The best movies on Disney+ are almost never the five tiles across the top of the app. Ten picks follow, sorted by the kind of night actually in front of the reader: the family movie that has to land with everyone, the teenager who thinks they’ve outgrown the family movie, the room that needs to go quiet, and the night the tree finally goes up. All ten are included with a standard Disney+ subscription in the U.S., no rental fee hiding anywhere. Availability was checked Nov. 11, 2026.
For the family night that has to work for everyone
Hoppers (2026) A 19-year-old animal-rights activist named Mabel (Piper Curda) hops her consciousness into a robotic beaver and discovers a forest where getting eaten counts as a normal Tuesday. Daniel Chong, who cut his teeth on We Bare Bears, directs with a rude streak Pixar usually sands off, and Variety’s Owen Gleiberman wrote it “plays like ‘Bambi’ on crack. And I mean that as a compliment.” IndieWire’s Wilson Chapman went further, calling it Pixar’s best new release “in a solid decade.”
Best for: the family that has burned through the obvious Pixar shelf twice. Included with a Disney+ subscription since June 3, 2026. Availability checked Nov. 11, 2026.
Toy Story 5 (2026) Jessie (Joan Cusack) takes the lead this time, Woody is a balding old cowboy, and the villain is a talking tablet named Lilypad (Greta Lee) making a persuasive case for screen time. Andrew Stanton, directing a Toy Story film for the first time, watched it open to $159 million domestically and climb to $1.13 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing Toy Story film yet, inflation aside. Gleiberman called it a movie that “escalates in delight (the climactic wedding ceremony must be seen to be believed), but it also has moments that hit you like a gut punch.” Taylor Swift’s original song “I Knew It, I Knew You,” written with Jack Antonoff, was inspired by Jessie, the cowgirl who has been riding through this franchise since 1999.
Best for: the parent who got asked at bedtime why the toys can’t come to school. Included with a Disney+ subscription since Sept. 23, 2026. Availability checked Nov. 11, 2026.
For the house where the songs are the point
Encanto (2021) Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the songs, Germaine Franco wrote the score, and 1 hour 54 minutes of Colombian family business runs on Mirabel (Stephanie Beatriz), the one Madrigal with no gift. Producer Yvett Merino has closed the door on a sequel while leaving it unlocked, telling reporters, “No, but I’m always here for it.” The absence of a follow-up has not hurt rewatch value: 92 percent with critics and 93 with audiences is a rare agreement for a movie that is mostly singing.
Best for: a rainy afternoon with a kid who knows every line and a grown-up who joins in by the second chorus. Included with a Disney+ subscription. Availability checked Nov. 11, 2026.
For the animation fan who insists they’ve seen everything
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) Miles Morales gets pulled across the multiverse into the Spider Society and spends the film deciding what kind of Spider-Man he actually wants to be, not the one a council of alternate-universe Peter Parkers has already picked for him. It sits at a matching 95 percent with critics and audiences alike, which is rarer than it sounds for a superhero sequel.
Best for: the 12-year-old who claims animation is for babies, usually one who hasn’t seen this. Included with a Disney+ subscription, part of the Disney+ Spider-Man lineup. Availability checked Nov. 11, 2026.
For the biggest screen and the best speakers in the house
Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) James Cameron’s third trip to Pandora runs 3 hours 20 minutes, introduces a hostile Na’vi clan called the Ash People, and won the 2026 Oscar for visual effects on its way to $1.4 billion worldwide. The reason to pick it tonight is scale. A phone screen does this movie no favors at all.
Best for: the Saturday when nobody wants to choose and everybody wants to be impressed. Included with a Disney+ subscription since June 24, 2026. Availability checked Nov. 11, 2026.
For the teenager who has aged out of the family pick
Logan (2017) James Mangold parks a worn-down Logan on the Mexican border with an ailing Professor X (Patrick Stewart) until a young mutant with a violent set of claws and darker forces behind her shows up looking for help. It’s rated R and it earns the rating, which is the whole pitch. Critics gave it 93 percent, audiences 91, and it’s sitting on Disney+ with a subscription, no extra tier required.
Best for: the 15-year-old who wants proof the family service has teeth, and the parent who’d rather that happen in an app already being paid for. Included with a Disney+ subscription. Availability checked Nov. 11, 2026.
For the rewatch that still holds up
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) J.J. Abrams cast Daisy Ridley and John Boyega, brought Harrison Ford back for one more run, and leaned on practical effects hard enough that it still holds 93 percent with critics. For a kid who has somehow made it to age 10 without a single Star Wars movie, this is the on-ramp. For a house that can recite it, it plays better than it has any right to on a random Tuesday.
Best for: a family starting the saga, or restarting it for the fourth time. Included with a Disney+ subscription, alongside the rest of the Skywalker Saga. Availability checked Nov. 11, 2026.
For the night the room needs to go quiet
Ocean with David Attenborough Attenborough makes the case that the ocean keeps the whole planet running, and the footage does the rest of the arguing. Nothing here needs following and nothing needs explaining afterward. It’s the one pick on this list that asks for less, not more.
Best for: a Sunday evening and a kid who has started asking bigger questions than cartoons tend to answer. Included with a Disney+ subscription. Availability checked Nov. 11, 2026.
For the night the tree goes up
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) Brian Henson’s version runs a tidy 1 hour 27 minutes with Michael Caine playing Scrooge completely straight and Kermit as Bob Cratchit absorbing most of the jokes. Playing the Dickens seriously is exactly why the comedy lands. It’s the shortest film on this whole list and the most likely to become an annual appointment.
Best for: the first Christmas movie of the season, before anyone’s sick of them. Included with a Disney+ subscription. Availability checked Nov. 11, 2026.
Home Alone (1990) Chris Columbus leaves an eight-year-old home with two burglars (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern) and a house rigged like a booby trap. It runs 1 hour 44 minutes, Macaulay Culkin is better than the slapstick strictly requires, and the rest of the sequels are sitting on the service too for anyone who wants to keep going.
Best for: a house with a wide age range and one adult who wants to hear the paint cans story again. Included with a Disney+ subscription. Availability checked Nov. 11, 2026.
Start with Hoppers. It’s the newest title here, the funniest, and the only one built to hold an 8-year-old and an adult who has seen every Pixar movie twice. If none of these fit the mood exactly, the Netflix list sorted by the same kind of mood or the Netflix chart that keeps contradicting itself are reasonable next stops. Otherwise, the beaver with a 19-year-old’s brain is waiting.
