14 beautiful cartoons about princesses from the Walt Disney studio and not only

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The heroines of these pictures will touch you with their courage and kindness.

1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

• USA, 1937.
• Musical tale.
• Duration: 83 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 6.

The envious evil queen, obsessed with the desire to remain the most beautiful at all costs, is going to kill her young stepdaughter named Snow White. The princess has to flee from her native castle into the forest, where she meets good-natured gnomes and finds true love.

At the time of its release, "Snow White" turned out to be an incredibly innovative film in all aspects: then, cartoons longer than 8 minutes were simply not filmed in Hollywood, and the producers doubted that the tape would be successful without the participation of live stars. But Walt Disney truly believed in his project and even laid Snow White On Opening Day: 10 Things You Didn’t Know The Disney Classic’s Premiere for the sake of creating his own home. And he made the right decision: "Snow White" broke all imaginable box office records and still remains on the list of the most successful films in the history of American box office.

Even now the film looks great, but then the audience felt as if they were being shown something incredible: the animation was smooth as never before, and the drawn characters were as close to real people as possible. The artists achieved this effect by inserting additional intermediate frames.

2. Cinderella

• USA, 1950.
• Musical tale.
• Duration: 74 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 3.

The meek, kind-hearted Cinderella is left an orphan early. She has to live with her arrogant stepmother and two nasty half-sisters, Drizella and Anastasia. Relatives push the girl around in every possible way and make her work day and night. But soon a big royal ball is to take place, which will change everything in the life of the heroine.

Disney writers repeated the same techniques that ensured the success of Snow White: they took the familiar fairy tale plot, but significantly reworked it, removed unnecessary cruelty and made the characters brighter and more prominent. For example, the stepmother has become the personification of pure evil, and the fairy has become a charismatic awkward old woman. Thanks to such simple but important innovations, history has sparkled with completely new colors.

3. Sleeping beauty

• USA, 1959.
• Musical tale.
• Duration: 75 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 2.

Everyone is invited to the celebration in honor of the birth of Princess Aurora, except for the evil sorceress Maleficent. The angry witch sends a curse on the girl, which can only be destroyed by the kiss of true love.

Walt Disney dreamed of making a film adaptation of Charles Perrault's fairy tale for a long time, but due to World War II and financial problems, these plans had to be postponed until better times. As a result, the project still saw the light, but much later than planned.

The work on the visual design of the painting was entrusted to the cartoonist Eyvind Earl. He made the cartoon look like a revived Gothic tapestry and much more laconic than previous Disney fairy tales.

4. The Little Mermaid

• USA, 1989.
• Musical tale.
• Duration: 83 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 6.

The daughter of the sea king Triton, the little mermaid Ariel falls in love with Prince Eric and makes a deal with the sea witch Ursula: she takes on a human form, but at the same time is speechless. At the same time, the heroine has only a few days to impress the prince. And if Eric does not love the girl in return, everything can end in tragedy.

Anyone who has read Andersen's original tale will remember that this is a very sad story of self-sacrifice. But in the retelling of the Walt Disney studio, it turned into a bright and funny cartoon with catchy vocal numbers.

The very same main character, who in the original was nameless, paved the way for a new image of the princess in popular culture. If the former heroines were modest, meek young ladies who dutifully awaited salvation, then Ariel, on the contrary, is shown as a very lively, wayward and sharp-tongued girl, capable of standing up for herself.

5. Beauty and the Beast

• USA, 1991.
• Musical tale.
• Duration: 84 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 0.

The well-read beauty Belle lives in a small French village and dreams of adventure. The heroine's life changes abruptly when, for the sake of her father's freedom, she has to stay in the castle of an ill-mannered Beast with a bad character. The girl does not yet know that her jailer is an enchanted prince, who can only be saved by true love.

Belle, following Ariel, embodied the qualities of the ideal Disney princess of the new generation: she is not only beautiful, but also smart, and she is in no hurry to get married (“It's too early for me to play a wedding”). Instead, she seeks to learn as much as possible and see the world.

6. Aladdin

• USA, 1992.
• Musical tale, adventure.
• Duration: 90 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 0.

The action takes place in the medieval eastern city of Agrab. A young street tramp named Aladdin steals food for himself and his monkey Abu. By chance, the hero meets the freedom-loving princess Jasmine, who ran away from the palace in search of adventure.

At the same time, the evil vizier Jafar dreams of overthrowing the sultan, but for this he really needs a magic lamp that is stored in the Cave of Wonders. But only a person with a good heart can get there. As it turns out, Aladdin is perfect for this role.

The proud heiress to the throne, Jasmine, acts as a minor character in the cartoon, but nevertheless the image still turned out to be very bright: the princess was remembered by the audience for her bold outfit and refusal to marry without love.

7. Shrek

• USA, 2001.
• Adventure, fantasy.
• Duration: 90 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 8.

A huge green ogre named Shrek lives alone in a swamp, but his idyll is disturbed by fabulous creatures expelled from the kingdom at the behest of the evil Lord Farquad. To get back peace and quiet, the giant must free Princess Fiona, imprisoned in a tower guarded by a fire-breathing dragon.

The image of Princess Fiona parodies the behavior of classic Disney princesses: the heroine waits for the savior in the tower like Sleeping Beauty, and then sings a duet with a bird, like Snow White (though it all ended sadly for the bird). But all this does not prevent Fiona from mastering martial arts perfectly - after all, according to her, a girl should be able to stand up for herself.

8. Atlantis: The Lost World

• USA, 2001.
• Animated adventures.
• Duration: 95 minutes.
• IMDb: 6, 9.

Young scientist Milo Tetch dreams of finding the disappeared Atlantis without a trace. And one day he gets a chance to unravel the mystery of an ancient civilization, and even as part of a high-class team on board a submarine ship.

In the official lists of Disney princesses, Kid, the daughter of the ruler of Atlantis, was not included, despite belonging to royal blood. Perhaps the matter is in the atypical image of the girl: a tattooed warrior simply would not fit into the company of conservative beauties. And the cartoon itself collected very little at the box office and was undeservedly forgotten.

9. Anastasia

• USA, 1997.
• Musical tale, adventure.
• Duration: 94 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 2.

The sinister Rasputin brings trouble to the family of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas, but the imperial daughter Anastasia miraculously manages to survive. Only at the same time the girl loses her memory. Many years later, the heroine tries to remember who she is, and meets the young adventurer Dmitry. Together they go to Paris to the Empress Maria Feodorovna, who promises to reward the one who brings her missing granddaughter to her. But they do not even suspect that Anastasia is the very princess.

Many people mistakenly consider Anastasia a Disney princess, but this is not so: the cartoon was filmed at the 20th Century Fox studio under the direction of the talented animator Don Blute ("Earth Before Time", "All Dogs Go to Heaven"). And, of course, one cannot speak of any historical reliability here. For example, the October Revolution, according to the version of the creators, was allegedly provoked by Rasputin, who sold his soul to the dark forces. But the rest of the Americans can and should be praised: they quite succeeded in recreating the Russian spirit and manners in the picture.

10. The princess and the frog

• USA, 2009.
• Musical tale, adventure.
• Duration: 97 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 1.

Purposeful but poor girl Tiana is forced to work day and night. She dreams of opening her own restaurant one day and thus fulfilling the dream of her late father. At a dance evening hosted by a friend, the heroine meets the prince of Maldonia Naveen, whom the evil voodoo wizard turned into a frog. Naveen asks Tiana to kiss him in order to remove the witchcraft spell. But something goes wrong, and the girl also becomes a frog.

It was the penultimate full-length cartoon by the Walt Disney studio in the technique of classical animation, which at that time was already considered an almost extinct genre. Serious competition in the box office also played a role, and in general the audience lost interest in the traditional "manual" technique: all the attention of the audience was taken by the three-dimensional projects of the Pixar and Dreamworks studios.

11. Rapunzel: A Tangled Story

• USA, 2010.
• Musical tale, adventure.
• Duration: 100 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 7.

A princess named Rapunzel is born with magical golden hair. The insidious Gothel learns about their wonderful properties. She kidnaps a child from the family and locks it in a tower and at the same time pretends to be the girl's mother. Thanks to Rapunzel's hair, a woman has been able to look young for many years. Only now the princess is growing and increasingly wants to see the world around her with her own eyes. And one day an unexpected guest appears, ready to help her with this.

The original fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm was going to be adapted during Walt Disney's lifetime. But this idea was realized only in our days. The result was excellent: the graphics were superbly worked on, the characters look lively and charming, the story is well written, and there is also a lot of good humor.

12. Brave at heart

• USA, 2012.
• Musical tale, fantasy, adventure.
• Duration: 93 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 1.

The young Scottish princess Merida loves most of all to spend time in the woods, practicing archery. But it is suddenly revealed that Queen Elinor is about to marry her daughter. The girl is not at all thrilled with this idea. She runs away, meets the witch and asks her to somehow enchant her mother, but does not specify how exactly.

For Pixar, which has long established itself as a symbol of quality in modern animation, Braveheart was the first cartoon in the fantasy genre. True, the heroine in him is not quite ordinary: she is not going to be a reference princess and get married. The plot doesn't even include a traditional love story. But the picture pays a lot of attention to the analysis of the difficult relationship between the mother and the growing daughter.

13. Ralph

• USA, 2012.
• Animated adventures.
• Duration: 101 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 7.

Good-natured hulk Ralph works as a villain in an arcade toy. The problem is that colleagues in the game treat the hero very badly and do not invite him to parties. Then the thug goes in search of recognition in a nearby slot machine.

This wonderful cartoon will appeal to everyone, but most of all to gamers in love with arcade retro. It would seem, what does the princess have to do with it, but one of them will definitely have an important role in the plot.

14. Frozen

• USA, 2013.
• Musical tale, fantasy, adventure.
• Duration: 102 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 5.

Sisters Elsa and Anna grew up in the same castle, but hardly spoke to each other. This is due to the magical ability of the first to create ice and snow, which the heroine cannot always control. Therefore, she has to carefully hide her gift from others.

Relationships between the girls seem to begin to improve on the day of Elsa's coronation, but circumstances are such that the new queen accidentally reveals her abilities, gets scared and runs away. The whole country is engulfed in a terrible blizzard. Princess Anne goes to help her sister, taking Kristoff an ice pick as an assistant.

Walt Disney himself planned to film "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen, but during the life of the founder, the studio was never able to bring his idea to life. It was possible to do this only now. True, the original fairy tale was so rethought that it is almost impossible to find out in it the story of how the girl Gerda went on a journey to save a childhood friend.

Nevertheless, the experience turned out to be successful: the new version of "The Snow Queen" was loved all over the world, and the catchy song "Let Go and Forget" practically went viral.