They’ve come in many guises over the years, from the monarchical to the Machiavellian, monsters to muscle men, sorcerers, schemers and step-parents. And they have shown levels of genius, incompetence and everything in between in their efforts to thwart our heroes. But they are always without fail ambitious, self-serving and strangely compelling.

In a world of promoting good virtues to children, good must always triumph over evil. And so, Disney villains can’t be left to return and cause havoc another day (unless it’s in an inconsequential direct-to-video sequel) and so usually meet their maker in one of a variety of inventive and sometimes gruesome ways.

If the Disney Princess is the most merchandisable element of the Disney canon, then the villains are a close second and inspire even more fervour among adult fans, perhaps because they’re usually more flawed and interesting than the heroes and especially when so many are (intentionally or not) queer-coded, fabulously designed and played with gusto by talented voice actors giving it their all. 

For this edition of Ranked, we at The Film Magazine have taken every significant villain to be found in Disney animation and ordered them in terms of wickedness, memorability and the threat they represent to our heroes and heroines. So practice your diabolical laughter, rehearse your evil monologue, dust off your best purple attire and enjoy Animated Disney Villains Ranked. 

Follow @thefilmagazine on X (Twitter).

36. King Candy – Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

The ruler of arcade racing video game Sugar Rush who is actually Turbo, the resentful title character of a long-disconnected game.

Alan Tudyk has been Disney’s good luck charm in recent years and delivers a manic performance here as a mascot-gone-wrong, but the vocals have to do most of the work to enliven a baddie who’s just not interesting enough to match the heroes.

Demise by: Destroyed by the collapse of Diet Cola Mountain with the addition of Mentos.

35. Prince Hans – Frozen (2013)

A seemingly classic Prince Charming who is actually conspiring to eliminate both heirs to the Arendelle throne and claim it for himself.

Hans is a duplicitous, generic British-accented baddie revealed in the film’s final act, who gets some bonus evil points for taking advantage of Princess Anna’s emotions the way he does, purely to advance himself.

Demise by: Survives but is arrested and banished for his treachery.

Recommended for you: Best Animated Feature Oscar Winners Ranked

34. Alameda Slim – Home on the Range (2004)

An evil cattle rustler and conman who plans to cheat every rancher he can find out of their land.

Randy Quaid’s growling delivery and the character’s hilariously unconvincing Inspector Clouseau-level disguises aside, what makes Alameda Slim stand out is that he’s a rare villain who uses a combination of theft, foreclosure and cow-hypnotising yodelling to get what he wants.

Demise by: Survives, but his schemes and true identity as a rustler are exposed and the reward for his arrest is claimed.

33. Dr Jumba Jookiba – Lilo & Stitch (2002)

An alien mad scientist on the hunt for his dangerous but cute creation on Earth on the orders of the council who imprisoned him for his work.

Dr Jumba is probably the only character who never underestimates the cute blue title character because he was the one who genetically engineered “Experiment 626” and is fully aware of his destructive capabilities. He finds himself lower down this list for being bumbling and for having a late change of heart, eventually helping to protect Stitch when the council’s military arrives to complete his mission with extreme prejudice.

Demise by: Survives to live a fairly happy exile alongside Stitch on Earth.

Acclaimed British director Guy Ritchie is set to re-team with Disney for a live-action adaptation of the studio’s Renaissance-era animation Hercules (1997). The director had previously helmed 2019’s billion-dollar hit live-action remake Aladdin (2019). 

After a number of years away from the franchise machine making the likes of The Gentlemen and Wrath of Man, famed Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels director Guy Ritchie will return to the big budget studio realm for another live-action adaptation, this time for a new take on Disney’s Hercules.

Teaming with Disney and Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo (via their production company AGBO), Ritchie will be charged with bringing Disney’s fantastical take on ancient Greek myth to life for a new generation.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings screenwriter Dave Callaham is set to adapt the screenplay which is a musical tale of an unlikely hero (Hercules) saving Olympus from the God of the Underworld. It is unclear if this adaptation will be also be a musical.

This Hercules film will be the latest in Disney’s long run of live-action adaptations. Though there has been a mixed bag released thus far – some like The Lion King being billion dollar hits and others like Lady & the Tramp being direct-to-streaming offerings – it is expected that the creative team assembled for this project will produce something worthy of theatrical exhibition.

There have been fourteen live-action remakes or spin-offs to original Disney Animation films released since 2010, with two further films slated for release in 2022 (Pinocchio on 8th September and Peter Pan & Wendy). This list includes Cinderella (2015), The Jungle Book (2016), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Dumbo (2019), Mulan (2020) and Cruella (2021). Should Hercules follow expected release trajectory, it will arrive in cinemas following live-action Jungle Book and Lion King follow-ups, as well as the first live-action adaptations of The Little Mermaid and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

This story was reported by Deadline 17th June 2022.

Recommended for you: Disney Renaissance Movies Ranked

Hercules (1997)
Directors: Ron Clements, John Musker
Screenwriters: Ron Clements, John Musker, Don McEnery, Bob Shaw, Irene Mecchi
Starring: Tate Donovan, Susan Egan, James Woods, Danny DeVito, Rip Torn, Bobcat Goldthwait, Matt Frewer, Hal Holbrook, Barbara Barrie, Paul Shaffer

Following their latest attempt to get their dream project Treasure Planet off the starting blocks (which would at long last come to fruition in 2002), Disney Renaissance MVP directors Ron Clements and John Musker were asked to helm a prestige animation based very loosely on Greek myths and legends. The result was Hercules, a colourful sitcom-meets-Superman-riff in sandals. It received a mixed reception upon its release in 1997 and is perceived to have under-performed at the box office, but a quarter of a century on how does it play?

Sing along if you know the words: “Who puts the glad in gladiator?”…

In Hercules we follow the eponymous son (Tate Donovan) of Zeus (Rip Torn) who is kidnapped as a baby from Olympus and made mortal as part of a power grab by his uncle Hades (James Woods), which also involves unleashing the Titans on the gods. Growing up on Earth as a clumsy, freakishly strong outcast, Herc discovers he must prove himself a true hero in order to have is godhood restored, so seeks out legendary hero trainer Philoctetes (Danny DeVito) for help, before Megara (Susan Egan) enters the picture and complicates everything considerably for “wonder-boy”.

In a reference to all the old biblical and sword-and-sandals epics the film references, the first thing we hear is Charlton Heston’s very brief cameo as the gravelly voiced narrator. It would have probably been more appropriate to have someone who was is in Jason and the Argonauts or Clash of the Titans, but most of them were either dead or not as recognisable as Ben-Hur, The 10 Commandments and Planet of the Apes star Heston. 

The next thing we hear is the first number in the catchiest Renaissance era Disney soundtrack (thanks to its heavy gospel influence). As exposition dumps go, the Muses’ belting out of the Greek mythology highlights reel with accompanying animation on an Aegean-style clay pot is one of the best routes you could’ve gone. Alan Menken composed the score and David Zippel provided the lyrics, but it is the powerful vocals and gorgeous harmonies of Lillias White, Cheryl Freeman, LaChanze, Roz Ryan and Vanéese Y Thomas as the omniscient Muses that really makes the music so memorable and also elevates the story. 

Disney’s hunt for an Oscar and thereby grown-up recognition, beginning with Beauty and the Beast and continuing through Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, had not yielded the desired results and had started to lose momentum at this point. Because of this Hercules is, for the most part, aiming to be a more light-hearted crowd-pleaser in the vein of their earlier work.

The distinctive character designs were inspired by Gerald Scarfe cartoons filtered through the prism of Ancient Greek art. The characters are all hugely expressive and work well in the more expressly comic set sequences especially, but the gradual introduction of early CG elements – most notably in the four-minutes-to-watch, over-a-year-to-animate hydra battle – have, perhaps understandably, not aged all that well.

“Is this an audience or a mosaic?”. The Lord of the Underworld, Hades, is one of Disney’s most memorable villains, no question. While modern audiences might bump up against actor James Woods’ increasingly toxic public persona in recent years, his huckster Hades is the perfect balance of funny and sinister, and manages to eclipse Herc himself without much effort. Danny DeVito’s Phil is a pretty effective comic foil for the earnest but vanilla hero, even if DeVito can do this kind of role in his sleep. Thankfully Susan Egan’s Meg, full of heartache and regret and contradictions, is one of the most interesting characters in Disney with the best song of the Renaissance (“I Won’t Say I’m in Love”) to boot. 

The majority of Disney films from the last 30 years preach the idea of self-acceptance, and this film also has “Being famous isn’t the same as being a true hero”, which is a lesson a lot of famous people with a platform today could stand to learn. The hero’s arc being a collage of sports, superhero and celebrity culture movie tropes works in broad strokes but it would be nice for a little more nuance in our lead, at least enough to match his antagonist and his love interest. 

The film does have its fair share of problems. The tone, though generally lighter than most other Renaissance movies, does sometimes violently lurch, going from a gag like Hades having his flaming hair blown out like a candle straight into a major character’s apparent death. All the plot conditions and coincidental timings of Hades’ plot are nothing if not contrived, and it would have been nice to have actually seen our hero grow more organically through his labours rather than all but one of them being confined to a flashy one-scene montage. Also, why doesn’t Hades get a villain song? You can really picture him enjoying some sleazy lounge number.

Hercules remains a crowd-pleaser with great music, high-quality animation and some memorable vocal performances, but it is let down slightly by Disney seemingly not settling on what the film was supposed to be before production began. It tries to be too many things at once rather than really nailing on one genre or giving enough attention to exploring what makes its central character tick. Being famous isn’t the same as being a true hero, and being entertaining isn’t the same as being a great movie.

Score: 16/24

Recommended for you: Disney Renaissance Movies Ranked

‘Or if you want something visual that’s not too abysmal’, Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry) sings to Brad and Janet in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), ‘We could take in an old Steve Reeves movie’. With this, Frank-N-Furter references the ‘beefcake’ spectacle of bodybuilder-cum-actor Steve Reeves’ appearances in numerous Italian sword-and-sandal films, or pepla, of the 1950s and 1960s as an index of high camp – a subgenre of films predicated on the objectification of the muscle-bound male body.

The Italian peplum takes its name from the Greek word for ‘tunic’ and, though a retrospective label originally applied somewhat mockingly to the films by French critics during the 1960s, highlights the extent to which the Italian sword-and-sandal pictures of the 1950s and 1960s foregrounded a sense of visual spectacle and the combined texture of historical clothing, sets, bodies (male and female) in action – all given a sense of scale, regardless of how ludicrous the plotting (or the English dubbing in the export versions) was, via then-new widescreen processes. In other words, everything – sets, muscles, action, muscles, photography… and, did I mention, muscles? – was B-I-G!

Steve Reeves as Hercules in Le fatiche di Ercole.

Usually (though not always) starring a scantily-clad American or English bodybuilder (such as Steve Reeves, Reg Park and Paul Wynter) as a figure from historical myth and legend (Hercules, Maciste, Samson or Goliath), the peplum, or sword-and-sandal picture, was supremely popular with Italian audiences between 1958 – the year of the release of Pietro Francisci’s film Le fatiche di Ercole (Hercules), starring Steve Reeves as Hercules – and the mid-1960s. In 1964, the international popularity of Sergio Leone’s Per un pugno di dollari (A Fistful of Dollars) led Italian studios to focus on the production of westerns all’italiana (Italian-style Westerns) or ‘Spaghetti Westerns’ – a label that, like that of the peplum, was originally pejorative but which has since been adopted by fans of the genre. The western all’italiana and various other filoni assumed the mantle that had till that point been carried by the peplum.

On the subject of filoni, it’s worth reflecting on the extent to which Italian popular film production is dominated by the principle of the filone or ‘stream’/‘vein’/‘thread’. (Filone is the singular; filoni is the plural.) Roughly analogous to the concept of genre and the manner in which it is used to enable industry-like capitalisation on popular trends in English-language cinema, a filone is simply a strand of cinema whose popularity is exploited or mined ad infinitum, until the next filone takes hold. The concept of filoni led to Italian film production during the 1950s and beyond being dominated by specific, definable cycles/filoni – the peplum, the western all’italiana, Gothic horror films, mondo documentaries, the giallo all’italiana or thrilling all’italiana (Italian-style thriller), the commedia sexy all’italiana (sex comedies), the poliziesco all’italiana (Italian-style police picture), the jungle/cannibal adventure, and so on. The peplum was one of the first major, definable filoni of the Italian filmmaking boom that took place in the 1950s and 1960s. Like many of the subsequent filoni, such as the westerns all’italiana, the pepla were often co-productions featuring involvement – in terms of finance, crew, cast and sometimes locations – with production companies from other European countries: for example, France, West Germany, Spain.

As with later filoni, the pepla often featured cast and crew using adopted, Anglicised names in order to make the films seem more quintessentially ‘American’. (On A Fistful of Dollars, Sergio Leone famously used the Americanised name ‘Bob Robertson’, and Gian Maria Volonte was billed as ‘Johnny Wels’.) The Italian actor Adriano Bellini, winner of the 1961 ‘Mr Italia’ bodybuilding contest, was credited as ‘Kirk Morris’ in the pepla in which he appeared – such as 1961’s Il trionfo di Maciste (Tanio Boccia, credited as ‘Amerigo Anton’) and Maciste contro Ercole nella valle dei guai (Hercules in the Valley of Woe; Mario Mattoli), and Riccardo Freda’s Maciste all’inferno (The Witch’s Curse, 1962), on which Freda was billed as ‘Robert Hampton’. Even the Italian-American actor Lorenzo Luis ‘Lou’ Degni, the second US bodybuilder to be recruited by Italian producers to star in pepla (after Steve Reeves, of course), adopted a more ‘American’ sounding name, ‘Mark Forest’, for his screen appearances in pictures such as La vendetta di Ercole (Goliath and the Dragon; Vittorio Cottafavi, 1960) and Maciste l’eroe più grande del mondo (Goliath and the Sins of Babylon; Michele Lupo, 1963).

The popularity of the peplum in Italian cinema coincided with American interest in historical adventures that contained an element of fantasy, and many of the pepla were picked up by US distributors (for example, American International Pictures), who dubbed, rescored and cut the films for English-speaking audiences. Some of the films were cut or re-edited quite substantially. The US release of one of the last key pepla, Giuseppe Vari’s 1964 film Roma contro Roma, for instance, lost around ten minutes of narrative footage when it was released in the US by American International as War of the Zombies. (The film was released in the UK as Rome Against Rome.) Likewise, the US release of Riccardo Freda’s Maciste all’inferno was shorn of around 15 minutes.

Le fatiche di Ercole (1958)

The film usually cited as kickstarting the boom in pepla was Pietro Francisci’s 1958 film Le fatiche di Ercole, whose narrative focuses in part on the Argonauts’ quest for the Golden Fleece – placing Hercules front-and-centre in its retelling of the myth of the Argo and its crew. Distributed in the US by the canny Joseph E Levine – who had previously made a success of Gojira in 1956 by dubbing the picture, re-editing it and titling it Godzilla, King of the Monsters – Francisci’s film anticipated the popular Don Chaffey picture Jason and the Argonauts (1963), and its spectacular and memorable stop-motion effects by Ray Harryhausen, by half a decade. However, a casual viewer who is unaware of the films’ respective dates of production might be forgiven for thinking that Francisci’s film was a knock-off of the Chaffey picture. (In relation to the Francisci picture, Chaffey’s film inverts the story somewhat, throwing focus onto the character of Jason and making Hercules, played by Nigel Green, into a secondary character who memorably provokes the ire of the huge statue of Talos by stealing an enormous golden brooch pin, leading to the death of his friend Hylas.)

Thanks to a shrewd saturation marketing campaign conducted by Levine, Hercules made a startling $5 million profit in the US. Not bad for a picture for which Levine had paid a paltry $120,000 for the US distribution rights. In Italy, the pepla tended to be particularly popular in seconda visione (second run) picturehouses, with their often rowdy provincial working class audiences who would interact with the screen and treat the films almost as pantomimes. The popularity of these pictures was such that some of them, such as Vittorio Cottafavi’s 1961 picture Ercole alla conquista di Atlantide (Hercules and the Conquest of Atlantis, aka Hercules and the Captive Women), were exhibited in 70mm formats.

Hercules may have initiated the boom in Italian production of pepla (upwards of 150 pepla were made in the late 1950s and early 1960s), and the willingness of English-speaking distributors to gather and distribute these films in territories such as the US and the UK – hence how Frank-N-Furter’s semi-oblique reference to the filone could be comprehended by the primary English-speaking audience for The Rocky Horror Picture Show. However, the first film to be labelled a ‘peplum’ in print was Riccardo Freda’s I giganti della Tessaglia (gli argonauti) (The Giants of Thessaly) in 1960, which also tells the story of the quest for the Golden Fleece, expanding the palette of the narrative to encompass other aspects of ancient myth – including adding Orpheus, played by Massimo Girotti, to the crew and having the Argonauts battle the Cyclops. Freda was, of course, along with fellow pepla filmmakers Mario Bava and Antonio Margheriti, one of the key figures in the popularity of Italian Gothic cinema of the 1960s, thanks to his work on films such as L’orrible segreto del Dr Hichcock (The Terror of Dr Hichcock, 1962) and Lo spettro (The Ghost, 1963).

Historical pictures had been made in Italy since the silent era: in the 1910s and 1920s, pictures about figures such as Maciste and Spartacus had been popular with Italian filmmakers and audiences. However, in the late 1950s the peplum experienced a surge in popularity that was most likely kickstarted by Hollywood’s decision to produce a number of historical epics in Italy, making use of the resources – both human and material – at studios like Cinecittà in Rome (‘Hollywood on the Tiber’, as it was nicknamed). Cinecittà had been founded by Mussolini in 1937, with the intention of reinvigorating domestic filmmaking. US studios made use of the expertise of Italian crew and resources during the 1950s and 1960s: a number of Hollywood epics were made at Cinecittà, including William Wyler’s Ben-Hur in 1959 and Joseph L Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra in 1963. The less prestigious Italian-made pepla often made use of the resources and industry that had been built around the production of US historical epics in Italy, sometimes reusing the impressive sets built for Hollywood productions, using the historical settings of these pictures in Ancient Greece and Rome as a springboard for more fantasy-oriented scenarios.

Reg Park in Ursus, il terrore dei Kirghisi (Hercules, Prisoner of Evil – 1964).

The pepla are strikingly diverse. The films, beginning with Le fatiche di Ercole, originally began as stories tied to Ancient Greece but expanded to Ancient Rome and then other, later historical periods: the label was ultimately applied to any sort of costume drama with a historical focus and an emphasis on plentiful action. Anything, in fact, into which a hunky former Mr Universe or other bodybuilding star (including former Tarzan, Gordon Scott) could be inserted; thus in export versions, films set during the era of the Mongol Empire and amidst the high seas of Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century piracy could and would be marketed as Hercules pictures. Italian filmmakers actually made 19 official Hercules pictures during the era of the peplum, though a number of other films featuring characters such as Maciste were rebranded as Hercules pictures for their release in English-speaking territories. So, for instance, Antonio Margheriti’s Ursus, il terrore dei Kirghisi (1964, most of which was reputedly directed by assistant director Ruggero Deodato, the future director of Cannibal Holocaust and House on the Edge of the Park), features Reg Park as Ursus and is set at some point during the high point of the Mongol Empire; in the English language export version, the character of Ursus was renamed Hercules and the film was retitled Hercules, Prisoner of Evil. Likewise, Luigi Capuano’s Sansone, contro il corsaro nero, released the same year, is essentially a swashbuckler that features former stuntman Sergio Ciani (most often known by his Anglicised name of ‘Alan Steel’), but was distributed in English as Hercules and the Black Pirate. (‘Sansone’, of course, became ‘Hercules’.)

As a general rule, any pepla distributed in English – either theatrically or via television screenings – that featured Maciste or Ursus as the protagonist and/or whose names appeared in the titles of the pictures, would be rebranded as a Hercules or, sometimes, Goliath picture. Names would be changed in the English dubbing, and the film’s title would be adjusted accordingly. For instance, Sergio Corbucci and Giacomo Gentilomo’s striking Maciste contro il vampiro (1961), which features Maciste (Gordon Scott) in a fantastical plot that sees the hero confronting a powerful vampire (Kobrak, played by Guido Celano), was rebranded in English as Goliath and the Vampires. Corbucci would go on to become one of the most distinctive and political directors of westerns all’italiana, with the brutal Django in 1966, and the striking snowbound Il grande silenzio/The Big Silence in 1969; there are touches of the unflinching sadism of Corbucci’s Westerns in Maciste contro il vampiro, notably in a sequence in which a village is ransacked and the camera shows a number of gruesome touches – memorably a corpse of a villager whose foot is tethered by a rope to the rafters of a burning building. The building collapses, and the corpse falls into the flames; Corbucci holds on the very realistic-looking limb long enough to imprint the scene into the viewer’s memory.

The majority of pepla feature a recurring, easily identifiable set of narrative motifs. In the majority of the films, the hero demonstrates his brute strength in the film’s opening sequence. In Le fatiche di Ercole, Hercules opens the film by ripping up a tree and using this to stop a tearaway horse and carriage carrying Princess Iole (Sylva Koscina). ‘I thank the gods for providing me with such a strong man when I needed him!’, Iole swoons. In Maciste contro il vampiro, Maciste is introduced moving an enormous boulder from the middle of a field that he is ploughing and then, hearing cries for help, rescues a young boy – the brother of his fiancée Guja (Leonora Ruffo) – from a giant underwater monster. In some of the films, Hercules/Maciste/Samson/Goliath is a wandering hero, like the ronin of Japanese samurai pictures (or like the anti-heroes of many later westerns all’italiana, including Eastwood’s ‘Man with No Name’ in the Leone pictures), who comes across an oppressed and/or terrorised community, using his strength in servitude of liberation. (This no doubt spoke very profoundly to audiences for whom Mussolini’s dictatorship was within fairly recent memory.) Our hero usually encounters a plot which involves an evil, powerful woman – often assisting, or being assisted by, an equally powerful and evil male figure – whose self-interest contrasts with a good, pure-hearted female character. The evil woman invariably attempts to seduce the hero, but often falls in love with him – sometimes redeeming herself in the process. In Maciste contro il vampiro, for instance, Maciste encounters a sorceress, Astra (Gianna Maria Canale), who serves the film’s antagonist, the vampire Kobrak (Guido Celano). Astra tries to seduce Goliath in order to persuade him not to confront Kobrak.

Maciste contro il vampiro (Goliath and the Vampires, 1961)

From Le fatiche di Ercole onwards, the pepla emphasised mythology and featured inventive, though sometimes unconvincing, effects – from costumes, rubber suits and simple use of forced perspective to more complex stop-motion and compositing effects – in order to render fantastical creatures and scenarios. As the filone progressed, and filmmakers were presumably looking for ways of differentiating their pictures from other pepla, some of the pictures featured an increasing emphasis on fantastical elements. Some of the later pepla bordered on the absurd. Antonio Leonviola’s 1961 effort Maciste, l’uomo più forte del mondo (‘Maciste, the Strongest Man in the World’, distributed in the UK as The Strongest Man in the World and in the US as Mole Men Against the Son of Hercules) features a Robert E Howard-like plot in which Maciste (played by Mark Forest) witnesses a ritual sacrifice conducted by a strange group of men, the subterranean Mole Men, who are dressed entirely in white; their victim is Bango, played by the black Caribbean bodybuilder Paul Wynter. In the year of the Freedom Riders and their defiance of Jim Crow laws, provoking the ire of the Ku Klux Klan in the Southern States of the US, it’s hard to imagine that the staging of this sequence was not taken, if not intended, as a dry comment, on the part of the Italian filmmakers, on the activities of the Deep South’s Klansmen and the embedded, and increasingly exported, racism of so much mainstream US culture of the period. Maciste rescues Bango, and the pair team up to take on the Mole Men, who are terrorising the region, abducting locals and using them as slaves to power their huge underground machinery.

Giacomo Gentilomo’s 1964 picture Maciste e la regina di Samar (‘Maciste and the Queen of Samar’, released in the US as Hercules Against the Moon Men), the final film of its director, sees Maciste (played by Sergio Ciani/Alan Steel) arriving in the kingdom of Samar and discovering that Queen Samara (a pouting, sassy Jany Clair, who throughout the picture sports a distinctively mid-Sixties range of hairdos) has made a pact with a group of extraterrestrial beings who have taken residence in a nearby mountain: the community’s children and young people are regularly sacrificed to the ‘Moon Men’ in the mountain in order to maintain Queen Samara’s reign. ‘Only arrogance and limitless pride animate that woman’, one of the characters says, ‘along with unrestrained ambition’. The queen has a ‘good’ sister, Billis (Delia D’Alberti), whose selflessness contrasts with her sister’s commitment to her own self-interest. Eventually, Maciste takes on the Moon Men, whose shadowy netherworld is communicated via the use of low-light photography and green lighting gels. Hercules’ physical prowess impresses Queen Samara, who orders Maciste to be taken to her quarters, where she seduces him and presents him with a drink containing a love potion. Luckily, Maciste has been forewarned of the queen’s use of this potion, and disposes of it discretely, enabling him to eliminate the Moon Men, end the reign of the wicked Queen Samara and rescue Princess Billis and her lover, Prince Darix (Jean-Pierre Honoré). The film is a visually striking picture, especially as it moves into the subterranean lair of the Moon Men, but its narrative is little more than big screen panto.

With the late-period shift towards more fantasy-oriented scenarios in mind, it is worth considering in more detail two specific pepla made by directors who, for English-speaking cinephiles are more commonly associated with their work in the filoni of Gothic horror and thrilling/giallo all’italiana: Mario Bava, the director of La maschera del demonio (Black Sunday/Mask of Satan, 1959) and Sei donne per l’assassino (Blood and Black Lace, 1964), and Riccardo Freda, the director of the aforementioned L’orrible segreto del Dr Hichcock and gialli such as A doppia faccia (Double Face, 1969).

Directed by Freda in 1962, Maciste all’inferno (‘Maciste in Hell’) shares its title with a 1925 silent film directed by Guido Brignone. Brignone’s film was the last Maciste picture made during the silent era, and features Maciste, played by Mussolini favourite Bartolomeo Pagano, being enticed into the underworld by Barbariccia, an envoy of Pluto himself. In Hell, Maciste is seducted by Proserpina, Pluto’s wife, and Luciferana, Pluto’s stepdaughter. The title of Freda’s 1962 picture no doubt deliberately pays tribute to Brignone’s haunting, inventive film. However, Freda’s Maciste all’inferno was released in the US, where the Brignone film was largely unknown, as The Witch’s Curse, shorn of almost 20 minutes of footage. (The film seems not to have been released at all in the UK.) Interestingly, as the English dub for this picture was produced in Italy, this was one of the few Maciste films of the period in which the protagonist kept his name in the version of the film released in English-speaking territories: although Maciste was the most popular character in Italian pepla, the name was largely unknown to English-speaking audiences, this of course being owed to how many dubs had changed Maciste to Hercules, Samson or Goliath across previous releases.

Maciste all’inferno (The Witch’s Curse, 1962)

Freda’s Maciste all’inferno opens in Scotland in 1550, where a witch, Martha, is burnt at the stake. Unlike the alleged witches in, say, Michael Reeves’ Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General (1968), there is no doubt about Martha’s association with witchcraft. The Scottish setting is interesting, of course, given that the stated execution in the film is set prior to the 1563 Witchcraft Act – which made the practice of witchcraft a capital crime. (Documentation suggests that the first – failed – witchhunt in Scotland took place in 1568.) Martha places a curse on the town, and we are taken to a hundred years later, 1650. In the interim, in terms of the history of witch-hunting in Scotland, James VI wrote Daemonologie after visiting Denmark in 1589 to marry Princess Anne – and provoked in part by the North Berwick witch trials of 1590, after which a number of people were executed for allegedly attempting to murder the king by poison and casting spells to cause storms that would sink his ship.

In 1650, the townsfolk live under fear of Martha’s curse. Driven by this fear, the locals torment and execute any woman believed to be associated with witchcraft, hanging them from the charred tree that marks the spot at which Martha was burnt. When a woman named Martha (Vira Silenti) arrives in the town to marry a young squire, Charley (Angelo Zanolli), the townsfolk are convinced she is a reincarnation of the witch. They vow to execute her at the stake and imprison her. However, conjured out of nowhere, an amnesiac Maciste (Kirk Morris) arrives on horseback. Dressed in his loincloth, he is hugely incongruous in the 17th Century Scottish setting. Maciste bends the iron bars of the prison in which Martha is held and fights off the menfolk, picking them up like toys and hurling them. Maciste discovers that the only way to break the witch’s curse that hangs over the area is to venture into Hell – by ripping up the aforementioned charred tree, thus uncovering a cavern which leads to the underworld.

Maciste here has no memory, and part of the story involves his struggle to regain awareness of who he is. The film is part of a broader narrative which encompasses the Maciste films made by Panda Film: the previous film in the series was Mario Mattoli’s comedic Maciste contro Ercole nella valle dei guai (Hercules in the Valley of Woe), which features a plot involving two 20th Century characters – the comic duo of Franco (Franchi) and Ciccio (Ingrassia) – who are catapulted back in time via a time machine and encounter both Maciste and Hercules. (One wonders if this Franco and Ciccio comedy was somehow an inspiration for Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.) Taking place immediately after this picture and its time travel plot, Maciste’s appearance in 17th Century Scotland perhaps makes a little more sense.

In the underworld, Maciste is able to regain his memories, leading to lengthy ‘greatest hits’ style flashbacks from various Maciste films – including one made by Freda, Maciste alla corte del Gran Khan (Samson and the 7 Miracles, 1961), in which Maciste was played by Gordon Scott, an actor predominantly known for his role as Tarzan. (Cue much confusion from the audience as they watch Kirk Morris’ Maciste recall his adventures as Gordon Scott.)

Maciste All’inferno (The Witches Curse, 1962)

Hell is dominated by the groans of the damned and scenes of torture ripped from the pages of Dante’s “Divine Comedy”. In a chamber are dozens of souls, forced to hold up huge boulders; Maciste attempts to help one of these, an elderly man, but finds even his brute strength defeated by this endless task. Nevertheless, for most of the film, Maciste is able to confront the supernatural by the simple deployment of his sheer strength, highlighting the extent to which the Italian pepla suggested that problems could be solved with muscles, brute strength and an ironclad will. (This has led some commentators, such as Richard Dyer, to suggest that the peplum was Italian culture’s way of confronting its fascist past, with parallels sometimes drawn between the kind of virility and strength represented by Maciste and the public image projected by Mussolini.) On his first entrance into Hell, Maciste is confronted by a lion. He fights and defeats it. Watching this event via supernatural means, the witch and an accomplice observe, ‘That poor fool’s [Maciste] muscles and courage will never be sufficient. He can strangle a lion but there’s no man on Earth who can conquer the Devil!’ (This observation echoes a line in Le fatiche di Ercole, in which one of the characters notes of Hercules that, ‘You can tell from his eyes that he’s as pure as sunlight, and his strength is a challenge to all evil’.) In the English version of Maciste contro il vampiro, the sorceress Astra suggests, naively, that ‘Goliath [Maciste] is very strong, but his strength is to no avail against magic and witchcraft’. Similarly, Vittorio Cottafavi’s Ercole alla conquista di Atlantide sees Hercules’ ally Androcles (Ettore Manni), who has been brainwashed by Queen Antinea of Atlantis (Fay Spain), tell Hercules, ‘You are mad if you think you can combat the might of Atlantis with the pitiful strength of your muscles’. (Little does he know…)

In the underworld, Maciste encounters various characters who help him to regain his memories. ‘Do you see what you can accomplish when you have strength and courage tethered to your own free will?’, he is told. Maciste’s journey becomes increasingly surreal. He meets Prometheus (Remo De Angelis), who is tethered with chains to a huge boulder, eagles tearing out his entrails… forever. Following this, he encounters a stampede of bulls, and stops them by ripping up a huge stalagmite and using this to block their path.

Like many other pepla, Maciste all’inferno sees the ‘bad’ woman (the witch, Martha) falling for the musclebound hero and ultimately redeeming herself. ‘I thought that [love] was all finished’, the witch says, ‘I tried to corrupt him [Maciste] with my witchcraft and charm’. Of course, the curse is lifted, and Maciste exits Hell, rescuing Martha as the villagers demonstrate their gratitude.

In its depiction of Maciste’s journey into the underworld, Maciste all’inferno offers a vivid depiction of Hell that underscores Freda’s reputation as a director most commonly associated, at least for English-speaking cinephiles, with Italian horror pictures – actually a small part of Freda’s career, but certainly the genre in which he pursued his most distinctive work and which, in the 1960s and 1970s, he came to represent alongside contemporaries such as Antonio Margheriti. Likewise, Mario Bava’s Ercole al centro della terra (Hercules in the Haunted World, 1961) features a similar journey into Hell for its titular character, in a film by a director most often identified for his later work in the horror genre.

Reg Park as Hercules in Ercole al centro della terra (Hercules in the Haunted World, 1961).

In Ercole al centro della terra, Reg Park plays Hercules, who travels with his friend Theseus (Giorgio Ardisson) to the Kingdom of Ecalia, where Hercules hopes to be reunited with his lover, Princess Deianira (Leonora Ruffo). At the palace, he is informed by Deianira’s uncle, Lyco (Christopher Lee), that his beloved has ‘a great illness’ and has lost touch with the world around her. In reality, Deianira is being held prisoner by Lyco, who practices necromancy; her father, King Uriteis, having recently passed away, Deianira is the heir to the throne of Ecalia, and Lyco plans to murder her and drink her blood – stealing the throne which is rightfully hers. In this, there is more than a touch of the story of Richard III (at least, the version of Richard III’s story which flattered the Tudor era), with Lee’s haircut and costume resembling that of the last Plantagenet king – particularly as represented in Olivier’s then-recent 1955 screen adaptation of Shakespeare’s play. Like Richard III was alleged to have murdered his young nephews – the rightful heir to the throne, Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke of York – in order to seize the throne following the death of Edward IV, Lyco holds his niece Deianira captive and plots to murder her so that he may control the Kingdom of Ecalia.

Under the spell of Lyco, Deianira notes poetically that ‘We do not even know ourselves. Only he who commands us. He who is our master, who we must obey’. Again, one might think of Italy’s fascist past and the authoritarian rule of Mussolini. Wrapped in a sheen of fantasy, Bava’s Hercules picture is strikingly allegorical. The land, Lyco tells Hercules, was cursed when King Uriteis drove the evil that previously plagued Ecalia ‘to the land of the dead’. The curse will only be lifted when Uriteis last descendant, Deianira, is dead. ‘How can one fight against shadows?’, Lyco asks Hercules, ‘Fight against winds or lightning? Against the terrible storms that batter the earth?’

Hercules travels to speak with his oracle, who sits cross-legged in a dark chamber filled with water; she wears a mask and speaks in riddles whilst performing what can best be described as a series of conceptual dance moves using only her arms, as lights with primary coloured gels hit her body. ‘Though evil descends upon the earth like a darkening of the sun, it can disappear as quickly’, she tells him mysteriously. Hercules pleads with his father, the god Zeus, to help him combat this evil and release Deianira from the spell which binds her. Hercules offers his immortality in exchange for an opportunity to aid his beloved. ‘Dare you venture beyond the portals of Hades’, the oracle asks Hercules, ‘to the domain of the god Pluto?’

Christopher Lee and Leonora Ruffo in Ercole al centro della terra (Hercules in the Haunted World, 1961).

Hercules enlists the help of his friend Theseus and a bumbling, comic sidekick, Telemachus (Franco Giacobini). To enter the underworld they must steal the magic ship of Sunis and sail to the kingdom of Hesperides, where they must eat the Golden Apple from the Sacred Tree. In Hesperides, Hercules and his companions are faced with a community consisting solely of women, led by Aretheuse (Marisa Belli). By collecting the Golden Apple, a task which Aretheuse believes is not possible, Hercules liberates the women of Hesperides from the controlling grasp of Pluto; however, this is not before the women, manipulated by Pluto’s will, have set a trap for Theseus and Telemachus, who are attacked by Procrustes, a creature made from stone. (Like the Procrustes of Greek myth, this Procrustes threatens to stretch the pair on a bed of rock.) Hercules interrupts and, picking up Procrustes, hurls the stone creature against a wall of the cavern, causing the wall to partially collapse and revealing an entrance to the underworld.

In entering, Hades, Hercules and Theseus discover that they are confronted by a series of illusions, including a sea of fire, designed to prevent them from moving forwards. Hacking at vines that block their path, they hear the screams of the damned and realise the vines are bleeding. In the centre of this labyrinth is a black stone that is surrounded by white hot flames and protected by lava. This stone will free Deianira. Hercules and Theseus use the vines to create a rope-crossing across the lava, but Theseus falls and is apparently killed. However, this is also an illusion, and when Theseus awakens he encounters a beautiful woman, Persephone (Evelyn Stewart), the daughter of Pluto. Hercules and Theseus are reunited, and with Persephone’s help, Hercules and his companions escape from Hades and return to Ecalia in time to rescue Deianira.

However, before Hercules can confront Lyco, he is forced to fight his way through hordes of the undead who are conjured to life by Lyco’s necromancy, clawing out of their graves and climbing from their tombs. This sequence is striking, especially for the manner in which these undead figures predate the ghouls and zombies of post-Night of the Living Dead (George A Romero, 1968) horror movies – especially those of Italian zombie pictures such as Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 (Zombie Flesh Eaters, 1979). Certainly, some of this imagery, including the undead wrapped in their shrouds and the masked appearance of Hercules’ oracle, seem to have worked its way into Lucio Fulci’s later sword and sorcery picture Conquest.

Ercole al centro della terra (Hercules in the Haunted World, 1961)

Ercole al centro della terra emphasises the dualisms that are evident in a number of the major pepla: the sanctity of the world above ground versus a subterranean world populated by monsters and/or duplicitous figures of authority; good versus evil; light versus darkness; strength versus cunning. Luckily, the Bava film survives on digital home video in its original widescreen version, which enables the viewer to appreciate the superb photography and lighting, and Bava’s skill in telling a story visually – one of this filmmaker’s great strengths. The film features much staging in depth, with full use of the widescreen frame to create juxtapositions between foreground and background action. There are also some incredible visual effects involving matte work and impressive props and sets which are made even more impactful by the careful use of lighting – including the use of coloured gels that made so many of Bava’s colour pictures so distinctive – and negative space. Sadly, on the other hand, like many of Freda’s films, Freda’s equally interesting Maciste all’inferno has been badly served by digital home video releases in English-speaking territories, with the only DVD release being of a panned-and-scanned full screen print of the US release version, which is missing about a quarter of an hour’s worth of footage. Fortunately, the full-length cut of Masciste all’inferno has been released in widescreen on DVD in France – but in a release which, frustratingly, isn’t English-friendly.

One of the more notable late examples of the peplum, Giuseppe Vari’s Roma contro Roma was one of the final films of the peplum boom. Noticably absent from the film is the muscular hero of the majority of pepla. The film focuses on a centurion, Gaius (Ettore Manni), who is tasked with journeying to a region that is governed by the pretor Lutetius (Mino Doro), but in which a centuria has disappeared along with an amount of treasure. Gaius is warned that the region is dominated by a necromancer, Aderbad (John Drew Barrymore), who is secretly in league with Lutetius. (The pair have secreted the treasure, and Aderbad has taken the corpses of the slain Roman legionnaires, using them in his black magic – resurrecting them and then melding them with the stone walls of the cavern that he occupies, like Han Solo frozen in carbonite in the much later The Empire Strikes Back.) Though the Romans criticise the superstitions of the locals, prior to making his journey Gaius vows to sacrifice a lamb to Jupiter, so that the god will offer him protection during his quest. The irony of this moment is presented quietly for the alert viewer, Vari not drawing attention to it. (Later, Gaius fails to note the irony in his assertion that ‘A consul of Rome must not believe in magic. A consul of Rome must not believe in fantasy. He must believe in what he can see, or feel, or touch’.) This moment is the first major indication of this film’s critique of the hypocrisies of colonialism, which seems strikingly relevant in the era of the Second Indochina War and the proxy war in Vietnam that, only a year or two later, would lead to direct US military involvement in that part of the world. In fact, though made prior to the peak of the Vietnam War Roma contro Roma feels very much like an allegory for it – not dissimilar to some of the revisionist Westerns of a decade later, such as Michael Winner’s Chato’s Land (1972) and Robert Aldrich’s Ulzana’s Raid (1972) – though was likely just as much intended as a comment on any form of mid-Twentieth Century colonialism.

Gaius discovers that Lutetius rules the region with an iron fist; Gaius interrupts the whipping of an elderly peasant, ordered by Lutetius as a means of punishing the locals for the supposed theft of the treasure. ‘If Rome wants a tribute to her, it’s not through softness that you’ll get it from these people’, Lutetius tells Gaius, ‘They hate us!’ ‘They’ll hate us even more if we treat them like beasts’, Gaius responds – another dry comment on the imperialist mindset which would feel increasingly relevant in the years that followed the film’s original release, during the US battle for the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people in defeating the North Vietnamese insurgency. In a later sequence, after Aderbad kills Lutetius and frames Gaius for the murder, in retaliation for the death of the pretor, Roman centurions tear through a settlement, burning the villagers’ homes and murdering men, women and children. In a shot that strikingly resembles a similar moment in Ralph Nelson’s Western Soldier Blue (1970), which used the 1864 Sand Creek massacre of Native Americans by the Third Colorado Cavalry as an allegory for the then-recent My Lai massacre, a woman carrying a baby is struck down by a sword-wielding centurion. The film climaxes with Aderbad resurrecting the slaughtered legionnaires, directing them to attack the living Roman soldiers, observing in reference to one of his zombies, ‘Look at him! He is alive but has no will. He is the perfect warrior, for he is immortal. No-one could kill him twice’.

John Drew Barrymore in Roma Contro Roma (War of the Zombies, 1964).

Roma contro Roma’s release came in the same year as the release of the picture which kickstarted the next big trend in Italian popular cinema, Sergio Leone’s Per un pugno di dollari (A Fistful of Dollars, 1964). Achieving popularity with international audiences, Leone’s film would initiate the boom in production of westerns all’italiana. Leone had of course begun his career as a director working on pepla: his first work as a director was on the 1958 picture Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (The Last Days of Pompeii), starring Steve Reeves, when the film’s original director, Mario Bonnard, fell ill. Leone’s ‘proper’ directorial debut was the memorably epic Il colosso di Rodi (The Colossus of Rhodes) in 1961. It’s easy to see in Per un pugno di dollari, and many of the subsequent Italian Westerns by Leone and other directors, a sense of myth and the folkloric qualities of the pepla being channeled into a Western setting.

The international popularity of pepla, particularly with US distributors, paved the way for other Italian products to be marketed to English-speaking audiences – from the westerns all’italiana of the 1960s to the gialli and poliziesco films of the 1970s. These films also acted as a reference point for the boom of production in sword and sorcery films during the 1980s – in Italy (Joe D’Amato’s Ator in 1982; Lucio Fulci’s Conquest in 1983; Ruggero Deodato’s The Barbarians in 1987) and the US (John Milius’ Conan the Barbarian and Don Coscarelli’s The Beastmaster, both in 1982). Nevertheless, the peplum is often overlooked in discussion of Italian popular cinema, in favour of later filoni – such as the western all’italiana and giallo all’italiana. However, what is notable about the pepla themselves is – aside from the formulaic nature of many of the narratives – just how allegorical the stronger (pun intended) pepla are. If the original pepla of the silent era – particularly Bartolomeo Pagano’s performance as Maciste – had been a model for Mussolini’s dictatorship, the pepla of the late 1950s and 1960s often seem like a way of exorcising Italy’s fascist past. No matter how many times the villains assert that the respective musclebound heroes of the films will not be able to defeat evil through strength alone, they are proven wrong. Many of the films take place in lands that are cursed; Bava’s Ercole al centro della terra, for example, is set in the Kingdom of Ecalia, which is overseen by the cruel Lyco – a vampire and necromancer willing to murder his own niece in order to maintain his authority. The land is cursed by the influence of a dark force angered by the late King Uriteis’ attempts to eradicate it. The parallels with post-fascist Italy seem quite direct, and of course these themes would work their way into many westerns all’italiana, which often take place in towns haunted by past traumas and dominated by authoritarian figures – for example, Giulio Questi’s offbeat Sei sei vivo spara (Django Kill!, 1967), whose depiction of a town dominated by a sadistic black clad hoodlum and his fascist henchmen was, Questi claimed, inspired by the director’s experiences as an anti-fascist partisan in the mountains of Italy during the Second World War.

On the other hand, it’s difficult not to find a much more simple, childish delight in the camp, pantomime nonsense of many pepla: this writer dares anyone to watch the English-dubbed version of Ercole alla conquista di Atlantide and not laugh at the repeated, po-faced discussion by characters of ‘the Rock of Uranus’. (Fnarr-Fnarr. The English dubbed version of this picture could quite easily have been released as a Carry On… picture. Carry on Beefcake, perhaps.) The pepla are often dismissed as pictures that live or die on the size of the muscles of the beefcake actors that star in them, or the provocative costumes of their female counterparts. In the pepla, bodies are pulled apart but also held together by pure physical strength and force of will; these are, of course, both the bodies of individuals but also, increasingly, the notion of the body politic – the body as metaphor for society. In the face of what is often supernatural, authoritarian cruelty, bonds are made that bridge superficial differences between individuals. Perhaps ultimately, what is so fascinating about these films is the manner in which the absurd and the profound, the concrete and the abstract, the historical and the fantastical, often coalesce within their narratives.

Written by Paul A J Lewis

You can support Paul A J Lewis in the following places:

Website – paul-a-j-lewis.com
Twitter – @Krycek_Facility

In this edition of Ranked, what follows is The Film Magazine’s ranking of Disney’s cinematic output over the decade 1989-1999, known as the Disney Renaissance.

Honourable mention: A Goofy Movie (1995)

While my fellow millennials might feel a bit sore that A Goofy Movie isn’t included on this list, here’s the rationale…

While it was produced during Disney’s Renaissance period, it was made by Disney’s B team as a follow-up to Goofy’s TV series and did not have the studio’s full creative weight thrown behind it, nor the budget. It’s still a cute and heartfelt movie about growing pains and daddy issues, but not a game-changer like all the other films on this list.

10. Pocahontas (1995)

Very loosely based on historical figures, the daughter of a Powhatan chief falls for an English soldier and must chose a side in a war against her people.

I think they were going for earnest with Pocahontas, but unfortunately they ended up coming across as patronising. John Smith really is the worst isn’t he?

Quite aside from how unpalatable a personality Gibson has become over the years, his character here mansplains the concept of civilisation to an indigenous woman. That’s much worse than the actual villain who’s just egotistical and greedy.

The animal sidekicks are cute, but this ends up being stuck halfway between merchandisable entertainment and aiming for prestige.

Animation game-changer: Disney’s first lead character from an indigenous people and their first story inspired by the lives of real people as opposed to fairy tales.

Magical moment: Pocahontas’ efforts to humble the arrogant John Smith and his narrow worldview with undeniable earworm “Colours of the Wind” is gorgeously animated, transitioning between vignettes of nature in harmony linked by living watercolour.

Number 30: Hercules becomes a God –Hercules (1997)

‘Hercules’ at 25 – Review

Number 29: Higitus Figitus. Merlin works his magic – The Sword in the Stone (1963)

Number 28: The Evil Queens evil plan – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Number 27: Pink Elephants on Parade – Dumbo (1941)

Recommended for you: Tim Burton Movies Ranked

Number 26: Copper saves Todd – The Fox and the Hound (1981)

Number 25: Ohana means family – Lilo and Stich (2002)

Number 24: Mulan gets ready for war – Mulan (1998)

Mulan (1998) Review

Number 23: Ray is united with Evangeline –Princess and the Frog (2009)

Number 22: Pocahontas meets John Smith –Pocahontas (1995)

Number 21: Under the Sea – The Little Mermaid (1989)

Number 20: Alice goes down the rabbit hole – Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Number 19: True love’s kiss – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Number 18: 101! – 101 Dalmations (1961)

Number 17: Aladdin wishes Genie to be free – Aladdin (1992)

Number 16: Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo – Cinderella (1950)

Number 15: Steamboat Willie – Steamboat Willie (1928)

Number 14: Everybody wants to be a cat – The Aristocats (1970)

Number 13 – I’m a real boy – Pinnochio (1940)

Number 12: The Bare Necessities – The Jungle Book (1967)

Number 11: Bambi goes ice skating – Bambi (1942)

Number 10: Let It go – Frozen (2013)

Recommended for you: 4 Most Depressing Disney Moments

Number 9 – The Circle of Life – The Lion King (1994)

Number 8: Ariel gives up her voice – The Little Mermaid (1989)

Recommended for you: The Evolution of Disney Dads

Number 7: The Floating Lights – Tangled (2010)

Number 6: Off to Neverland – Peter Pan (1953)

Number 5: Maleficent crashes the party – Sleeping Beauty (1959)

Number 4: Bella Notte – Lady and the Tramp (1955)

Number 3: Mickey’s dancing brooms – Fantasia (1940)

Number 2: Long Live The King – The Lion King (1994)

Number 1: The Dance – Beauty and the Beast (1991)

Recommended for you: Disney Renaissance Movies Ranked

What are your favourite Disney moments? Let us know in the comments and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates on more articles like this one.

I started early on the Saturday morning with one of my all-time favourites, Wall-E, the film about the little robot that only wanted love in his life. I found myself singing along word-for-word to a musical I’ve never seen (it being Saturday, it would’ve been improper to put on my Sunday clothes) and mesmerised, as always, as Wall-E and Eve danced through space.

Immediately after that I watched Bolt, and I enjoyed it more than I remember. It’s a film that’s often overlooked – following the best-forgotten Chicken Little and preceding the impressive Princess and the Frog – but deserves appreciation, not least for reminding us that there was a time when Miley Cyrus wasn’t just a walking sex metaphor.

I’d watched two Disney films by this point without the joy of a musical, so I got myself a few snacks and tucked into Hercules, and I sang. Oh, did I sing! But as great as the songs are (they really are amazing, and that’s the Gospel truth!), the film really belongs to James Woods’ Hades; the sassy, fiery God of the Underworld and main antagonist, who steals every scene he’s part of.

Next, I felt it might be a good idea to show some love for one of the lesser-known Disney films, The Great Mouse Detective. An unashamed homage to Sherlock Holmes, I enjoyed it – not as much as I enjoyed some of the other films that day – and spent large parts of the movie distracted by the fact that the voice of Scrooge McDuck appeared in the movie. It’s a big thing…

By this point, I needed a break. I took about 20 minutes. ONTO THE NEXT ONE!

It hadn’t been that long since I visited San Fransokyo, but I needed to go again. Big Hero 6 is such a good film, and Baymax is easily one of the best characters Disney has ever brought to life. Hiro’s story of loss and search for revenge pulls at the heartstrings, while his walking pillow and doctor tries his best to heal the pain the young boy is feeling throughout the film. I was very satisfied with this film. I was satisfied with my care.

Another film I hadn’t seen in a while, The Fox and the Hound, was after that, a film that I remembered made me exceptionally sad. It was, and still is, but while it’s a beautiful story of friendship and the difficulty of life, I got distracted by one moment of madness. About halfway through the film, Chief (whose voice is synonymous with Disney) gets hit full force by a train, and falls a comfortable 30 feet into a very shallow and rocky river, but next scene, Chief is nursing a bandaged leg and nothing more. What?! I’m not trying to get a petition started for more death in Disney, but let’s try and be realistic now.

Then it was time for my last film of Saturday, and it only seemed right for it to be my favourite. I was very excited to find out that I had the option of a Sing-A-Long version (I know virtually every word, but still…), an option which I gladly accepted. Then it started. ‘NANTS INGONYAMA BAGITHI BABA’. By the end of the first song, I was holding my Simba soft toy aloft, welcoming the future King of Pride Rock, and it only got better from that moment on. My life peaked that night.

On to Sunday now, and in between getting incredibly stressed and then relieved by the football, I managed to squeeze in another four films.

While I tell you about the first one, I’d like to invite you to relax, let us pull up a chair as I proudly present – Beauty and the Beast. I can’t talk about Beauty and the Beast without addressing my weirdly wishful bro-love for Lumiere, the world’s most suave candlestick holder, a man who, even when magically transformed into a piece of home décor, manages to get all the girls. Except Mrs Potts. No man is good enough for Jessica Fletcher.

My next film of the day was another I hadn’t seen in a while, The Incredibles, and I know I’ve said this a lot, but I forgot just how good this film is. It’s easily one of the best superhero films there is, and the only Pixar film that ever demanded a sequel, although unfortunately it’s getting its sequel after many unnecessary ones *cough Cars 2 cough*. Plus, it’s got Samuel L Jackson in it, pre-Nick Fury days. What’s not to love?

To double figures now, and the beautiful city of Aghrabah in search of a diamond in the rough, and while Aladdin has a lot to celebrate, it only seems right to talk about Genie – the part Robin Williams was born to play – as the film is illuminated by Williams’ effervescence, mania, and beautiful multitude of character.

My final film in my marathon is the geekiest of all the Disney films, and a celebration of video game culture. Wreck-it Ralph combines top quality characters with a new and unique premise, and sprinkles in enough gaming references to earn Nintendo some serious royalties. None of which match Vanellope von Schweetz , the Glitch, the plucky racer (who doesn’t know how to drive) who just wants to be on the roster. It’s impossible not to love her.

And so ends my Bank Holiday weekend. I can’t wait for the next one, I still have so many films to watch.

Written by Greg Forrester

By Kat Lawson & Holly Bowler

15. Edgar Balthazar, The Aristocats, 1970.

Trying to do away with those adorable cats just to get your hands on Madame Adelaide’s fortune, shame on you Edgar.

14. Prince Hans, Frozen, 2013

Taking advantage of poor Princess Anna, she only wanted someone to love her. There’s a lesson here girls (and guys): the first person you meet might not always be Mr/Miss Right.

13. Gaston, Beauty and the Beast, 1991.

There is no need to lead a troop of angry villagers to try and kill the beast, it won’t make Belle love you any more! You just need to find a woman who likes you for your vain, narcissistic and villainous self, and leave Belle to her “happy ever after”.

Oh and never come between a girl and her books!

12. Lady Tremaine (The Evil Step Mother), Cinderella, 1950.

Wanting the best for your children is all well and good but it shouldn’t be at the expense of your step-child, and if you want a maid why not hire one? After all, you are the widow of a wealthy aristocrat; surely you can afford staff?

11. Dr Facilier (The Shadow Man), The Princess and the Frog, 2009.

Offering potions and lotions to people who want a way to make their hair grow again is one thing, offering the souls of New Orleans as payment for your dastardly schemes is just a little bit naughty, but we’re sure your “friends on the other side” will have fun with you.

10. Prince John & Sir Hiss, Robin Hood, 1973

Most of the comedy in this film is provided by the vain but clueless Prince John and his inability to listen to his assistant Sir Hiss. While his brother King Richard is off one “another crazy crusade” Prince John attempts to rule England with an iron fist (or paw) but is outwitted by Robin Hood and his gang who rob the rich to feed to poor.

No wonder Sir Hiss always looks panicked.

9. The Evil Queen, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1937

Snow White’s wicked step mother who becomes obsessed with offing Snow as soon as her magic mirror announces that Snow White is the fairest of them all, couldn’t just grow old gracefully could you?

8. Shere Khan & Kaa, The Jungle Book, 1967

Bengali Tiger Shere Khan stalks man-cub Mowgli through the jungles of India, his desire to kill him based on his hatred and fear of mankind with their fire and guns. Kaa the python on the other hand spend the film trying to eat Mowgli but fails comically each time.

7. Oogie Boogie, The Nightmare Before Christmas, 1993

Trying to kill Santa will only ever make everyone hate you, especially when you then try to assasinate the well loved skeleton king. Don’t be THAT guy Oogie!

6. Jafar, Aladdin, 1992

Look we know that you’re power crazy, you want the genie’s power and to be ruler of all Agrabah and marry Princess Jasmine, but sometimes you just have to learn to live with disappointment.

5. Ursula the Sea Witch, The Little Mermaid, 1989

Stealing an innocent mermaid’s voice so you can steal their man? That is one of the biggest betrayals in womanhood!

4. The Queen of Hearts, Alice in Wonderland, 1951

We all love a red rose as much as the next person, but did you really have to behead those playing cards for planting white ones? Everybody makes mistakes.

3. Cruella de Vil, One Hundred and One Dalmations, 1961

Attempted skinning of 101 dalmatians for a fur coat is the fastest way to be hated by everyone, living up to your evil name Cruella.

2. Maleficent, Sleeping Beauty, 1959

We hear you girl, nobody likes being missed off the invite list for a party, but there’s no need to curse a newborn baby for it is there? Oh apparently there is.

1. Scar, The Lion King, 1994

Attempted murder of your entire family will never make you a good leader, just feared and hated by your not so loyal subjects.

Recommended for you: Disney Renaissance Movies Ranked