The 10 Best '80s Disney Movies, Ranked

Ah, the 1980s. A time of big hair, neon, cable TV — and, in the case of the Walt Disney Company, a long box office slump that spanned the majority of the decade until it was broken by the release of "The Little Mermaid" in 1989.

But the studio's lack of big-time blockbusters doesn't mean the movies Disney put out during the 1980s are bad. In fact, a number of iconic films — both live-action and animated — were released by the company during the Me Decade only to be unjustly ignored. Some of them continue to ignite fond memories in Gen-X'ers and elder millennials worldwide, while others remain vastly underappreciated to this day. This list is ranked from the least to the best, but even the lowliest entry is worth your time to watch. Here's a quick overview of the very best productions Disney put out in the 1980s.

It's a beautiful, lushly animated story, but there's a reason why "The Fox and the Hound" isn't as fondly remembered as many other Disney productions. The plot's a little weak, and it features a semi-downer ending — a true rarity for a kids' film from the House of Mouse. But as flawed as it is, animation buffs are likely to get some joy out of watching it.

The film follows Copper (voiced by Kurt Russell and Corey Feldman), a young bloodhound who becomes friendly with Tod (Mickey Rooney and Keith Mitchell), an orphaned fox kit who is taken in and raised by Widow Tweed (Jeanette Nolan). Copper's owner, Amos Slade (Jack Albertson), soon catches Tod coming onto his property and becomes bitterly obsessed with hunting him down, especially when a chase to nab Tod results in Slade's other bloodhound, Chief, being injured. Tod's friends from the forest warn the young fox that one day he and Copper will grow to hate each other and that Copper is being trained to become a fox-killing bloodhound. But Tod continues to believe in the vow they made to each other as pups in the woods. The question is, will Copper?

The film was actually adapted from a very family-unfriendly novel. Unfortunately, Disney has rarely gotten this adventurous with its adapted material since then, making "The Fox and the Hound" both a milestone and a tombstone in the animation studio's long and winding history.

Here's another forgotten 2D animated film that's a pleasant, spirited watch. Though it wasn't a big box office hit, "Oliver & Company" is filled with memorable songs and is fairly adventuresome. A creative inversion of "Oliver Twist," turning Charles Dickens' classic novel into a tale of cats and dogs surviving on the streets of New York City, it does take a few too many liberties with the source material, which is why it ranks on the lower end of this list.

Little Oliver (Joey Lawrence) is an orange kitten who just wants to be part of a happy family. He finds himself tangled up with a ring of dog thieves run by Fagin (Dom DeLuise), who teaches his dogs to steal to help get him out of debt. Oliver soon makes buddies with Dodger (Billy Joel), Tito (Cheech Marin), Einstein (Richard Mulligan), Francis (Roscoe Lee Browne), and Rita (Sheryl Lee Ralph). While working to help Fagin get the cash Bill Sykes (Robert Loggia) demands of him, Oliver meets rich girl Jenny Foxworth (Natalie Gregory), who takes him in and immediately makes him a part of her family in spite of her fancy poodle, Georgette's (Bette Midler) protests. Eventually, Oliver will have to pick a home — and he'll have to decide where his future lies.

That the movie gave us the song "Why Should I Worry?" ought to be enough to enshrine it in the highest climbs of pop culture heaven, but "Oliver & Company" has been largely forgotten since its release. Time will tell if it ever becomes a belated hit with a future generation of Disney fans.

Is it possible for a Disney film to be a cult classic? "Flight of the Navigator" proves that even the biggest studio in the world can create an original science fiction property that's engaging, interesting, and unique — and still see it end up as something of a buried treasure.

The film focuses on David Freeman (Joey Cramer), a young boy whose life is changed when he falls into a canyon and is knocked unconscious on the Fourth of July in 1978. He awakens in 1986, but he somehow hasn't aged a single day. This is because he's become telepathically connected with an alien spacecraft (voiced by Paul Reubens under the name Paul Mall) that has dropped him in the future. He must team up with the ship — whom David has dubbed Max — to get them both out of danger, get Max the information he needs, and perhaps even send David back in 1978, where he belongs.

Though the film was a bit of a hit with critics when it was released, it was, unfortunately, a box office bomb. But time has transformed the Disney flop (which happens to be one of the first Disney movies to feature a curse word) into a true cult classic; in fact, it's now set to be remade by Bryce Dallas Howard for Disney+. See you later, Navigator indeed.

Now, here's a live-action Disney treat everyone remembers. "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" was such an iconic film that it inspired a beloved Disney Parks attraction and did so well at the box office it led to two sequels and a TV series.

Wayne Szalinski (Rick Moranis) has made a huge scientific breakthrough: he's figured out how to shrink or grow organic matter with a special laser. Unfortunately, his kids, Amy (Amy O'Neill) and Nick (Robert Oliveri), and neighbors, Ron (Jared Rushton) and Russ Thompson (Thomas Wilson), accidentally miniaturize themselves thanks to a ball sailing through the Szalinski's window and their subsequent unwise examination of the attic where his shrink ray exists. Now, the kids have to battle horrifying fates, like being swallowed by the dog, drowning in a bowl of cereal, or being run over by a lawnmower. Can the kids alert their parents — and heal a neighborly feud — before it's too late?

"Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" became the highest-grossing Disney live-action film up to that point, and it's no wonder since it's visually inventive and fun to watch. It resulted in multiple Disney theme park attractions like Honey, I Shrunk the Audience! and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: Movie Set Adventure. "Honey, I Blew Up the Baby" and "Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves" followed in theaters and on home video, respectively, as did a syndicated TV show that lasted three seasons. A rumored reboot is currently on hold, but also still in the cards.

Not everything Disney released in the '80s was animated or a big-budget science fiction set piece; the studio still specialized in live-action historical movies for a good portion of the decade. The most intriguing among them is "The Journey of Natty Gann," which tells the story of a girl who survives separation from her father during The Great Depression by riding the rails and becoming friends with a wolf.

The titular Natty Gann (Meredith Salenger) is a tomboy whose father Sol (Ray Wise) is forced to take extreme measures to get a job — leaving his daughter in Chicago to head cross-country. He leaves Natty a note saying that he'll send for her when he has the money, but she soon finds herself threatened with the prospect of being thrown in an orphanage by the woman running their rooming house. Using the note as a guide, Natty runs away, hopping trains as she tracks her father, heading to the Oregon logging camp where he's working. Along the way, she has many death-defying adventures, gains a wolfdog she calls Wolf as a pet, and meets fellow hobo Harry (John Cusack), with whom she has a romance.

Similar to "Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken," another historical tale of a brave girl doing extraordinary things that Disney would release in the 1990s, "The Journey of Natty Gann" has been largely buried in the back catalog of Disney's live-action history. But this '80s gem definitely deserves to be better remembered as more than a fond memory.

"The Black Cauldron," an adaptation of two novels written by Lloyd Alexander, brought about a lot of firsts for Disney. It's the first Disney feature with computer-animated imagery. It's the first animated movie the company ever released that was given a PG rating by the MPA due to "frightening imagery." And, perhaps most importantly, it's the project that nearly bankrupted Disney's animation department when it flopped. That being said, it's a rich, interesting movie that deserves much better than being relegated to the back of pop culture memory.

The movie tells the story of assistant pigkeeper Taran (Grant Bardsley), whose dream of adventure is granted when the evil Horned King steals a pig with precognitive capabilities. He believes the pig, Hen Wen, will be able to search for and find the Black Cauldron, a vessel from which he can create an endless army. Taran forms a ragtag team with fellow captives Princess Eilonwy (Susan Sheridan), Gurgi (John Byner), and Fflewddur Fflam (Nigel Hawthorne). Soon, they're on the trail of the Horned King, but will they be able to stop him in time? All in all, it's a worthwhile adventure. It may not be Disney's absolute best, but it is one of their most creative adaptations. It definitely deserves a remake — maybe one that's more accurate to the novels that it sprung from.

"The Great Mouse Detective" has actually seen a decent revival of reputation among animation fans. A solid extrapolation of Sherlock Holmes into a kid-friendly, mouse-laden world, the animation is beautiful, the writing and mystery rousing, and the voice acting exceptional.

"The Great Mouse Detective" introduces young Olivia Flaversham (Susanne Pollatschek) to the world of Basil of Baker Street (Barrie Ingham). Army surgeon David Q. Dawson (Val Bettin) takes Olivia to see Basil after her father is kidnapped by a flying bat. Basil realizes Olivia's father has been abducted by a minion of Ratigan (Vincent Price), Basil's longtime nemesis. Basil is the world's best detective, but can he solve this case, even with Olivia and David's help? And will David accept his role as the sidekick to Basil that he's meant to become?

This is a fun, character-based mystery that genuinely feels adventuresome and unique. And, as one of the most quintessentially Disney experiences the 1980s has to offer, it also manages to entertain users of all ages, no matter how old they are.

"I am Tron; I fight for the users!" This is inventive Disney action at its best, a perfect snapshot of life in the early 1980s, and a playful look at the tech world yet to come. "Tron" ends up unwittingly predicting the technological present we all live in, forty years later.

Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) runs an arcade and software engineer. Fired from ENCOM, his previous employer, Kevin tries to hack into the company's mainframe in an act of revenge against Ed Dillinger (David Warner), the man who stole his video game ideas and used them to ascend the company ladder. But Kevin's attempt at inserting his program, CLU, into the game in order to learn incriminating information about ENCOM is constantly deleted. It turns out Dillinger is allowing ENCOM's MCP to swallow up personal information and government data, among many other forms of digital information, to add to the company's knowledge base because they know about his thievery and are blackmailing him. When Lora Baines (Cindy Morgan) and Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) have access to their own work at the company revoked, they learn about Dillinger's secret and tell Kevin what's going on. Together, they sneak into ENCOM to turn on Alan's guardian program Tron to stop the grand data consumption — only for Kevin to be digitized and uploaded into the mainframe. Now, he must play his own video games in a fight for his life.

More than four decades after its release, "Tron" remains an impressive slice of technological filmmaking, but it's also a stylistic triumph that goes beyond being a visual marvel. It's about justice, about technology staying within its own boundaries, and the power of friendship. There's a reason why it got a sequel, a TV series, and (soon) a threequel. People care enough about Tron to fight for him, too.

What hasn't been said about "The Little Mermaid" in the thirty-plus years since its release? It gave life to Disney's animation renaissance and began a whole new era of prosperity at the studio, and there's a reason for that: "The Little Mermaid" is a movie packed with beautiful songs, lovely animation and voice acting, and a thoughtful plot about father-daughter conflict that's been considered and reconsidered in the years since its release.

Ariel (Jodi Benson) is a mermaid princess who would do anything to live like a human being. King Triton (Kenneth Mars), her father, opposes her wishes, considering them a form of teenage rebellion. When he lashes out and destroys her collection of artifacts from the surface world, she seeks out Ursula (Pat Carroll), a sea witch he has warned her to stay far away from. Ursula offers to cast a spell on Ariel, making her human, but at the cost of her voice. The teenager takes the bargain and washes up on shore, mute, but with the human legs she's longed for, but she faces a massive task: she must convince Prince Eric (Christopher Daniel Barnes), whose life she has previously saved and whom she worshipped from afar, to fall in love with her without use of her voice.

"The Little Mermaid" has become such a classic that, so far, it's the only animated feature on this list that Disney turned into a (very successful) live-action movie. In short, it's a titan among the studio's dozens of animated efforts.

So, what can top "The Little Mermaid" on this list? Well, how about a film that combines all of the best aspects of the movies listed above? "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" is a technological marvel like "Tron" with an involving mystery like "The Great Mouse Detective," lovable characters like "The Little Mermaid," and excellent direction like "The Black Cauldron." It stands head and shoulders above anything else Disney offered during the 1980s.

Freely adapted from the very adult novel "Who Censored Roger Rabbit?," Disney's animated/live-action hybrid film follows the adventures of the titular Roger (Charles Fleischer), who stands accused of murdering Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye). Acme was playing pattycake (literally) with Roger's shapely wife, Jessica (voice of Kathleen Turner), which ought to give him all of the motivation in the world, right? Not according to Roger, who attests to his own innocence and begs Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins), the man who was hired by the head of the studio that employs Roger and Jessica to prove Jessie's infidelity, to help get him off the hook for the murder. In spite of his anger at the toon community, Eddie soon finds himself investigating the case of Acme's murder — and making peace with Roger and his Toontown friends.

A whole bunch of characters were borrowed from other studios for this monumental production. Donald and Daffy Duck share the screen in a memorable scene, for example, as do Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny. But even without those magical moments, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" would be a wonderful watch thanks to its immediately engaging original characters, its witty script, and very committed performances from Hoskins and the film's big villain, Jude Doom, played by Christopher Lloyd. It more than earned the crown of the best Disney movie of the '80s.