Looking for a good movie to watch this week and just can’t be bothered to endlessly swipe through Disney+’s huge library of movies? Yeah, no one can … except me.
My family likes a mixture of light animated movies (to put them in a good mood), sprawling adventure epics (to take them away to exotic lands), and, since the spooky season is just around the corner, some strange and even scary picks. That is precisely what I’ve got in store with this week’s movies to watch on Disney+.
1
Elio
Pixar just knows how to make beautiful and touching animated films. Lonely 11-year-old Elio is still grieving the loss of his parents and struggling to find his place in the world. He’s obsessed with space and aliens, and wants nothing more than to be out in the universe with them. After Elio sends tons of messages into space, Earth is visited by a peaceful amalgam of alien races known as the Communiverse, who mistake Elio for Earth’s ambassador, beaming him up to their huge ship. But the bad guy, Lord Grigon (voiced by Brad Garrett), shows up threatening to blow everyone up, and Elio volunteers to talk him down—with the help of Grigon’s adorably squishy son, Glordon, who becomes Elio’s bestie.
You’re going to love Elio, and it’s probably going to make you cry. It’s got all the feels of most Pixar movies, with its themes of childhood loneliness and acceptance, wrapped in a spectacular animated alien world that Disney does so well.
2
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Almost as polarizing as Die Hard, the question many people ask about Tim Burton’s groundbreaking The Nightmare Before Christmas is this: Is it a Halloween movie or a Christmas movie? We can debate it in the comments below, but one thing for sure is that the musical, dark fantasy, stop-motion epic is a must-watch for both seasons.
Jack Skellington (voiced by Chris Sarandon with singing by Danny Elfman) is the creepy King of Halloween Town who accidentally stumbles into the magical, festive world of Christmas Town. Enchanted and obsessed, Jack hatches a plan to bring the fun of Christmas to his own world (by kidnapping Santa) and taking Santa’s place in Christmas town—instead delivering horrific and grotesque presents to all the children. The only one looking out for Jack is Sally (Catherine O’Hara), a ragdoll in love with Jack who tries to warn him of how disastrous his idea is, to no avail.
3
Edward Scissorhands
Another Tim Burton masterpiece, Edward Scissorhands, is, again, required viewing for spooky season. I’ve always loved it for its satirical stab at the phoniness of suburban life, while offering one of the most fascinating and tragic characters in film history. Johnny Depp stars as Edward, the unfinished creation of a reclusive inventor (Vincent Price) who dies before he can finish, leaving the pale, leather-clad man-boy with razor-sharp blades for fingers. Edward is taken in by well-meaning Avon Lady, Peg (Dianne Wiest), who brings him home to her pastel-colored neighborhood, where he’s eaten alive by its gossipy, backstabbing inhabitants, who use him for his talents. Edward Scissorhands is a gothic tale of unrequited love and acceptance, wrapped in shredded black leather.
4
Queen Rock Montreal
I stumbled upon Queen Rock Montreal while digging through the Disney+ library (my algorithm doesn’t put this kind of content front and center), and I’m so glad I did. I’m admittedly not a die-hard fan of Queen, but I’ve always admired and have been awe-struck by the band and Freddie Mercury, who was just a once-in-a-lifetime talent. This hour-and-a-half-long live concert film from 2024 is bombastic.
Filmed over a two-night stint at Montreal’s Forum during the band’s 1981 “The Game” tour, Queen Rock Montreal was restored from 35mm footage and upgraded to 4K Ultra HD and IMAX Enhanced formats, and is also presented in Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision, if you have the supporting gear. It’s a visual and auditory experience, as Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon soar through Queen hits like Bohemian Rhapsody, Somebody to Love, We Will Rock You, and Another One Bites the Dust.
5
Avatar: The Way of Water
As a big fan of James Cameron’s monstrous Avatar movies, I recently re-watched Avatar: The Way of Water as a sort of preparation for a couple of things that are coming up—first is Fire And Water: Making The Avatar Films that will hit Disney+ on November 7, and the second, of course, is the third in the series, Avatar: Fire and Ash, which is slated for theaters on December 19.
The Way of Water is the second epic in Cameron’s world of films, in which Marine-turned Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), his partner Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), and their family are forced to leave their home in the forest as the human colonizers, who want Jake dead, threaten to return. They flee to the ocean-world of the Metkayina, where they must start over and learn the ways of its people—it’s a literal reverse fish-out-of-water scenario. But trouble just seems to find Jake, as the revenge-driven Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) tracks them down, threatening to destroy the Metkayina.
Told using all the visually breathtaking CGI techniques the Avatar films have pioneered, The Way of Water is a feast for the eyes and ears, with emotionally-charged performances beautifully delivered in a way that only motion-capture can, with the actors able to emote with one another as they would in more traditional filmmaking, so it feels truly authentic.
These are some of the best movies to watch on Disney+ this week. There are also lots of great shows on Disney+, so there’s plenty to keep you entertained.
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