The 12 Most Influential Disney Movies Of All Time

In 1923, Walt Disney and his brother Roy founded a studio that enjoyed modest success with a line of "Alice" shorts. It wouldn't be branded the Walt Disney Studio until 1926, and with that came the rise of Disney's first mascot, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Mickey wasn't long after, and neither was World War II. Disney's ambitions remained firm despite the nation's focus on the global conflict, and Disney continued to nurture his animation goals while they produced propaganda shorts for the war effort.

Since those tough times, Disney animators and effects crews have changed the landscape of modern cinema. From the quality of their animation to the integration of CGI effects, Disney has been a pioneer for nearly a century. Today Disney's parks thrive, Disney+ is a streaming juggernaut, and new techniques continue to be invented. It's a sour note that so many of Disney's works today have lost sight of the humble but powerful animation that gave them their start, but the Mouse endures. Disney changed the world, and here are 12 of their most influential movies.

As the first full-length animated feature film, 1937's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" isn't just a milestone of luscious, lively action. It pioneered certain animation techniques, including the vivacious red blush across Snow White's cheeks. That was achieved by a sole animator named Helen Ogger, not actual makeup like legend suggests. Ogger carefully stippled red dye on individual cells, ensuring continuity between sometimes frantic moments of animation. It was a technique so intensive and unique that "Snow White" remains the only film to attempt it.

Before that, Walt Disney had to fight to get his dream into production. A struggle referred to as "Disney's Folly" at the time, Walt desperately shopped around to get financing to create "Snow White." Regarded with derision, his luck changed when Joseph Rosenberg, a vice president at the Bank of America, chose to bankroll the expensive project. The result is movie history, the recipient of a unique Academy Award that was presented by Shirley Temple and designed to match Disney's first princess and her seven friends.

It may be news to you that "Bambi," Walt Disney's fifth animated film, is also an adaptation of a classic tale. Based on the 1923 bestseller by Jewish Austrian author Felix Salten, both he and "Bambi" were introduced to Disney by the co-founder of Simon & Schuster, Max Schuster, who personally brought Selten to America, barely avoiding murder at the hands of the Nazis who were now marching towards world war.

"Bambi" is the first animated movie to feature no human roles, though human references were used for scenes like Thumper's ice-skating ballet. By necessity, it also became the first film to take the animators out of the studio to inspect the natural world. Frequent visits to the Los Angeles Zoo and a small stable of live animals kept at the studio allowed the artists to work. The Chinese artist Tyrus Wong's beautiful style helped inspire the backgrounds. "Bambi" is a timeless film, an earnest advocate for environmentalism that predates Studio Ghibli.

Released in 1959, "Sleeping Beauty" looks like no other Disney film. There are a few reasons for that, and one is its angular, often luminescent style. Artist Eyvind Earle set the tone for the movie's production, leading to an unusually gothic aesthetic. It was one the house's animators often struggled with, leading to resentment and infighting. Yet the final result is stunning, with the villainous Maleficent becoming the unlikely standout. Years later she's the heroine of her own story in her self-titled franchise, as gothic and complex as Earle's own art.

The other remarkable aspect of "Sleeping Beauty" is its (not to make a pun) aspect ratio. This was the first film to use a new 70mm widescreen format, Super Technirama 70. This new anamorphic ratio didn't overtake CinemaScope as the market leader, but the detailed results made "Sleeping Beauty" an event not to be missed at theaters capable of displaying this versus the standard 35mm format. Technirama would thrive for only a decade, but it also turned both "Spartacus" and "Zulu" into astonishing spectacles.

The story of Walt Disney's fascination with Kurt Russell in the final seconds of his life is somewhat true, but it's told in a way that buries the lede. Kurt was a 14-year-old with a list of television performances who'd only recently been signed to a ten-year contract with Disney on the day Walt died. No one knew what Walt's note meant, but the studio went all-in on its young new star anyway. 1969's "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes" wasn't Russell's first gig under his new decade contract (that was a small role in "Follow Me, Boys!" in 1966), but the former film was his first starring role, the inaugeral step on his road to becoming Snake Plissken for John Carpenter in 1981's "Escape From New York."

"The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes" is a cute flick with secret continuity. Russell, as Dexter Reilly, attends Medfield College with his friends. Medfield is Disney's family-friendly Miskatonic University, the setting of the Flubber-iffic antics of "The Absent-Minded Professor." Like that franchise, science takes a turn for the weird as Dexter gets his brain scrambled up with a computer. Then a gambling ring gets involved. It's charming, it's messy, and teenage Kurt has dimples. The movie world would never be the same.

By the '80s, Disney sought to diversify its fare to include older audiences. Their family-friendly fame worked against them, though, and anything labeled "Disney" meant kiddie time. To combat this new problem, Disney created Touchstone Pictures. It's under this banner that director Robert Zemeckis released "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" in 1988, the first time Disney, Warner Bros., and a host of other classic animations (from Felix the Cat to Betty Boop) appear together on the big screen. A highlight of animation diplomacy, and a landmark moment.

For this film's blend of live-action and animation, the effects crew knew they had to go in hard. So they frequently went even harder. The gold standard for integrating animation effects is the film that codified "bumping the lamp." A small detail that hides technical complexity, the animated Roger Rabbit and the real Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) are fumbling their way to freedom under the light of an unstable lamp. As the shadows roil and move, the animators ensured they strike Roger perfectly at every angle. Necessary? No. Awesome? Totally.

Not content with their earlier breakthroughs with CGI effects, 1995 saw the first fully CGI feature film. "Toy Story" was Pixar's first full-length film, produced and distributed in concert with Disney, who would eventually buy the powerhouse studio in 2006. Though there's a different side to the success of "Toy Story," one told by traditional cel animators who've since struggled to find the support Disney once lent them, it's hard not to also respect the triumph "Toy Story" represents for the future of visionary new technologies.

As a story, this groundbreaker works with its still-chunky animation style. There's no need to feel the uncanny valley when we see Woody and Buzz interacting. It's just a big 3-D playground, fired by a child's imagination. Since this film was first released, CGI productions have become the new norm, with new leaps in technical achievement every few years. For better or worse, "Toy Story" changed the world of animation. The next big leap is yet to be seen.