What Disney Originals Are on Disney Plus

For the most part, Disney+ has been a streaming service solely aimed at family entertainment – bringing the likes of Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel and more all together in one place. But now it's all those thing and more with the arrival of Star – a whole new arm of the service's content library, playing host to tons of movies and series that go way beyond the 12+ age rating. (Don't worry – there are also new parental controls to protect prying eyes.) This is where you'll find action movies, adult dramas, thrilling shows, old favourites, and new originals, massively expanding the range of stories on offer.

All the usual Disney goodness remains too – including the entire Walt Disney Animation Studios catalogue, the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, more Star Wars than you can shake a lightsaber at, plus brand new original series, exclusive animated shorts, and all kinds of blockbusters at your fingertips, there are real riches to be mined in its offerings. And, of course, there are massive exclusive Marvel and Star Wars series too, like WandaVision, The Mandalorian, and the upcoming The Falcon And The Winter Soldier. If you haven't watched much further than the Baby Yoda Show™, don't fret – Empire's handy guide is here to point out all the other great things you can be watching on Disney+ right now, from movies to short films, to brand new series and documentaries, including picks from Star. Read on and get your streaming priorities in order.

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With The Mandalorian wrapped for another year, Disney+'s latest blockbuster series is officially the opening chapter of the MCU's Phase 4: a surreal sitcom-mystery-thriller that finds Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) living a suburban life in the mysterious town of Westview. Beyond its pitch-perfect recreations of family sitcoms through the eras, it's a meditation on grief that's full of twists, turns, and banging tunes you won't be able to stop singing, courtesy of Frozen songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez.

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Disney+'s flagship launch show is Star Wars presented as a Leone Western, with a dash of Lone Wolf & Cub thrown in. Jon Favreau's The Mandalorian revels in nostalgia for the Original Trilogy, but like Rogue One is largely free of the weight of the Force, the Jedi, the destinies and familial entanglements. Pedro Pascal is the bounty hunter of the title who finds himself unexpectedly the guardian of a valuable package, the one and only Baby Yoda (or, The Child, to give him his official name). Two stellar series in, it's become an instant Star Wars favourite.

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It might have been released as a Christmas freebie on the streaming service, but Soul is far from Pixar doing straight-to-DVD quality. The latest from filmmaker Pete Docter (and co-director Kemp Powers) is follow-up in many ways to his last film, Inside Out, in ambition, imagination and scope. Here, the focus isn't on the emotions in our heads, but the entire nature of human existence – as music teacher and wannabe jazz musician Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) gets the biggest break of his life, and then tumbles to his death. Except, running from the afterlife, he ends up in the 'Great Before', where human souls get their personality traits before they're born. It's narratively a little convoluted, but stunningly created – another film only Pixar could have made.

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While it had built up a major following on Cartoon Network, the animated Clone Wars series came to an unceremonious end in 2014 following the Star Wars acquisition deal. And then, six years later, Dave Filoni finally got to wrap up the show properly with a seventh and final season on Disney+. Where The Mandalorian takes place just after Return Of The Jedi, The Clone Wars takes us back to the years between Episodes II and III. Stream the entire series now – including the final episodes.

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There's also the small matter of the Star Wars movies themselves – available in eye-melting 4K with Dolby Atmos audio. And yes, the original Star Wars is the new 'Maclunkey' cut, which once again tweaks the Han-Greedo-Who-Shot-First scene, this time with a baffling new bit of dialogue. "It confused me greatly," original Greedo actor Paul Blake told Empire when the scene made its debut Stateside last November.

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The real allure of Disney+ is having the full catalogue of the studio's animated classics at your fingertips – from the gorgeously gothic Sleeping Beauty, to the joyous singalongs of Aladdin and The Lion King, to the slightly more forgotten likes of The Sword In The Stone and Atlantis: The Lost Empire. It's the perfect chance to revisit fond favourites, rediscover lesser-seen oddities, and introduce new generations to some of the greatest animated movies ever made.

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You won't find The Incredible Hulk or the recent Spider-Man films here – but otherwise, you've got the majority of the Infinity Saga at your disposal, right up to and including Avengers: Endgame. Delight! At how it all began with Iron Man and the other Phase 1 origin films. Thrill! At the original assembling of The Avengers in, er, Avengers Assemble. Marvel! At the might of Phase 3, from Black Panther to Thor: Ragnarok, to the double-whammy of Infinity War and Endgame. Your rewatch (providing you can fill in the blanks) begins now.

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Launched as the first 'Premier Access' title on Disney+ at an extra cost, Mulan has now joined the service's main catalogue – a live-action remake that takes a different approach to its animated predecessor. Director Niki Caro ditches the songs (though they are referenced in the score) for an action-packed war epic, casting Liu Yifei as the titular warrior who disguises herself as a man in order to save her elderly father from being drafted into battle. If its making was subsequently subject to controversy, the film itself is proof that Disney's recent set of re-dos work best when they present a new spin on the familiar tales.

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Sure, the first 10 seasons are the best (you could even stretch towards 14 seasons and find some gems in there). But with all 30 seasons of the groundbreaking animated sitcom available, you can pick whichever episodes you like – that's 661 in total, including the one where Bart wins an elephant, and the one with Grimey, and the one with the Super-Squishy, and the one with Pinchy the lobster, and the one with with 'Do It For Her'. You could see out weeks of lockdown with the greatest Simpsons episodes alone.

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It's more than just a musical – it's one of the most most significant pieces of popular culture of the 2010s. And now, you can relive Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip-hop retelling of the USA's origin story over and over, revelling in every perfectly-placed syllable, earworm melody, and the epic sweep of its story. Filmed in 2016 at the Richard Rogers Theatre, the 'Hamil-film' depicts the original Broadway cast in action – Miranda as the verbose, ludicrously ambitious Caribbean upstart Alexander Hamilton, and Leslie Odom Jr. as his rival Aaron Burr, surrounded by a set of stellar performers: Daveed Diggs, Phillipa Soo, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Jonathan Groff, Christopher Jackson, Anthony Ramos… the list goes on. Watch it once, and prepare to be obsessed for life.

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Pixar's latest came out just before lockdown – meaning most people didn't get a chance to see it in the cinema. But it's a total blast, as funny and joyous and deeply emotional (bring tissues) as only Pixar can muster. Part fantasy quest, part loving bromance, it's a heartfelt adventure sure to bring laughter and tears for all ages.

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This might once have been a DVD extra – but now, in the streaming age, Disney's making of Frozen II becomes a six-part series packed with drama all of its own. Get a peek inside the Mouse House itself (spoiler: no actual mice) as director Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck hurtle into the final year of production on the mega-sequel – drawing creation out of chaos as the film comes together. No matter your affinity for Frozen, it's a must-watch.

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Disney+'s first original production with National Geographic is this twelve-episode odyssey in which Goldblum travels the US learning about… things and such. The angle is that the host goes into each episode knowing as little as possible about the subject of the week: "It's not as if I do some extra homework/research/bone up on it so that I tend to know something about it and then tell you about it," he explained. "No, it's not like that." Items Jeff, uh, ah, oh, ah, learns about in the first season include coffee, ice cream, video games, bikes and trainers. Season 2 has already been commissioned.

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Demonstrating that it's not all Star Wars on Disney+, Free Solo is nothing to do with Han. Rather, it's the riveting, terrifying, Oscar winning documentary by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, detailing rock climbing mentalist Alex Honnold's attempt to climb El Capitan with no ropes or equipment in the summer of 2017. If you find it hard to watch, it's okay, so did the camera crew. The film finds itself on the streaming service thanks to Disney's ownership of National Geographic, which is also giving us…

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All caught up on the MCU? Then delve into real-world Marvel stories in the 616 documentary series – a set of individual hour-long films detailing all kinds of different stories related to the comics giant. There's a deep-dive on the absolutely insane Japanese Spider-Man TV show from the late '70s, an in-depth look at the traditional Marvel Method of making comics, an exploration of the creative women of Marvel, and – in a must-see episode – an instalment by comedian Paul Scheer about him trying to revive one of the company's craziest titles: the animal-vehicle hybrid heroes known collectively as Brute Force.

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You might be snarking at the thought of James Cameron's incoming slew of Avatar sequels – but rewatch the original, and you'll be reminded of just why it became such a huge deal a decade ago. The world of Pandora is, frankly, completely dazzling – a dizzying array of dayglo flora and fauna that clearly cooked up in Cameron's imagination for years before spilling onto the screen. The visuals have held up surprisingly well, and Cameron successfully combines an A-movie sense of scope to a pulpy B-movie script, all delivered with great action sequences and total emotional sincerity.

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One for all the theme park fanatics out there. This six-part documentary series by Leslie Iwerks goes into the inner sanctum of Disney's theme parks, from the opening of the original Disneyland in the mid-50s, right up to the recent unveiling of Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge – looking at the technical developments, innovations, notable expansions, and iconic rides that came along the way. From archive footage to behind-the-scenes access at the Disney parks, it's the past and future of Disney all in one place.

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It's not just the MCU that's coming to the service – Disney's acquisition of Marvel also means you get the full run of the X-Men cartoon from the early '90s. Despite it being attempted in two big-screen blockbusters, The Animated Series still contains the best telling of the Dark Phoenix story. Just prepare for that catchy theme tune to rattle around your head for weeks on end.

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Sorry, Woody – the uncontested star of Toy Story 4 was Forky, the Tony Hale-voiced spork facing an existential crisis and repeatedly attempting to fling himself out of a window. It was logical, then, that he'd end up with his own micro-show – a series of animated shorts in which the world's most confused quasi-toy asks all the burning questions: 'What Is Love?', 'What Is Art?', and 'What Is Cheese?' Elsewhere in new Toy Story content, there's Lamp Life – a seven-minute short exploring what happened to Bo Peep between Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 4.

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For Disney aficionados, this is the real treasure trove – a whole array of rare short films released between the late 1920s and mid-'50s. Some are well-known, like the Mickey Mouse-debuting Steamboat Willie – but look out for other milestones, like The Band Concert (Mickey's colour debut), Destino (an unlikely collaboration between Disney and Dali), Flowers And Trees (the Oscar-winning first technicolour animated film), and The Old Mill (a Snow White test-run, using the then-revolutionary Multiplane Camera technique). It's a whole animated history at your fingertips.

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Across three decades, Pixar has never put out a bad movie. Its classics are total knockouts, from the Toy Story movies, to Wall-E, to Inside Out and Monsters, Inc. But even its lesser films like The Good Dinosaur are a cut above, fascinating and gorgeously animated. Whether you're revisiting your favourites (hello, The Incredibles) for the millionth time, or catching up on the ones you've never seen (the world must know the genius of Ratatouille), it's an astonishing catalogue. Wondering where to start? Read the official Empire ranking.

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No, the ending didn't quite stick. But the castaway saga begun by JJ Abrams and continued by Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof is one hell of a ride, a masterful mystery-box adventure that gets its narrative hooks in and doesn't let go. Matthew Fox's Jack Shepherd becomes the de facto leader of a group of survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, who crash on a desert island with no hope of rescue. But this is no normal island – and there is a destiny for everyone who reaches its shore. Whether you're coming to the show fresh or looking for a rewatch, it really does hold up – and its on-location shooting in Hawaii and expansive mythology make it feel huge, even in today's blockbuster TV landscape.

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High school is hell. That's the central idea of this iconic teen-horror-fantasy saga, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as the teenage girl 'chosen' to be the Slayer – an unwanted birthright that sees her stalking night-demons when she'd rather be hanging at the Bronze with her friends. But the town of Sunnydale is built on a Hellmouth that keeps spewing out vampires, ancient beings, and all kinds of supernatural trouble. From its flawed but loveable characters, to its snappy dialogue, vamp-busting brawls, and coming-of-age explorations, Buffy is an all-time TV great. It's regular episodes are exceptional, and its exceptional episodes – the 'Surprise' cliffhanger, the largely dialogue-free 'Hush', the all-singing all-dancing musical 'Once More With Feeling', and the astonishing 'The Body' – are on another level entirely.

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First released in 2004, this two-and-a-half-hour documentary charts the creation of the original Star Wars trilogy, from George Lucas' early career, through to the huge success of the original 1977 classic, and how that developed into the arrival of Episodes V and VI. It's a fascinating slice of cinema history, with plenty of behind-the-scenes access, interviews, and a reminder of the craft that went into bringing the OT to life.

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Or, the Jack Bauer power hour. Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran's action-thriller series remains compulsively watchable – a set of season-long action movies told in (more or less) 'real time', as Kiefer Sutherland's gun-toting hero takes out terrorists and faces up to assassination attempts against a ticking-clock concept. Some season are more successful than others, but the whole thing is addictive, packed with cliffhangers that mean you'll rarely watch fewer than three episodes in a row. If it's sometimes ridiculous, it's also sometimes the better for that.

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Short films have long been part of Pixar's DNA – and now they have a natural home on streaming with Disney+. The SparkShorts series is a collection of small but perfectly-formed stories – including the Oscar-nominated Kitbull, the misogyny-tackling Purl, and beautifully metaphorical Float – told in an array of visual styles from up-and-coming filmmakers at Pixar HQ. There are six films out there at the moment, with more confirmed to be on the way. See also: Disney's animated shorts output under the banner Short Circuit.

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Donald Glover is ludicrously talented. Just stupidly, endlessly, jaw-droppingly talented – and beyond his stand-up comedy, his screenwriting, his music career as Childish Gambino, and his roles in the likes of Community and Solo: A Star Wars Story, he's also the creative force behind Atlanta. Across its 21 episodes, the show presents a surreal, shape-shifting portrait of the titular Georgia city, as Glover's lead character Earn tries to help his cousin Paper Boi boost his rap career. As well as starring, Glover often writes and directs the show too (though the key director here is Hiro Murai, behind the 'This Is America' music video), while the stellar ensemble also includes Brian Tyree Henry, LaKeith Stanfield, and Zazie Beetz. Hop on board now, ahead of Seasons 3 and 4 entering production.

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Wait, stay with us – High School Musical might not be your thing in theory. But High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (yes, that is its real title) is a super-smart, ultra-meta way of rebooting the franchise while also poking fun at it – think Lord and Miller or Charlie Kaufman going full-Wildcats. It's a scripted comedy mockumentary set in the high school where High School Musical was shot, following a group of students putting on the school's first-ever musical production of High School Musical. Got that? That means musical numbers, multiple layers of artifice, and a whole new generation of high school kid protagonists. Who expected a HSM re-do to go down the rabbithole like that?

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If the recent version of Call Of The Wild whet your appetite for a man-in-the-wilderness-with-a-good-dog stories, this is one of the more acclaimed Disney+ original movies. It tells the story of Willem Dafoe's sledder and his husky Togo, running life-saving medicine across Alaska after a diphtheria outbreak. It's directed by Ericson Core (note: not a Sony-branded smartphone) who was behind the 2015 Point Break remake – but word is that this one is a much more satisfying than that unnecessary do-over.

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It didn't necessarily set the box office alight, but this revisiting of Mary Poppins was done with real affection – Emily Blunt is a slightly stern but striking Poppins, Lin-Manuel Miranda amps up the cock-er-ney as lamplighter Jack, and its animated sequence is gorgeously handled. But the real joy is the songs – new, but of a piece with the originals. From barnstorming bangers ('A Cover Is Not The Book') to gorgeous ballads ('The Place Where The Lost Things Go'), it all culminates in the song the world needs right now: 'Nowhere To Go But Up'. Lovely stuff.

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One of the brand-new Star Originals is a TV spin-off of the charming teen rom-com Love, Simon – which, better late than never, brought a gay high school love story to the screen in a major mainstream Hollywood studio movie for the first time. If Simon's coming out was easy, the idea is that Victor's (Michael Cimino) isn't – he's from a less-affluent Latino family, with a religious mother who he doesn't think will accept him, and he still has a way to go to understand where his own sexuality lies. The series is as peppy as its big-screen cousin, but makes room to explore more nuances and sensitivities – and Nick Robinson appears in voiceover as Victor enters a DM correspondence with Simon after learning about his story.

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The first full-on Disney+ movie is a statement of intent: here's a full-on live-action remake of the animated classic, with all the production values you'd expect from a cinematically-released movie. Beyond adorable rescue dog actors Rose (who plays Lady) and Monte (who plays Tramp), the film stars the likes of Yvette Nicole Brown, F. Murray Abraham and Ken Jeong, with the voices of Tessa Thompson, Sam Elliott, Justin Theroux, Benedict Wong, Janelle Monae and more. It may have garnered mixed reviews – like much of Disney's live-action remake output – but shows the level that Disney+ is pitching its movie output at.

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A period drama from Yorgos Lanthimos is unlike a period drama from anyone else. Prepare for fisheye lenses, caustic dialogue, bitingly dark humour, and a thick vein of grief underpinning the punk aesthetic. Olivia Colman plays Queen Anne, with Rachel Weisz as her confidante Sarah, who assists her majesty with political advice and sexual favours. But when Emma Stone's Abigail Masham comes to Queen Anne's court, there's a new favourite in town. It's a wickedly funny (and cuttingly sad) exploration of power, intimacy and loss, with incredible performances from its central trio. No wonder it bagged BAFTAs-aplenty.

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It didn't hit big at the box office on release, buy Drew Goddard's mystery-filled thriller is destined to be a cult classic. There are flavours of Tarantino and the Coens in the 1969-set tale of a past-its-best hotel where a series of characters cross paths – Jeff Bridges' priest (or is he?), Cynthia Erivo's singer (or is she?), Dakota Johnson's hippy chick (or is she?), and Jon Hamm's salesman (or is he?). And that's before Chris Hemsworth's shirtless cult leader (no, he really is) struts in and shakes everything up. Tense and stylish, it's well worth checking in.

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It may sound like an Avengers spin-off, but Marvel's Hero Project is something else altogether – a wholesome, uplifting documentary series telling the stories of real-life hero kids involved in important causes, with a bonus comic book twist. There are 20 episodes, each following a different youngster making a difference in the world – and Marvel made actual comic books about each of them, which you can read online for free. Lovely stuff.

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Standing alongside Clueless as the epochal '90s teen movie, Gil Junger's retelling of The Taming Of The Shrew is a sheer delight. With that Letters To Cleo soundtrack, a slew of iconic performances (Heath Ledger on full bad-boy charm offensive, Julia Stiles bringing the snark, Allison Janney as the porn-authoring guidance counsellor, and a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt among them), and a declaration of love on the bleachers for the ages, it's a classic.

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Maligned and misunderstood at the time, Karyn Kusama's horror-comedy has now undergone a major cultural reappraisal. Jennifer's Body is a sharply funny coming-of-age movie about female friendship, bathed in blood and with a sharp tongue to match, courtesy of Juno writer Diablo Cody. Megan Fox is the titular hottie, who's ritually sacrificed by a whiny emo band who wrongly believe her to be a virgin. Instead of dying, she becomes a demonic entity who feasts on unwitting boys, while her best mate Needy (Amanda Seyfried) becomes increasingly concerned. Its lukewarm reception was way off the mark, and it's now – rightly – becoming a cult classic.

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The last great instalment of the mainline X-Men film series brought both generations of the cast into the same film for a time-travelling outing – as Patrick Stewart's ageing Professor X sends Hugh Jackman's Wolverine back in time from an apocalyptic future to the 1970s, where he has to avert the course of history with the help of James McAvoy's young Charles Xavier. With mutants galore, it stands alongside X2 as the best of the series – and it's one of the Fox Marvel titles that now comes under Disney's ownership.

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Fall down the rabbit-hole of the iconic sci-fi mystery show, which pitched David Duchovny's true-believer Fox Mulder and Gillian Anderson's sceptical Dana Scully as FBI agents on the trail of unsolvable cases with supernatural bents. Beyond the episodic adventures there's a massive overarching mythology that unfolds, revealing an epic extra-terrestrial conspiracy waiting to be unpicked. As well as the show's original run (the more recent revival seasons 10 and 11 are absent here), Disney+ has the 1998 movie, and its 2008 follow-up The X-Files: I Want To Believe.

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Filmmaker Ezra Edelman presents an epic eight-hour exploration of the life of O.J. Simpson, from his sporting heyday through to the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman that became one of the defining cultural milestones of the early 1990s. Across its runtime, the documentary takes in race, celebrity, the justice system, and the foundations of America itself, presenting a nuanced and detailed portrait on a huge, macro scale. It appears on Disney+ as part of the ESPN offering.

What Disney Originals Are on Disney Plus

Source: https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/disney-plus-12-things-watch/

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