Willem Dafoe's Acclaimed Historical Drama That Disney+ Once Deleted Is Streaming For Free

Streaming services removing media from their platforms has become an increasingly concerning issue, with "Togo" being a great example of why. The movie, which debuted as a Disney+ exclusive shortly after the streamer launched in 2019, stars Willem Dafoe as Leonhard Seppala, a real-life musher who, along with the titular sled dog, was tasked with transporting medicine across the treacherous Alaskan tundra in 1925. The film earned almost unanimous critical praise before Disney decided to remove it from its original home, which likely had to do with some sort of licensing deal. But whatever that deal was, it meant that fans of the film had to wait until February 2026 to see "Togo" again, at which point it finally resurfaced on Tubi (where it can now be streamed for free).

The never-ending price increases make it clear: the dream of streaming is dead. Like so much of what the internet age has brought, what once seemed like a wonderful democratizing of our media-sphere has since become a quagmire of egregious subscription costs and a tyranny of choice that's paralyzed us all into complete inertia. On top of all that, streaming titles just disappear sometimes.

Perhaps the most high-profile example was when HBO quietly started to remove TV shows and movies from its servers, scrubbing entire swathes of its catalog while its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, was outright cancelling projects that were already in the can. But it wasn't just Warner CEO David Zaslav who had a penchant for literally deleting art from our culture. Movies also started disappearing from Disney+ back in 2020, and that unfortunate trend continued in the years after. "Togo" was eventually a victim of this, but luckily, Dafoe's acclaimed historical drama is now finally available to stream once more.

"Togo" is directed by Ericson Core, who previously directed 2006's "Invincible" and 2015's "Point Break." He was also the director of photography on "The Fast and the Furious" and 2003's "Daredevil," a failure that nonetheless planted the seeds for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Happily, though, "Togo" was anything but a failure.

The film stars Willem Dafoe as Leonhard Seppala, a sled dog breeder, trainer, and musher who, aside from competing in the 1932 Winter Olympics, also played a pivotal role in the 1925 serum run to Nome. This event saw 20 mushers and their sled dogs ferry diphtheria antitoxin across Alaska to rescue the town of Nome from a diphtheria epidemic. "Togo" recounts Seppala and his lead sled dog Togo's experience carrying the antitoxin across the dangerous Alaskan landscape, but it also flashes back to tell the story of Togo himself, beginning with his birth and his experience of being raised by Seppala and his wife, Constance (Julianne Nicholson).

Overall, "Togo" is a decent Disney+ adventure film that's elevated by Dafoe and some very good dogs, one of which was Diesel. This Siberian Husky played the adult Togo in the movie and was actually a great-grandson of Togo himself. That kind of accuracy was indicative of the film as a whole, which mostly stayed faithful to Seppala's real-life story. All of this impressed critics, who praised the Disney+ original film for its old school Disney vibes. Five years after its debut, however, "Togo" went missing.

Most of the films and shows that've previously been deleted from streaming services have since popped back up elsewhere as a result of the murky world of licensing agreements. Still, it's jarring to be reminded that these companies can literally disappear our favorite media whenever they feel like it. When "Togo" was removed from Disney+, however, it seemed particularly scandalous since it was one of the first movies to be unveiled as a Disney+ exclusive. With no physical media release, anyone who enjoyed this film was basically unable to watch it, and judging by the critical response, a lot of people enjoyed it.

On Rotten Tomatoes, "Togo" has a 93% critic score and a 95% audience score, and every single review from a "top critic" is positive. Danny Leigh of the Financial Times praised the "old-school Disneyosity" of what he saw as a "sweetly earnest, action-filled tale of the bond between man and beast." Elsewhere, Neal Justin of the Minneapolis Star Tribune echoed that sentiment, writing "'Togo' captures the spirit of classic 'Wonderful World of Disney' films with more than a little help from director/cinematographer Ericson Core and a scene-stealing pooch." The positive reviews just kept coming.

Alas, Disney decided not to give the film a physical release prior to removing it from Disney+. As such, "Togo," which surely owes a debt to Disney's earlier boy-and-his-dog adventure "White Fang," was basically lost for almost a year and a half before it resurfaced on Tubi. Aside from the fact these controversies remind us of why physical media matters, they also emphasize the sense that movies are seen as expendable, trivial commodities by a streaming machine that's been devaluing the currency of filmmaking for some time.