We Ranked All 22 Of Disney's Live-Action Movies
Disney has spent close to $3 billion remaking its animated catalogue as live-action movies — and has earned more than $10 billion in box-office receipts in the process. That's probably why there are 14 more of these live-action reimaginings in the pipeline, with the likes of Bambi, Snow White, and Lilo and Stitch coming to a theater near you soon. But even though audiences have clearly been devouring these films, the quality of them has been distinctly varied. So which ones would make Mickey proud, and which ones are ugly stepsisters?
To build our ranking, we found each movie's IMDb score, Metacritic score, Rotten Tomatoes Score, and Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score and determined the average. The movie with the highest average score topped our ranking; any ties were split by the movie's IMDb score.
22. Pinocchio (2022)
IMDb: 5.1
Metacritic Score: 11
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 29
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 27
Our Score: 22.3
Disney may have wished upon a star that the combined power of star Tom Hanks and director Robert Zemeckis would save Pinocchio from a critical drubbing... but that wish was never answered. While the pair struck gold with previous collaborations Forrest Gump, Castaway, and The Polar Express, Hanks and Zemeckis failed to get critics on board with Pinocchio. In fact, the movie was almost universally panned.
What the fans said
Unfortunately, it seems that audiences weren't huge fans of the wooden flick, either. The 27 percent Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score is even lower than the critics' score, while a 5.1 on IMDb doesn't exactly scream "beloved." A reviewer of Rotten Tomatoes called Chase T seemed to find the middle ground, stating, "I watched it with my kid. It was fine. He liked it. I thought it was fine." Finding praise higher than this is harder than turning a puppet into a real boy.
21. 102 Dalmatians (2000)
IMDb: 4.8
Metacritic Score: 35
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 31
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 32
Our Score: 32.7
Roger Ebert gave 102 Dalmatians an okay 2.5 stars out of four in his considered review of an otherwise seemingly reviled movie. According to the famed critic, the problem with the live-action 102 Dalmatians is that it's not, well, animated. "Taking the dogs out of the central roles leaves you with seriously weird humans and not enough puppy love," he argued. He added that Glenn Close's character, Cruella, "is almost too big for a live-action film and requires animation to fit her operatic scale."
What the fans said
The low audience ratings of 102 Dalmatians give you an idea of what people think of the movie — yet every review is subjective. On Rotten Tomatoes, for instance, one person wrote a particularly ruff review calling the film "awful due to a poor cast, poor writing, and poor directing." But another gave it five stars and said they "love all of the Dalmatians." On IMDb, most people gave the movie five stars — out of ten — while 5 percent of voters gave it the full ten stars.
