winning director delivers here an elegant and faithful version of the tale, without too much risk taking but with a lot of class. The sumptuous sets and the costumes signed Sandy Powell greatly contribute to the success of this remake which assumes its classicism and its fairy tale side, thus finding in this sincerity a real emotion.
3. Peter and Elliott the dragon (2016), de David Lowery
With Robert Redford as a storyteller. The gifted director DTexas lovers and A Ghost Story distances itself from the original version. Thought as a reinvention that connects to the Amblin style, his remake has only kept the basic idea: a little boy is friends with a big dragon. Less flamboyant than other Disney productions, the film surprises with its warmth, its sincerity and its sweetness, underlined by a sober staging. The relationship between Pete and his dragon becomes really touching. Because LowerY injects humanity into each scene, with a rare balance between magic and realism.
2. Cruella (2021), by Craig Gillspie
With Emma Stone In Estella de Vil. More a prequel than a remake! Before it became the famous nasty killer of puppies, it is embodied to perfection by the Oscar-winning actress, which delivers an irresistible composition in anti-heroine captivated by fashion and revenge. In the right line of the excavator Me, TonyaGillespie enjoyed staging this colorful Cruella in an explosive tale. His enthusiasm crosses the screen thanks to a crazy artistic direction and a punk rock atmosphere in London in the 70s, which has jostled the codes of the Disney classic.
1. The Jungle Book (2016), by Jon Favreau
With Bill Murray To make Baloo. Simply stunning. An exciting remake both visually and emotional. Before doing his Lion kingFavreau has successfully tested the technique in this impressive merger of CGI and classical narration. Even more than the others, its live version of Mowgli succeeds in capturing the magic of the original while offering an unprecedented and completely immersive visual experience. The realistic staging gives a real majesty to the jungle and the film manages to breathe new life into Kipling’s tale without betraying its heritage. Perhaps proof that these live action remakes can have a soul.
