Summary

• Recent animated movies are overrepresented in Rotten Tomatoes' list of the best movies ever made, giving Zootopia a higher ranking compared to Disney classics.
• Zootopia ranks miles ahead of Disney classics like The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast on the list.
• While Zootopia is a great film, it's not definitively Disney's best animated movie ever, according to general consensus.

Rotten Tomatoes has deemed a critically acclaimed 2016 blockbuster to be Disney’s greatest animated movie of all time, and while it is certainly a great film, there are arguably some better choices in the Mouse House’s library. In order to determine the best films ever made, Rotten Tomatoes has compiled a list of the highest-rated movies as reviewed and hand-picked by a select group of Tomatometer-approved critics and Rotten Tomatoes users. The list includes such usual suspects as The Godfather, Seven Samurai, Casablanca, and Schindler’s List, as well as more recent choices like The Holdovers and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

The list, titled “Rotten Tomatoes’ 300 Best Movies of All Time,” includes some surprising choices. Mission: Impossible – Fallout is ranked just one place below Apocalypse Now. Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade placed higher than Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca. This list’s pick for the greatest animated movie ever produced by Disney is an unusual one. The film named as Disney’s best was met with universal critical praise upon its release in 2016, but it’s not considered to be an untouchable classic like some of the studio’s earliest works or the masterpieces from the “Disney Renaissance” era.

Zootopia Is The Highest-Ranked Disney Animated Movie In Rotten Tomatoes' Best Movies Ever List

The highest-ranked Disney animated movie on Rotten Tomatoes’ list of the 300 greatest films ever made is Zootopia in the #32 spot. Released in 2016, Zootopia is a “buddy cop” noir set in a sprawling urban metropolis populated by talking animals. Ginnifer Goodwin stars as Judy Hopps, a bright-eyed young rabbit detective, opposite Jason Bateman as Nick Wilde, a fox who operates as a small-time crook. 48 Hrs.-style, Nick and Judy reluctantly team up to take down a criminal mastermind. It’s a great movie, with a fun take on a familiar genre, but is it really Disney’s greatest animated movie ever?

As a side-note, Zootopia is the highest-ranked animated movie that was produced in-house by Disney; it’s not quite the highest-ranked animated movie that was released by Disney. Pixar’s Coco, Toy Story 3, Finding Nemo, Up, and Toy Story all placed higher than Zootopia, with Toy Story 2 taking the crown of highest-rated Pixar movie in the #8 spot between Top Gun: Maverick and Chinatown. But Zootopia is ranked higher than any other movie produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. It has a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score of 98%, but does that mean it’s definitively Disney’s best animated film?

Rotten Tomatoes’ list ranks L.A. Confidential as the greatest movie ever made.

Why Is Zootopia Ranked Higher Than Other Disney Animated Movies?

There’s a definite bias towards more recent animated movies across the entire list. Both Spider-Verse movies made the list. 2010’s How to Train Your Dragon is ranked at #15. Spirited Away and Inside Out, both released in the 21st century, made the top 100. There is one older animated film on the list – 1988’s Grave of the Fireflies – but it’s an outlier. This bias may be part of the reason why Zootopia is ranked so much higher than Disney’s other classics – not to mention that it was a genuinely very well-received movie.

But it’s remarkable how it’s not even close at all. It’s not like Zootopia only just outranked Disney’s other animated classics; it’s miles ahead of them on the list – and some of those classics weren’t even included at all. Frozen and Tangled didn’t make the list, despite being similarly recent and similarly acclaimed. Moana is at #146, then the timeless The Lion King is all the way down at #238, which seems absurd. Beauty and the Beast is even lower at #258, and Aladdin is even lower than that at #265. The Little Mermaid isn’t there at all.

Zootopia Isn't The Best Disney Animated Movie

Determining the best movie in any category is subjective, but it seems fair to say that Zootopia isn’t the best Disney animated film of all time – and especially not by the margin ranked by Rotten Tomatoes. It can obviously be debated which one is the absolute best, but general consensus tends to lean towards either The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast, with the Disney Renaissance as a whole being considered the peak of the studio’s history.

Zootopia is a very good movie, for sure. It’s a unique take on the well-worn buddy cop genre. The characters are lovable, the mystery storyline is genuinely compelling, and it’s a great way to introduce kids to the tropes and conventions of film noir. But it has no real business being ranked above The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin. Zootopia might be Disney’s best animated movie from the past 10 years, but it’s not necessarily the best animated movie from the Mouse House’s entire history.