Four decades ago, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) entered a digital world in Tron and encountered sentient programs that resembled humans. In Tron: Ares, some of those programs are coming to the real world. Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters) has found a way to bring his enforcer, Ares (Jared Leto), out of the digital realm for almost 30 minutes at a time.
Ares, however, is beginning to question his orders and his purpose. He was sent to capture Eve Kim (Greta Lee) and extract critical intel from her. But instead of obeying Dillinger, Ares turns against his master and attempts to find a way to stay in the real world.
Tron: Ares will stream on Disney + on January 7.
2026 marks the 45th anniversary of Raiders of the Lost Ark, one of the all-time great action-adventure films. George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg teamed up to create their own franchise with Harrison Ford in the lead as Henry “Indiana” Jones, a globetrotting archaeologist in the late 1930s.
When Indy is told that the Nazis are after the Ark of the Covenant, he accepts a mission to prevent that from happening. To find the Ark, Indy turns to his ex-lover, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), for help. Marion may not have much love left for Indy, but they’ll need each other to survive.
Raiders of the Lost Ark is streaming on Disney+.
Anna Coleman (Lindsay Lohan) and her mother, Tess Coleman (Jamie Lee Curtis) had enough body-switching for a lifetime in Freaky Friday. They already learned their life lesson, and they don’t want another one. Freakier Friday puts them through the ordeal again, except this time, Anna’s daughter, Harper (Julia Butters), is in Tess’ body.
That leaves Anna’s soon-to-be stepdaughter, Lily Reyes (Sophia Hammons), in Anna’s body and vice versa. Lily and Harper don’t really like each other, but they see the body swap as the perfect chance to break up their parents before the wedding can happen. This time, they’re the ones who need the lesson.
Freakier Friday is streaming on Disney+.
Everyone’s an animal in Zootopia. Or more accurately, they’re anthropomorphized animals who have a lot of human traits. Zootopia is also the name of the big city, where a small-town rabbit, Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin), dreams of being a police officer.
On her first day on the job, Judy is conned by Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), a fox who’s always looking for his angle. When Judy nabs an investigation into the city’s missing predators, she drags Nick along with her to help solve the case. What they find is a conspiracy that may shake the foundations of the city and everything they believe in.
Zootopia is streaming on Disney+.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps stands alone from the rest of the MCU in a world where Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm / Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Ben Grimm / The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Johnny Storm / Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) are the only heroes Earth needed to usher in a golden age during the ’60s.
Unfortunately for the FF, their semi-utopia is shattered by the arrival of Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), the herald of Galactus (Ralph Ineson), the devourer of worlds. Only one thing can spare Earth the fate of so many other worlds, but the price is too high for the Fantastic Four.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is streaming on Disney+.
ESPN is lending out its Shohei Ohtani documentary, Shohei Ohtani: Beyond the Dream, in light of his back-to-back World Series wins with the Los Angeles Dodgers. When this film was made, Ohtani was still playing for the Los Angeles Angels, and his fandom in America hadn’t hit its fever pitch.
Ohtani’s claim to fame, besides making $70 million a year, is that he’s a rare two-way baseball player who can pitch at an elite level and hit for power. This film chronicles his journey to Major League Baseball and the beginning of his career in the Japanese baseball scene. If his story reminds you of a Disney movie, that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?
Shohei Ohtani: Beyond the Dream is streaming on Disney+.
Thunderbolts* is an odd film in that it’s essentially Black Widow sequel starring minor characters from other Marvel movies and Disney+ shows. It’s also one of the MCU’s best stories in a long time simply because the characters get to be human and flawed.
Florence Pugh reprises her role as Yelena Belova, who is among the black ops operatives working for Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). When the latter tries to have them killed, Yelena teams up with John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Red Guardian (David Harbour) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan). But the real threat is Bob (Lewis Pullman), the lone survivor of Val’s superhuman experiments. Bob has power beyond compare, and an inner void that may swallow Manhattan whole.
Thunderbolts is streaming on Disney+.
Pixar’s latest film, Elio, follows an 11-year-old boy, Elio Solís (Yonas Kibreab), who has out of this world dreams of meeting an alien. Elio’s aunt, Olga Solís (Zoe Saldaña) had to put her own dreams of being an astronaut on hold to raise Elio. However, Olga’s work at NASA leads Elio to inadvertently make first contact with aliens.
The aliens mistake Elio fro an Earth ambassador and bring him to the Communiverse, where sentient beings from all over the universe converge. Although Elio makes a few new friends, including Glordon (Remy Edgerly), he soon finds himself way over his head in an interstellar crisis.
Elio is streaming on Disney+.
Lilo & Stitch made a few changes to the animated movie’s story when it made the leap to live-action, but audiences still flocked to it. Chris Sanders reprises his role as Stitch, an alien experiment who is deemed too dangerous to live by the United Galactic Federation. To escape with his life, Stitch travels to Earth and pretends to be a dog when he’s adopted by a six-year-old girl named Lilo Pelekai (Maia Kealoha).
Lilo’s older sister and guardian, Nani Pelekai (Sydney Elizebeth Agudong), is overwhelmed by trying to keep her family together, especially in the face of the chaos that Stitch brings into their lives. Meanwhile, Stitch’s creator, Dr. Jumba Jookiba (Zach Galifianakis) and United Galactic Federation Agent Wendell Pleakley (Billy Magnussen) arrive on Earth to locate Stitch. But the former may have a hidden agenda.
Lilo & Stitch is streaming on Disney+.
Tron: Legacy picks up decades after the ground-breaking original film with Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) in the dark about the fate of his father, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), the creator of the Grid. Acting on a tip from Kevin’s old friend, Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner), Sam visits Kevin’s old laboratory and finds himself transported to the Grid just as his father was years before.
Upon his arrival, Sam learns that a digital duplicate of his father, CLU (Bridges), rules the Grid as a tyrant with designs on invading the real world. Kevin’s apprentice, Quorra (Olivia Wilde), helps Sam escape, but the reunion between father and son may have to take a backseat to saving the Grid and Earth from CLU.
Tron: Legacy is streaming on Disney+.
Meryl Streep isn’t literally the devil in The Devil Wears Prada, but she might as well be. Streep plays Miranda Priestly, the incredibly ruthless editor for Runway, one of the most prestigious fashion magazines in the industry.
Andrea “Andy” Sachs (Anne Hathaway) gets quite an education while serving as Miranda’s new assistant. Miranda sees that Andy is useful, but she also thoughtlessly discards anyone in her inner circle who isn’t living up to her standards. She’s also a very bad influence on Andy, who may be difficult to shake.
The Devil Wears Prada is streaming on Disney+.
The success of the live-action Lilo & Stitch illustrates just how beloved the original Disney animated film has become in the last two decades. Stitch (Chris Sanders) is an alien experiment marked for deletion who escapes to Earth, where he poses as the strange-looking dog of a young girl named Lilo Pelekai (Daveigh Chase).
Stitch unleashes his personal brand of chaos on Lilo and her guardian/sister, Nani (Tia Carrere), which makes it more difficult for the former to hold her family together. As the Galactic Federation closes in on Stitch, his friendship with Lilo has a transformative effect that makes him worth saving.
Lilo & Stitch is streaming on Disney+.
Following the events of Avengers: Endgame and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) is the new Captain America. And he’s got his hands full in his first movie in his new role, Captain America: Brave New World.
Sam has a new partner, Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez), who has taken on Sam’s old Falcon identity. But this duo will be tested as the world edges towards war while President Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford) acts increasingly erratically. The Hulk’s former ally, Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson), is pulling all of these strings, and he may have the last laugh as well.
Captain America: Brave New World is streaming on Disney+.
Stop trying to keep track of all of the Spider-Men and Spider-Women in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse — it’s too easy to lose count. The most important ones are Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) and Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), two teenage superheroes who are kinda in love with each other. Unfortunately, their potential romance just isn’t in the cards because they live in separate universes in the multiverse.
Gwen finds her escape from the heartbreak and tragedy of her world by joining the Spider-Society, a group of spider-heroes from across the multiverse. When Miles finds out, he’s more than a little hurt that he wasn’t also asked to join. But once Miles meets the group’s founder, Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac), he may not like what he learns about the society. And his relationship with Gwen will never be the same.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is streaming on Disney+.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit was a revolutionary film for the way it seamlessly blended animation and live-action in a way that had never been done before. This may also be the only time you’ll ever see Disney’s classic characters interact with Warner Bros.’ Looney Tunes icons, as well as some genuinely shocking guest stars from the early days of cartoons.
None of that would matter without the terrific performance of Bob Hoskins as burned-out detective Eddie Valiant. Eddie used to be the Toons’ go-to private investigator before his partner and brother were murdered. Roger Rabbit (Charles Fleischer) needs a little of that Valiant and Valiant magic after he’s falsely accused of murder. Because if Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) finds Roger first, he’ll demonstrate that even a Toon can be killed.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is streaming on Disney+.
Disney’s live-action films haven’t always been as thrilling as the studio’s animated fare, but Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is something special. This adaptation of a Disney theme park ride is wildly entertaining, thanks in large part to Johnny Depp‘s off-the-wall performance as Captain Jack Sparrow and just the right amount of menace from Geoffrey Rush as Jack’s nemesis, Captain Barbossa.
Barbossa and the crew of Jack’s former ship, the Black Pearl, have been cursed to live as undead things until they can return the final piece of a stolen treasure. To reclaim their humanity, the crew kidnaps Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) in the mistaken belief that she’s the daughter of one of their old shipmates. To save Elizabeth, a lowly blacksmith named Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) allies with Jack, who almost certainly can’t be trusted.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is streaming on Disney+.
There are a lot of Disney animated films that could be classified as “must-watch,” both in the 2D era and among the modern 3D flicks. But Beauty and the Beast was in a class all by itself, and one of the rare animated films to ever earn a nomination for Best Picture at the Oscars. The music by Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman is amazing, and the animation is still dazzling over three decades later.
None of that would matter without the strong performances of Paige O’Hara as Belle and Robby Benson as the Beast. She has to learn how to see the man beneath his monstrous appearance, while he has to become worthy of her love or else he’ll remain trapped in the body of a beast forever. Their love is also complicated by one of Disney’s most memorable villains, Gaston (Richard White), who manages to be both comical and menacing. This is a masterpiece from start to finish, and few films have ever come close to topping it.
Beauty and the Beast is streaming on Disney+
Pixar has largely surpassed Disney’s animated films in the 21st century with incredible animation paired with emotionally resonant storytelling. The studio has also taken some wild swings, including WALL-E, a sci-fi film about a sentient trash compactor robot (Ben Burtt) who might be the last being on Earth in the 29th century. Long stretches of WALL-E take place without dialogue, but the little guy is so expressive that there’s never any doubt about what he’s feeling.
WALL-E’s long solitude is broken when a female robot named EVE (Elissa Knight) arrives on Earth looking for any sign that the planet can be reclaimed by the humans who left it behind centuries earlier. What she finds will lead WALL-E and EVE on an adventure across the stars that may determine the future of humanity. It’s also an unexpectedly warm love story between two robots who have thoughts and feelings of their own.
WALL-E is streaming on Disney+.
At the time of its release, Logan was meant to be Hugh Jackman‘s swan song as Wolverine and the end of an era for the original X-Men movies. In a dark future, mutants are all but extinct, and even Logan (Jackman) is facing his mortality as his healing powers fade. Most of the X-Men are gone, and only Logan remains to care for his seriously ill mentor, Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart).
Their quiet retirement is shattered when Logan meets Laura (Dafne Keen), a young girl who may be his biological daughter. As Logan begrudgingly protects Laura from the killers on her trail, he discovers what really happened to the mutants and if he still has something worth fighting for.
Logan is streaming on Disney+
Modern Star Wars films and shows have been inconsistent both in quality and how they’ve been received by the public, but Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is almost universally loved by new and old fans alike. Director Gareth Edwards and screenwriters Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy capture the look and feel of the original Star Wars in a story with elevated stakes. None of the main characters are Jedi, and they’re closer to anti-heroes than any previous leads.
A young thief named Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) is forcibly recruited into the rebellion because her father, Galen (Mads Mikkelsen), is one of the key figures behind the Empire’s super weapon, the Death Star. Jyn, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and a handful of other characters undertake a suicide mission to stop the Death Star before it can be used to crush the rebellion. And in this war story, not everyone gets to come home alive.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is streaming on Disney+.