The 48 Best Disney Channel Original Movies We’ll Never Outgrow
With 110 (and counting) Disney Channel Original Movies to choose from, sifting through Disney+ to find the best ones can be quite the undertaking. But, hey, it was an (obviously unenjoyable and not accompanied by pizza) challenge that someone had to take on!
The Disney Channel Original Movie lineup is, simply, a goldmine of made-for-TV greatness. Been awhile since you’ve dipped into DCOMs? There are probably some new hits you haven’t seen yet. Or maybe it’s the original heyday of Disney Channel Original Movies—an era that began in 1983 with Tiger Town but didn’t truly pick up steam until 1999—that you’re keen on exploring. (Speaking of 1999, did you know Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, Smart House, The Thirteenth Year and Johnny Tsunami all came out that year? Talk about a blessed time for Disney channel movies!)
Whether you’re in the mood for a modern classic like High School Musical or a quality throwback like Halloweentown, watching these movies is a fun reminder of the crushes, catchphrases and earworms that shaped us. And it wasn’t only us as viewers that Disney Channel Original Movies majorly influenced. A ton of familiar faces got their start in these television films, from Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato to Zendaya and Brie Larson. Revisiting these films is quite literally taking a step back in time, and watching some of your favorite faces take on their first on-screen roles. And if that isn’t good entertainment, we don’t know what is. (Looking for an easy movie night theme? Put together a watchlist based on the films that were released in your birth year.)
When it comes to the best Disney channel movies, everyone’s got their favorite. But we’ve taken the liberty of choosing the 48 old Disney Channel movies we’re pretty sure will live on in the DCOM hall of fame forever, listed here in no particular order.
1/48Cadet Kelly (2002)
This movie came out just as the second season of Lizzie McGuire was premiering—meaning this was, in other words, the same era that saw Hilary Duff on about a bajillion J-14 magazine covers. In Cadet Kelly, Duff’s fashion-minded Kelly Collins is forced to attend the military school her new stepdad is commander of. There, she doesn’t exactly fit in with the rest of her rule-abiding cadet classmates—especially Cadet Captain Jennifer Stone (Christy Carlson Romano), who, like Kelly, also has a crush on some dude named Brad.
Photo: Courtesy of Disney Channel2/48Smart House (1999)
In 1999, the idea of a "smart house" blew our minds, but let’s be real: Pat, the computer-slash-robot that runs the tech-y house is basically Siri. Only Siri would never go completely nuts and try to be our mom and ruin everything. Right...? RIGHT?! The most important thing here though, really, is that we all take a moment to appreciate the incredible dance scene to "Slam Dunk the Funk" by Five. It’s so ’90s, we can’t even.
Steve Granitz/Getty Images3/48Rip Girls (2000)
Thirteen-year-old Sydney Miller (a young Camilla Belle) takes up surfing while revisiting her home in Hawaii. After discovering a large land inheritance, she finds out that a hotel chain wants to purchase the land and close it off to surfers. Law states that Sydney must be on the island for two consecutive weeks before she can make any moves with her inheritance, so she uses the time to reconnect with her roots and form a bond with the land.
Photo: Courtesy of Disney Channel4/48The Color of Friendship (2000)
Set in 1970s apartheid South Africa, The Color of Friendship tells the tale of two girls: Mahree, a white South African who lives a blissful (read: ignorant) life in a ritzy mansion, and Piper, a Black girl—and outspoken apartheid-opponent—from America. When the two girls meet, they're both shocked to find that they don't share the same race, but soon learn to love and respect each other. It's an eye-opening heartwarmer and is on a level that no other Disney Channel movies will ever touch. It did earn an Emmy, after all.
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5/48The Cheetah Girls (2003)
Talk about an iconic Disney channel movie. The basic storyline of The Cheetah Girls is that four teen girls — played by Raven-Symoné, Adrienne Bailon, Sabrina Bryan and Kiely Williams — go from singing at children's birthday parties to a recording deal. But when the record label tries to change their entire image, they're not so sure it's the right path. We’re pretty sure there’s no other movie that inspired so many 2000s-era playground girl bands, and the girls’ coordinated outfit game is unreal.
©Hemdale Film Corp/Courtesy Everett Collection6/48The Princess and the Goblin (1994)
It’s a tale as old as time: An army of goblins takes control of a kingdom, leaving a princess and the son of a miner to join forces and combat evil to save the king and his people. After running away while her father (the king) is attending to business, Princess Irene has a run-in with a goblin who tries to capture her. The miner’s son, Curdie, shares that the goblins’ presence is well-known by everyone who isn’t a part of the royal family. After stumbling into the realm of the goblins by accident and learning of an evil plan to marry the princess and take over the kingdom, Curdie is captured. Princess Irene goes on a journey — with some help from the spirit of her great-great-grandmother — to save Curdie, and the rest of the kingdom.
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7/48Twitches (2005)
Honestly, Twitches is campy, pseudo-occult perfection. (Change our minds!) Twins Alexandra Fielding and Camryn Barnes, played by Tia and Tamera Mowry, were separated at birth. When they turn 21, they discover not only that they're twins, but witches — or "twitches" — from a magical land called Coventry. It’s like The Parent Trap if Meredith Blake was played by a disembodied malevolent force called The Darkness. There’s also a Twitches, Too sequel, but the original is really the only one that counts.
©Buena Vista Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection8/48Freaky Friday (1995)
Chances are you’ve seen the remake starring Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis, but the original — starring Shelley Long and Gaby Hoffmann — is worth a watch. For the uninitiated, here’s the gist: Mother and daughter swap bodies, awkwardness follows, hilarity ensues. Both parties end the experience with a newfound appreciation for each other’s lives.
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9/48High School Musical (2006)
The High School Musical franchise opened the doors to a new era of Disney Channel Original Movie cultural prominence. It was basically Grease for this generation, and that’s not a left-field comparison either — in 1999, an early version of the movie’s script was being circulated as Grease 3, with Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake in mind for the leads. Wild! Watching HSM today, it’s as full of unforgettable earworms as ever — though we’re willing to go ahead and assign “forgettable” to the two sequels that came after it, as well as the Sharpay movie spinoff.
Frazer Harrison/Getty Images10/48Now You See It… (2005)
Fans of magic will love this fun movie, which centers around a reality TV show on the search for the world’s best kid magician. Starring Johnny Pacar as Danny Sinclair and Alyson Michalka as Allyson Miller, the film follows a young magician who seems to be the real deal — until a panel of experts conducts an investigation and deems Danny a fake. And while that may not be true, it’s only the beginning in a web of evil intent put together by show host, Max (played by Frank Langella), who is on a journey to steal Danny’s very real powers.
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11/48Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie (2009)
After misusing her magical powers, Selena Gomez’s Alex Russo finds herself grounded while on family vacation. In anger, she wishes her parents had never met — and it works. (Because she, duh, has magical powers.) Now, the Russo kids have to work to regain their parents' memory. When the Wizards movie came out, it got a whopping 11.4 million viewers, making it the second-most-viewed Disney Channel Original Movie after High School Musical 2.
Photo: Courtesy of Disney Channel12/48Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century (1999)
Life's rough when you're quite literally grounded. To Earth. That's what happens to Zenon (who lives in an orbiting space station in the year 2049, of course) when she gets into a bit of trouble with the station's commander and is sent by her parents to live with her aunt on land. But her troubles don't stop there. Beyond learning that she knows legitimately nothing about pop culture on our fair planet, she discovers that an evil programmer dude is out to destroy the space station, and she's the only one who can save it. Best of all, Raven-Symone is involved.
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13/48The Descendants (2015)
For those who haven’t seen a new Disney Channel Original movie in awhile, the Descendants franchise—featuring three movies in total, with a fourth in the works—is something of a big deal. It’s a musical fantasy series that serves as a continuation of Disney’s animated classics, chronicling the lives of Disney Villian children—specifically, Mal (Dove Cameron), daughter to Maleficent; Jay (Booboo Stewart), son to Jafar; Evie (Sofia Carson), daughter to the Evil Queen; and Carlos (the late Cameron Boyce), son to Cruella. It’s all very, very Disney, and it’s also the first Disney Channel Original Movie soundtrack to debut in the Billboard 200 after High School Musical 2.
Courtesy Everett Collection14/48Escape to Witch Mountain (1995)
The original Escape to Witch Mountain was filmed in 1975, but we’re partial to the remake. The story follows two twins — Danny, played by Erik von Detten, and Anna, played by Elisabeth Moss — separated shortly after birth who possess magical powers. When they’re hands touch, a spark of purple electricity is formed. After cycling through foster homes, the twins are reunited at an orphanage. Soon after, a local magnate (Edward Bolt, played by Robert Vaughn) becomes the pair’s foster father, with the intent of blasting the nearby Witch Mountain right open using their powers, unbeknownst to the twins. What follows is a tale of adventure and deceit, with aid from one particularly helpful shop owner.
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©Disney+/Courtesy Everett Collection15/48Z-O-M-B-I-E-S (2018)
There are a lot of movies and TV shows out there that tackle a zombie-filled world, but none quite like Disney’s song and dance-filled Z-O-M-B-I-E-S. The story takes place in the town of Seabrook in a post-zombie apocalypse world. Fifty years after the life-changing event, the zombies are sectioned off into an isolated area aptly named Zombietown. But these aren't the zombies you're used to seeing. In the first film, an unlikely friendship forms between a zombie named Zed (played by Milo Manheim) and a student named Addison (played by Meg Donnelly) when a number of zombies are allowed to enroll at Seabrook High School. Zed is determined to join the football team while Addison has a dream of becoming a cheerleader. The duo works to show that the two groups — zombies and people — have a lot to learn from each other. There are also two sequels!
16/48Halloweentown (1998)
As pretty much any lover of Disney Channel Halloween movies will tell you, there’s simply no comparison to the original Halloweentown. In it, Marnie (Kimberly J. Brown), an ordinary 13-year-old girl, discovers she’s a witch and must use her new powers to save all of Halloweentown. Debbie Reynolds plays Agatha, the kids’ magical grandmother, and she’s a total style icon. All that red velvet!
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17/48Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge (2001)
Maybe it’s just the strength of our love for Halloweentown that makes us want to insist this, unlike some other sequels in the DCOM milieu, is worth the watch. It’s not quite as memorable as the first Halloweentown movie, no—but we do think it still holds up! Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge sees Marnie, Grandma Aggie and Co. team up to thwart the plans of Kalabar, an evil warlock who wants to turn all of Halloweentown into a dreary, black-and-white world.
Photo: Courtesy of Disney Channel Original Movies18/48Halloweentown High (2004)
The third movie in the Halloweentown series, this plot follows Marnie Piper as she begins a new school year in a new city. She hopes to bridge the gap between Halloweentown and her new home by inviting a group of students to her school in the mortal world. While apprehensive, the Halloweentown Council signs off on the plan after Marnie places her family’s magic on the line. The Halloweentown students — consisting of a witch, werecat, werewolf, warlock, ogre, a pink troll, fairy, zombie, and a gremlin — arrive at the school and begin settling into life in the mortal world. But a threat from the Knights of the Iron Dagger, a group focused on destroying all things magic, puts a kink in Marnie’s plan.
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Photo: Courtesy of Disney Channel19/48Luck of the Irish (2001)
Only a Disney Channel Original Movie could make kids wish they could be as cool as a leprechaun. When the most popular basketball player, who's totally oblivious to his heritage, realizes his lucky gold coin has—gasp!—gone missing, weird things start to happen. Like, he grows elf ears and his hair turns orange and, oh, he starts to shrink. That's when his fam breaks it to him: He comes from a family of leprechauns, and that lucky gold coin? It was magical and kind of super-important considering it was the key to his family looking like normal humans. The only way to get back the luck of the Irish is to find the far darrig who took it. (It sounds like we made up this plot, but we swear we didn’t.)
Courtesy Everett Collection20/48Johnny Tsunami (1999)
In 1999, the people loved Johnny Tsunami. (It was us. We were the people.) Johnny Kapahala, a young Hawaiian surfer whose grandpa also happens to be surfing legend, finds himself transplanted to Vermont—a place not exactly known for its waves—when his dad gets a new job. He starts at a new private school where all the students are skiers, but it’s the snowboarders of the town’s public school that really get Johnny’s attention. There’s rivalry. There’s stunts. And there’s a lot of snow.
21/48Mom’s Got a Date with a Vampire (2000)
This is another incredibly solid pick in the Disney Channel Halloween movies canon. To get their divorced mom back out there (and away from the house they’re grounded at), 13-year-old Adam and 16-year-old Chelsea set her up with a mystery man named Dimiti Dentatos. All is going according to plan until their 8-year-old kid brother clues them onto something—Dimitri is definitely a vampire. Caroline Rhea of Sabrina the Teenage Witch fame is in this, and though it may have felt a little spooky when we were kids (that wasn’t just us, right?), today it’s a treat.
Photo: Courtesy of Disney Channel22/48Brink! (1998)
Oh, Andy "Brink" Brinker. The level of crush we had on you is, to this day, unparalleled. Brink and his crew of "Soul-Skater" rollerbladers (who are in it because of their souls) have never seen eye-to-eye with the for-profit enemy gang, Team X-Bladz, led by not-so-cool guy Val. But when Brink's fam winds up in financial trouble, he crosses over to the dark side and joins the X-Bladz for $200 a week. There's a dramatic (slash super-scary!) downhill race, love drama, and lots of warm and fuzzy friendship moments. It's a classic, guys. It really is.
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23/48Camp Rock (2008)
Riding on the coattails of High School Musical’s insane success was Camp Rock, a bit of a hokey film even by DCOM standards, but one that still gave us plenty of Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato screentime. (It’ll also be remembered as Lovato’s first lead role in a film!) In it, Lovato’s Mitchie Torres is an aspiring musician who wants desperately to go to a summer music camp called Camp Rock. The only way she and her family can afford it, though, is for Mitchie to work in the kitchen. It’s essentially Cinderella set to music, with Joe Jonas playing the role of Prince Charming.
Photo: Courtesy of Disney Channel24/48Double Teamed (2000)
"Once second best, always second best." Twins Heather and Heidi Burge have been compared to each other all their lives, and their volleyball skills are no exception. Their success-obsessed father makes them switch schools to get a better chance at earning a scholarship, and in an effort to escape her sister's shadow and follow her passion, Heidi joins the school play. But when the basketball coach discovers Heather's height, both girls wind up on the team, and let's just say there's some locker-room drama.
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25/48Don’t Look Under the Bed (1999)
Don’t Look Under the Bed was the first Disney Channel movie to be rated TV-PG, as well as the Disney Channel’s last try at horror. But what a note to go out on! The movie still holds up as plenty spooky and imaginative to this day. In the small town of Middleberg, Frances, a teen who prides herself on being rational, eventually has to acknowledge a deeply irrational reality she finds herself in: the Boogeyman is causing havoc in her town, and he’s bent on framing her as the culprit.
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26/48Frenemies (2012)
In Frenemies, three sets of friends navigate the ups and downs of friend-enemy relationships—and one of the friend duos is, uh, a boy and his dog? It’s based on Alexa Young’s novel of the same name and it’s honestly on this list mainly for its ensemble cast, which included the likes of Bella Thorne, Nick Robinson and actual queen Zendaya. (Zendaya, of course, got her Disney start on the series Shake It Up.)
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27/48Phantom of the Megaplex (2000)
This movie will make you wish the Disney Channel’s days of campy supernatural stories weren’t so behind them. Phantom of the Megaplex is one of the weirder DCOM movies out there, and it works. (Plus, Mickey Rooney, randomly, is in it.) Teen protagonist Pete Riley works at his neighborhood’s multiplex, which is just a word for a movie theater with several screens, so in today’s world a—movie theater? A major horror movie premiere is coming to town, but as the big event draws closer, spooky shenanigans start to occur.
28/48Motocrossed (2001)
Real talk: This movie was so wonderfully queer. For being one of the old Disney Channel movies, it also touched on gender identity in a way that was pretty progressive at the time. Andrew (Trever O’Brien) and Andrea (Alana Austin) are 15-year-old twins who both love motocross, but only one of them is allowed to pursue it by their dad (you’ll never guess which one!). After Andrew gets injured, Andrea hatches a scheme to chop off her hair and pose as her brother in an upcoming big race. Basically, it was She’s the Man before She’s the Man.
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29/48Princess Protection Program (2009)
Starring both Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato, this movie was some majorly late-aughts Disney Channel energy. Princess Rosalinda María Montoya Fioré (Lovato) is about to be crowned queen of Costa Luna when a neighboring country’s dictator stages a takeover. She escapes to Louisiana as part of the Princess Protection Program, which requires her to masquerade as a normal teen—something that Gomez’s Carter Mason, a tomboy who works at the family bait shop, ultimately gets roped into helping with.
30/48Get a Clue (2002)
Lest we forget about Lindsay Lohan’s Disney roots, there’s Get a Clue to remind us. (LiLo was, of course, already a household name by this point, but we can thank this Disney Channel mystery-comedy for introducing us to Brenda Song!) Lexy Gold (Lohan), a Prada-clad teen in uppercrust Manhattan, runs her school newspaper’s gossip column. Something she publishes sets off a series of strange events that culminates in a teacher’s disappearance, and Lexy and her newspaper cohort must investigate. There’s plenty of intrigue, and even more early-aughts fashion moments.
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31/48Full-Court Miracle (2003)
Inspired by a true story, Full-Court Miracle follows the boys’ basketball team of a Philadelphia Hebrew academy. It’s been awhile (read: maybe ever?) since they’ve had a win, and 14-year-old Alex Schlotsky (Alex D. Linz) is sure a quality coach would make all the difference. He finds that coach in Lamont Carr (Richard T. Jones), a college basketball star whose knee injury kept him from going all the way to the NBA, and together, they work to turn the boys’ fortune around in time for Hanukkah. Speaking of Hanukkah, this is also the movie that gave us that hip-hop mashup of the “The Dreidel Song,” which we know is stuck in your head now.
32/48Gotta Kick It Up! (2002)
“Sí, se puede!” That’s the catchphrase, borrowed from civil rights icon Dolores Huerta, of the dance team at Marshall Middle School. Helmed by America Ferrera and Camille Guaty, the largely Latinx dance team convinces their biology teacher, Ms. Bartlett (Susan Egan), to be their new dance coach. As a former dancer with Julliard training, Ms. Bartlett is helpful, but she’s also kind of a drag. After the girls are caught sneaking off to a secret intramural competition, Ms. Bartlett and the team must come together if the girls are going to overcome societal obstacles and win. Featuring both a Latinx director and writer, as well as a primarily Latinx cast, Gotta Kick It Up! has been praised as one of the most culturally aware and inclusive DCOM movies.
33/48The Proud Family Movie (2005)
The Proud Family was, truly, some true Disney Channel greatness—which is why it’s hardly surprising the Prouds are being brought back for a 2022 reboot, featuring both the original cast and big-name guest stars like Lizzo and Lil Nas X. Watching The Proud Family Movie, which also served as the original series’ finale, is some pretty essential reboot prep. In it, the Prouds are lured by a mad scientist to an island under the auspices of an all-expenses paid vacation. But when Oscar won’t reveal his secret Proud Family Snacks formula, chaos ensues. Peanut-human clones might be involved.
34/48The Thirteenth Year (1999)
About time that mer-dudes got their share of the silver screen! The Thirteenth Year tells the story of adopted teen Cody who, on his 13th birthday, discovers something new about his birth mother—she was one hundred percent a mermaid, and turns out, he’s one, too. This DCOM, like other popular mermaid movies, does the whole “mermaid story as an analogy for puberty” thing well, and we remember thinking that the scale and fins makeup job on Cody was cool, too. Plus, mermaids!
35/48Pixel Perfect (2004)
This one’s mostly just fun because of all the early-aughts “this is a tech-y movie”-isms. Plus, it stars Raviv Ullman of Phil in the Future fame, who we all know was a real cutie. In it, Ullman plays Roscoe, a 16 year old who just wants to help his best friend Sam’s band succeed. (The band, by the way, is called the Zetta Bytes, because tech!) Sam feels her inability to dance is holding the band back, so Roscoe uses his dad’s holographic equipment—something all dads have lying around—to create a human hologram, Loretta, to dance in the band. Turns out, Loretta might want to be more than just a hologram.
36/48The Kim Possible Movie: A Sitch in Time (2003)
Of the two animated and one live-action Kim Possible movies, we think A Sitch in Time is the most worth seeing, mostly because we love a good time travel flick. For this one, Kim is sent back to her pre-teen years after Shego captures something called the Time Monkey, which is pretty much going to ruin everything. (We’d also just like to take this moment to issue a formal apology to any parent anywhere whose child made them listen to the “Naked Mole Rap” on repeat.)
37/48Jump In!
Original Air Date: January 12, 2007
Premiere Viewers: 8.2 millionIzzy Duncan's dad has a dream for him: follow in the family footsteps and become a champion boxer. But when Izzy, played by Corbin Bleu, loses focus and finds himself more interested in competitive double dutch and a certain girl, tensions flare and the future is uncertain.
38/48Quints (2000)
Halloweentown’s Kimberly J. Brown is Jamie Grover, an only child who thinks mom and dad need to get a new hobby besides obsessing over her. But when her mom shares the news that she's pregnant with quintuplets, Jamie starts to think she should’ve been a little more careful with what she wished for. The quints become spokesbabies for a diaper company, Jamie’s parents win an award from the governor simply for having birthed five infants, and there’s major drama when Jamie’s parent-teacher conference isn’t prioritized (gasp).
39/48Under Wraps (1997)
We know we tossed around 1983’s Tiger Town earlier, but in the modern understanding of DCOMs, Under Wraps is often considered the first. And to be honest, we kind of prefer a cheesy “horror” movie being the first official DCOM over a baseball flick anyway. Under Wraps follows monster movie-obsessed Adam and his besties who accidentally discover an Egyptian mummy in a supposedly dead dude’s basement. There’s an ancient amulet involved, and the mummy—a clumsy fellow who they ultimately name Harold—rises. The kids learn they must put Harold back in his sarcophagus before midnight on Halloween or else he’ll disappear, Frosty the Snowman-style.
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40/48Teen Beach Movie
Original Air Date: July 19, 2013
Premiere Viewers: 8.4 millionSurfers Brady and McKenzie are magically transported to the '60s, where they find themselves in the midst of a beach turf war between bikers and surfers.
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41/48Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior
Original Air Date: June 16, 2006
Premiere Viewers: 5.7 millionWhile campaigning to become homecoming queen, Wendy Wu, played by Brenda Song, discovers she is actually the reincarnation of a powerful Chinese warrior. With her new identity, she has much bigger battles to fight and her quest to become high school royalty.
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42/48Lemonade Mouth (2011)
For those who love a Disney Channel Original movie musical, Lemonade Mouth may not be High School Musical or Teen Beach Movie, but it’s still fun. It tells the story of five high school students who meet in detention—major Breakfast Club vibes—and decide to form a band. There’s a Halloween bash coming up, and they’ll need to learn how to become a real band in time to defeat rival group Mudslide Crush, battle of the bands-style. Also, Hayley Kiyoko is in this!
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Photo: Courtesy of Disney Channel43/48Alley Cats Strike (2000)
For one group of vintage-loving misfits, bowling is serious business. (Bowling! This is a drama about bowling!) When the Mighty Apple city championship trophy is up for grabs and bowling is selected as the tie-breaking game, the Bowling Club kids have got to step up their game. And step up their game they do. A young Kaley Cuoco is in this, and Kyle Schmid’s Alex Thompson, it should also be noted, has flawless 2000-era swoopy hair.
44/48Read It and Weep (2006)
This movie was like Harriet the Spy for the mid-2000s generation. Freshman Jamie Bartlett (Kay Panabaker) writes down every detail of her life in her journal, weaving real life into fiction simply by using different names for the high school friends and enemies around her. When she accidentally submits her journal rather than an essay for an English class assignment, it ends up winning a writing contest and catapulting Jamie to sudden fame as an author. But when her classmates find out her writing is really about them, things start to unravel.
45/48My Date With the President’s Daughter (1998)
Okay, okay. Hear us out. We’re well aware My Date With the President’s Daughter isn’t one of the DCOMs in the traditional sense. A Disney made-for-TV movie, it technically premiered on ABC as part of the Wonderful World of Disney series. However! This movie is so within the spirit of late ‘90s Disney channel movies that we thought it deserved an honorary spot on the list. In it, Duncan (Will Friedle, best remembered as Boy Meets World’s Eric Matthews) needs a date for his school’s spring dance. At the mall, he decides to shoot his shot with a girl he’s just met, Hallie (Elisabeth Harnois), and she agrees to be his date. What an elated Duncan won’t learn until he picks her up for the dance, however, is that she’s—you didn’t see this one coming!—the President’s daughter.
©Disney Channel/Courtesy Everett Collection46/48Tiger Town (1983)
We’ve mentioned this movie a few times already and it really is worth a watch if you consider yourself a diehard Disney Original movie fan. The plot is heartwarming and follows a middle-aged baseball player, Billy Young, and a father-son duo who consider themselves Young’s biggest fans. The father passes away, but not before asking that his son (Alex) always keep believing in the team. Young is performing poorly for his last season and Alex starts wishing hard for a win every time Young steps up to the plate. By some stroke of luck (or magic!), he hits a homerun every time Alex does this. With this comes hurdles — Alex has to be at each game to ensure Young continues to hit homeruns, meaning he has to scheme ways to miss school and travel to watch the games. It all comes together in a down-to-the-second race to make an appearance at the final game of the season.
- Tim Graham/Getty Images47/48
Ready to Run (2000)
Ready to Run follows 14-year-old Corrie Ortiz's dream of becoming a horse jockey, an industry filled with men. Equipped with what her grandmother calls "the confidence of horses," Corrie finds that she's able to communicate with her horse, Thunder Jam (TJ), who has a fear of starting gates. Corrie discovers that TJ's fear disappears when headphones are placed over the horse's ears and music is played, kicking off a string of huge wins. But when the final race of the season approaches, a competitor has an issue with TJ's accessory.
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You Wish! (2003)
This movie was inspired by the Jackie French Koller novel If I Had One Wish, and follows the story of a particularly annoyed sibling who wishes their brother away. After getting ahold of a magical coin, Alex takes the opportunity to wish for a world in which his younger brother (Stevie) is not a part of. Stevie’s crime? A slew of typical frustrating stunts often performed by younger siblings: slamming a pizza on Alex’s head, buying a pet turkey from an animal adoption show—the usual. But life in this new world isn’t what Alex thought it would be and he finds a newfound appreciation for his annoying younger brother.
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