The output of Walt Disney Animation Studios–currently totaling 54 full-length films–has been cherished by audiences young and old for almost 80 years. In this weekly online feature, arts and entertainment editor Nathan Tucker will review and rank each of them.

The reason that The Little Mermaid is considered the start of a “Disney Renaissance”–as opposed to, say, Oliver and Company or The Great Mouse Detective–is the unabashed confidence the film has in itself. The studio is showing off, swimming laps around the competition for the first time since Walt died. Mermaid knows that it is a performance, that all eyes are upon it, that it has to be as spectacular as possible. It is pure magnetism: a glorious thing to behold.

Part of that is Mermaid finding an emotional center to its narrative, the kind of pathos that had eluded the studio for a good decade. Unlike her princessly predecessors, Ariel has feeling, motivation, and a shocking agency; she’s far more human than any prior female lead even before she sprouts legs. She may be selfish and bratty, but those very qualities allow Ariel to be real in a way that porcelain Snow, doormat Cinderella, and narcoleptic Aurora never could. Everyone has felt like a misunderstood outsider at some point in their lives and Ariel’s arc spirals out from that essential position of empathy.  

The narrative which emerges from that journey feels at once complex and simplistic. It is, of course, a by-the-numbers fairytale romance with the traditional alterations made to fit Disney’s feel-good, family brand. In Mermaid’s case, this is a plus: the further away from Andersen’s sadistic original, the better. The complexity comes, not from the actual mechanics of the plot, but in how the story is told: the film dresses its story as a Broadway blockbuster, a dramatic myth, a fish-out-of-water sitcom, and, yes, a moralizing fable, one after another. The Little Mermaid wants to be everything to everyone; to a startling degree, it succeeds.

The songbook is the best Disney has had since the Sherman Brothers scored Jungle Book–it may even be better. Menken and Ashman’s compositions are, in true Broadway fashion, the pillars Mermaid is set upon. Varied genres, from the show tune crescendo of “Part of Your World” to the doo-wop chorus of “Kiss the Girl,” are allowed to shimmer and merge until they sound original again.  

Those qualities, in addition to a renewed attention to detail on part of the animators makes The Little Mermaid  stand out. If someone required a one film distillation of the Disney brand/formula/magic, Mermaid would be a logical representative: it is, by this point, synonymous with the studio.  

  The List:

1. Bambi
2. Sleeping Beauty
3. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
4. Lady and the Tramp
5. The Little Mermaid
6. The Jungle Book
7. Alice in Wonderland
8. Fantasia
9. Pinocchio
10. The Great Mouse Detective
11. Robin Hood
12. The Rescuers
13. One Hundred and One Dalmatians
14. Peter Pan
15. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
16. Cinderella
17. Dumbo
18. Oliver and Company
19. The Aristocats
20. The Fox and the Hound
21. The Sword in the Stone
22. Melody Time
23. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
24. Fun and Fancy Free
25. Saludos Amigos
26. Make Mine Music
27. The Black Cauldron
28. The Three Caballeros