Tag: original features

Fans of KPop: Demon Hunters, the critically acclaimed Netflix phenomenon that blends supernatural action, messages of self-acceptance, and the pulse of Korean pop culture, will find plenty to love in other stylish, emotionally charged animated movies that mix music, myth, romance, and adventure.

For starters, there’s Belle, Mamoru Hosoda’s visually striking 2021 re-imagining of Beauty and the Beast. Like KPop: Demon Hunters, it fuses a pop-inspired soundtrack with dazzling visuals and explores the intersection of identity, fame, and trauma. Similarly, 2014’s Big Hero 6 delivers action, humor, and heart as its titular team of tech-savvy, young superheroes navigate grief, friendship, and responsibility to save their city.

Fans who love KPop Demon Hunters’ high energy and sleek fight choreography will undoubtedly enjoy 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which pushes animation boundaries with kinetic, music-driven visuals, while 2020’s Trolls World Tour, though much more light-hearted, doubles down on the whole save-the-world-using-music thing.

READ MORE: 10 Animated Films Every Studio Ghibli Fan Must See

For something more intimate but still fantastical, Disney’s 2022 film Turning Red captures the chaos of growing up, the power of friendship, and the influence of fandom culture — themes that parallel the story of KPop: Demon Hunters. Meanwhile, mature viewers looking for something more edgy won’t be able to look away from 1997’s Perfect Blue, which tackles the dark side of fame as it follows the sinister journey of a young J-pop idol.

Whether it’s big, magical battles, poignant messages about self-determination, or stories about friendship you crave, these animated movies share the same beating heart as KPop: Demon Hunters as they celebrate empowerment, community, and the transformative magic of music.

READ MORE: A Brutally Honest Kid’s Review of KPop Demon Hunters

Disney is known for its heartwarming fairy tales and colorful animation, but many of the studio’s films also contain moments that are surprisingly dark, or even downright disturbing. While Disney is often associated with the notion of dreams coming true, it’s also responsible for more than a few childhood nightmares.

One of the most haunting scenes in Disney animation history comes from 1940’s Pinocchio, when a group of mischievous little boys are transformed into donkeys on Pleasure Island. The terrified cries of children losing their voices as their bodies contort into animals to be sold into slave labor are chilling, and much more scary than the movie’s monstrous whale.

Similarly frightening, 1996’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame features the corrupt Judge Frollo’s “Hellfire” sequence — a fiery, feverish depiction of lust and religious hypocrisy set against flames and shadow, more akin to Dante than Disney.

READ MORE: Lost Disney Animated Movies That Were Never Made

In 1994’s The Lion King, the heartbreaking but instant death of Mufasa is a kind end compared to Scar being mauled and likely eaten alive by his hungry hyena horde, while Clayton, the villain of 1999’s Tarzan, meets his end by accidentally hanging himself — a gruesome fate shown in eerie silhouette.

But these are just a few of the moments of sheer darkness in Disney’s animated filmography, where bright-eyed characters face tragedy, death, and existential dread, among other, more subtle horrors.

Meanwhile, these memorably dark Disney scenes endure because they confront the shadows lurking just beyond the magic. They remind audiences, especially young viewers, that fear, loss, and real-world consequences are as much a part of growing up as fairy godmothers, wishing stars, and happily-ever-afters.

READ MORE: 11 Forgotten Live-Action Disney Movies

There are plenty of reasons to make a movie sequel, but there’s really just one that matters to a Hollywood studio: Money. If a film was a hit, and there’s an opportunity to make more money with a second, a studio is going to take it.

Some movies come with ready-made sequels. A movie about a brave police detective who solves a particularly complicated case? She can go solve another case. A war between humans and aliens for control of a planet and its rich natural resources? Wars can stretch on for years or decades! A superhero defeats a dastardly villain? They don’t call it a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way for nothing.

Ah, but Hollywood doesn’t care if a movie comes with ready-made sequels. If it’s a hit, it’s going to get a sequel one way or another. (Conversely, if it’s a flop, it doesn’t matter if the film ended on a cliffhanger teeing up the next installment in the franchise; it’s not gonna happen. Just ask the folks who made Green Lantern.) In a few cases, a great movie spawned a bunch of sequels so underwhelming they tarnished the reputation of the original film — like the 15 titles below.

Note that I only included franchises that generated at least two sequels. There’s a fair number of excellent films that spawned one sequel that was so bad the studio immediately went “Nope! Our bad! That was a mistake!” They learned their lesson the first time. (Speed and The Odd Couple are two examples that come immediately to mind.)

No, to qualify for this list, a series’ stewards had to doggedly refuse to learn any lessons on multiple occasions. It’s like the Spaceballs sequel they never made (until, uh, now): It’s all about the search for more money.

READ MORE: Forgotten Movies From 20 Years Ago That Deserve to Be Rediscovered

Movies never change. (Unless they were directed George Lucas. Then they might change.) Once a director locks their movie and releases it into the theaters, it’s incredibly rare (again, unless the director is named George Walton Lucas Jr.) for the film to evolve with the times. Sometimes, as new generations of viewers discover a film, the consensus opinion might change. The movie itself does not.

That’s also true of individual movie reviews. A website like Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic might add new takes on an old film, but the original ones from the initial release sit in their archive forever. So you can go look back at how a film was first received, and compare that to a film’s reputation today. And nowhere is that contrast more stark than on comedies, where even some of the most beloved examples in recent history got negative reviews, and often continue to hold very low scores on sites like Rotten Tomatoes.

Below, you’ll find 20 striking examples of just this phenomenon. They’re all comedies of the last 50 years that have gone down in history as classics of their form. Many of them were huge box-office hits, although a few flopped in theaters (the bad reviews probably didn’t help in that regard) before finding a cult audience on home video. Just don’t go looking for George Lucas’ Radioland Murders. That’s not on there. (Come to think of it, Lucas never recut that film for DVD release … coincidence?!?)

READ MORE: The 10 Best Comedies of the Last 10 Years

The Best Comedy Movie Posters Ever

When looking beyond Disney’s animated blockbusters and billion-dollar franchises, the company’s live-action movies of the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s reveals a long list of titles that have largely been forgotten, even among diehard Disney fans.

At the height of Disney’s animated renaissance in the 1990s, the company also produced many live-action movies ranging from family adventure films to goofy teen comedies. Released in 1993, A Far Off Place starring a young Reese Witherspoon is rarely remembered today, despite fitting in with the now-nostalgic trend of ‘90s kids-on-grand-adventures movies. Meanwhile, 1998’s Meet the Deedles, a zany comedy about two lazy surfer brothers sent to boot camp, never reached the same cult status of other similar buddy comedies of the decade.

The 2000s saw Disney experimenting with more ambitious, even weirder projects, but several have fallen into obscurity over the years. The 2001 comedy Max Keeble’s Big Move, for example, doesn’t seem to be as well remembered as similar kids-centric movies such as Big Fat Liar, while 2009’s forgettable Old Dogs appears to have been put to sleep despite its star-studded cast. (That one stars the late, great Robin Williams, but you’ve probably never even heard of it.)

READ MORE: 15 Lost Disney Animated Movies That Will Never See the Light of Day

By the 2010s, Disney was prioritizing remakes and franchises, leaving little space for smaller live-action originals. Films such as 2015’s Tomorrowland, a lavish sci-fi adventure starring George Clooney, and 2010’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, a Nicolas Cage-led fantasy epic loosely based on a segment from 1940’s Fantasia, were costly experiments that failed to capture audiences.

Whether they’re unfairly ignored hidden gems, or unmemorable flops that deserve to be lost to time, these live-action Disney movies failed to leave a lasting cultural mark, and years after release they remain largely relegated to the forgotten side of Disney’s lengthy filmography.

For those of us who were already cinephiles when Paul Thomas Anderson burst onto the scene with his dynamic breakthrough Boogie Nights, it’s hard to believe the former directing wunderkind (he was only 27 years old when Boogie Nights was released) has now been making films for 30 years.

His latest production, 2025’s One Battle After Another, makes a fitting backdrop for a look at Anderson’s career. It tells the story of a former revolutionary (Leonardo DiCaprio) turned paranoid pothead single dad who is forced to fight for his daughter after she’s targeted by a high-ranking member of the U.S. military. From literal bomb thrower to bewildered, bumbling father … from boy genius to middle-aged statesman of cinema. Time has a way of changing things, huh?

Putting together a list ranking Paul Thomas Anderson’s entire filmography made me realize: As much as I love Anderson and his movies, I might underrate him as a director. When people ask for my favorite working filmmakers, I don’t tend to cite him, maybe because he’s a patient artist and he goes years between projects. If he hasn’t released a movie recently, he sometimes slips my mind.

But looking at the ten movies he’s made to date, it’s clear he’s in that conversation. He hasn‘t made a bad feature. In fact, the worst movie on this list would be the best movie on a lot of directors’ filmographies. So while these movies are ranked from “worst” to “best” based on my personal preference, ranking these ten titles was a bit like ranking ten similarly sized bars of gold. They all shine pretty brightly.

READ MORE: Every Steven Spielberg Movie, Ranked From Worst to Best

When it comes to animation, Disney has reigned supreme for the better part of a century. From its groundbreaking innovations in the medium to its decades-long roster of award-winning, culturally influential, and wildly popular films, Disney (and its subsidiary, Pixar) is synonymous with feature animation, with a long list of unforgettable films to back the claim.

From Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Toy Story, Lilo and Stitch, Finding Nemo, Frozen, and Moana, you’d be hard-pressed to find a human being on the planet who doesn’t know who Ariel is or the lyrics to “Let It Go.”

Okay, I’m exaggerating. But the point remains: Disney’s theatrical animated filmography is just that globally omnipresent. However, that doesn’t mean the House of Mouse doesn’t have a handful of lesser-known or even forgotten hidden gems.

READ MORE: 10 Animated Films Every Studio Ghibli Fan Must See

I’m not talking about the animated Disney films that are best left lost to the ages (I’m looking at you, Chicken Little, Planes, and The Jungle Book 2!), but rather the theatrically released animated movies that, whether due to poor timing or behind-the-scenes meddling, failed to land solidly with movie-going audiences at the time of their release.

Some of these “forgotten” films were simply ahead of their time, or released during weird transitional periods in Disney’s filmography. Some of them were considered too “dark” or experimental at the time, or were unable to make a cultural impact due to reasons outside of their control, such as shifting film trends or even global catastrophes.

Perhaps audiences flocked to theaters at the time of their release but lost interest later on, or maybe they were box-office bombs that slowly grew cult followings over time. Either way, these widely forgotten, theatrically released animated Disney movies deserved better.

READ MORE: 20 Big Blockbuster Movies You Forgot Existed