Since the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, Disney has contributed some of the best, and most memorable, animated films in the history of cinema. With a catalog so vast and lucrative, it should come as no surprise that the studio eventually began to produce live-action remakes of their beloved animated films, introducing new generations to decades' worth of classics, reimagined in an entirely new way.

Unfortunately, while a few, like 2016's The Jungle Book, are actually decent, the majority of these remakes are inferior imitations that fail to capture what made the original films so beloved to begin with. Some feature weak CGI that pales in comparison to the beautiful hand-drawn animation of Disney's older films, while others contain odd story tweaks that can make them feel overly long. These are the 10 most obnoxious Disney live-action remakes, ranked based on how watchable they are.

10 'The Little Mermaid' (2023)

Directed by Rob Marshall

Ariel, played by Halle Bailey, reaches out her hand while swimming upwards in 'The Little Mermaid'.
Image via Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

In the grand scheme of things, the 2023 remake of 1989's The Little Mermaid isn't all that bad. Halle Bailey is well-cast as Ariel, notably nailing her rendition of "Part Of Your World", while Melissa McCarthy is fantastic as Ursula, bringing an appropriate amount of bombast to the villainous sea witch. However, while The Little Mermaid may be on the stronger side of Disney's live-action remakes, it still falls victim to many of the obnoxious tendencies of its weaker efforts.

For one, the film is needlessly long, making it drag in its latter half. The original film ran at a brisk 83 minutes, and while its understandable that a live-action interpretation would run longer, the remake adds nearly an hour to the original's runtime, despite making few meaningful changes to its fairly basic story. The CGI is also rough in a way that can be difficult to watch, especially underwater, where much of the film's first act is set. Most obnoxious of all, though, is the song "The Scuttlebutt", a new addition to the soundtrack written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Miranda has written some great hits for Disney, but "The Scuttlebutt" ranks among the studio's worst songs; an annoying, totally unnecessary addition to a classic film which, initially, had no bad songs. Again, as a whole, The Little Mermaid isn't a horrible movie, but it has some truly obnoxious moments that stand out in a bad way.

9 'Beauty and the Beast' (2017)

Directed by Bill Condon

Belle, played by Emma Watson, holds hands with the Beast, played by Dan Stevens, in 'Beauty and the Beast'.
Image via Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

The original Beauty and the Beast is a highly-regarded classic from Disney's renaissance, even becoming the first animated film to ever be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Unfortunately, its 2017 remake fails to find any of the magic that made the original so beloved upon its initial release. From inferior renditions of iconic songs like "Be Our Guest", to uninteresting additions to the plot, including more information regarding the Beast's (Dan Stevens) childhood, 2017's Beauty and the Beast is a remake that fails to justify its own existence.

Much of what made the original great was grounded in its status as an animated film. The imagery was vibrant and beautiful, allowing numbers like "Be Our Guest" to pop in a way that the muted color palette of the remake doesn't fully allow. However, while the visual style of the newer film actively holds back many of its scenes, that's not its most obnoxious aspect. That distinction belongs to the various, totally needless changes made that bloat the film's runtime. Audiences don't need to know that Belle's (Emma Watson) mother (Zoe Rainey) died of the plague, nor do they need a wordless break in the middle of "Gaston" to watch Gaston (Luke Evans) and his buddies dance around the bar when the scene already contained plenty of that in the first place. It all feels overly self-indulgent, making it a particularly obnoxious Disney remake.

8 'Maleficent: Mistress of Evil' (2019)

Directed by Joachim Rønning

Maleficent, played by Angelina Jolie, looks menacing in 'Maleficent: Mistress of Evil'.
Image via Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is a sequel to 2014's Maleficent, a live-action remake of 1959's Sleeping Beauty, only told from the perspective of its villain, the Dark Fairy Maleficent (Angelina Jolie). However, while the first movie was at least a unique twist on its source material, its sequel is an overly extravagant, boring mess that adds far too much to a story that was never all that interesting to begin with.

Chief among Mistress of Evil's flaws is that, while the first film was closely tied to Sleeping Beauty, the sequel attempts to expand upon Maleficent's story by shifting focus to a war between fairies and humans. It takes itself far too seriously with little room for any sort of fun. On top of that, the writing is poor, meaning that none of the characters truly make an impact despite the presence of talented performers like Jolie and Michelle Pfeiffer. Maleficent would have been a fine standalone, but Mistress of Evil is an obnoxiously unnecessary addition to the lore that really has no reason to exist.

7 'Alice in Wonderland' (2010)

Directed by Tim Burton

Mad Hatter, played by Johnny Depp, smiles in 'Alice in Wonderland'.
Image via Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

In theory, Tim Burton was the perfect director to bring the world of 1951's Alice in Wonderland to life in live-action. With the release of films like Batman, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Nightmare Before Christmas (which he produced, but didn't direct), Burton had become associated with a distinct visual style that would seemingly lend itself well to the wild and wacky world of Wonderland. Unfortunately, while the 2010 film is a visual spectacle, largely thanks to Burton's direction, it is also severely weakened by many of his other directorial tendencies.

A number of baffling choices were made during the production of Alice in Wonderland, but perhaps the most obnoxious is its complete disregard for the beautiful aesthetics present in the original. While the hand-drawn world of the 1951 film is bright and vivid, the CGI fantasy landscape present in the remake is drab and dull, featuring muted colors and forests of dead trees, sharply contrasting with what fans of the property were hoping for, and making for a visually forgettable final product. The characters also needlessly differ from the source material, with Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter being perhaps the single worst character in any of the live-action remakes. The dreary visuals and strange character choices make Alice in Wonderland an obnoxiously contrarian spin on the original story, easily earning the film its reputation as one of the worst live-action remakes Disney has made so far.

6 'Aladdin' (2019)

Directed by Guy Ritchie

Aladdin, played by Mena Massoud, and Genie, played by Will Smith, stand side-by-side in royal attire in 'Aladdin'.
Image via Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

1992's Aladdin is a renaissance classic featuring a solid plot, unforgettable characters and some of the best songs in Disney's long history. The 2019 live-action remake stays mostly true to the original and should be great, yet it's actually a vastly inferior film, bogged down by terrible CGI, bizarre casting choices and strange creative decisions that make it a far more obnoxious movie to watch than the one it's based on.

A huge part of the original film's appeal was the improvised comedic genius of the late Robin Williams. As Genie, Williams injected a ton of his signature sense of humor into the film, making it the funniest Disney movie released at the time by a fair margin. Will Smith plays Genie in the remake, and while there are moments where his performance works, he is nowhere near as comedically talented as Williams, and many of his lines are more likely to induce a cringe than a laugh. Another more obnoxious aspect of the remake is its music. In the original, fan-favorites like "A Whole New World" and "Prince Ali" were written as traditional musical numbers, but in the remake, each and every song is given slight tweaks that make them sound more like pop songs than before, making it clear just how aggressively commercial the remake really is. It should have been great, but instead, Aladdin stands as one of the most obnoxiously bad Disney remakes.

5 'Pinocchio' (2022)

Directed by Robert Zemeckis

Pinocchio, voiced by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, holds hands with Geppetto, played by Tom Hanks, in 'Pinocchio'.
Image via Disney+

1940's Pinocchio was only Disney's second animated film, but it is still widely regarded as one of their best. Over eighty years later, its live-action remake is generally viewed as Disney's worst. There are plenty of good reasons for this, from the weird-looking CGI, to underwhelming performances and, like many movies on this list, unnecessary additions to the plot in the form of new songs and additional characters, but certain aspects of the film stand out as more obnoxious than others.

Tom Hanks is an excellent actor, and he has delivered some of the finest performances in cinema history during his decades-spanning year. Geppetto is not one of these performances. In fact, Hanks' portrayal of the title puppet's creator is shockingly weak, featuring some terrible accent work that the actor only seems half committed to, and two ear-grating musical numbers. Aside from Hanks' uncharacteristically weak performance, the film's CGI is a nagging weakness, especially when fully animated characters as prominent as Jiminy Cricket (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) look out of place and jarring when compared to their real-life surroundings. It all makes the viewer question why they even tried in the first place, making Pinocchio a particularly obnoxious live-action remake.

4 'Lady and the Tramp' (2019)

Directed by Charlie Bean

Lady, voiced by Tessa Thompson, and Tramp, voiced by Justin Theroux, kiss in 'Lady and the Tramp'.
Image via Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

While many of Disney's earliest memorable releases, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella and Peter Pan, were based on fairy tales and fantasy literature, 1955's Lady and the Tramp was somewhat of an exception to the rule, being a slice-of-life story based on a story written by Ward Greene in the magazine Cosmopolitan. 2019's Lady and the Tramp is yet another failed attempt at remaking a classic film, as it lacks the spirit of the original.

It is exceedingly obnoxious that Disney continues to make live-action remakes with entirely CGI animal protagonists. The original Lady and the Tramp worked largely because of how expressive the animation style was; Lady (Barbara Luddy) and Tramp (Larry Roberts) felt more human because they could emote in human ways, making them more sympathetic protagonists. In the remake, since it's set in the real world with actual people, the dogs are animated to look as close to reality as possible, losing their expressiveness in the process, and diluting the film's emotional impact. The remake also loses some of what made the original stand out tonally by adding melodrama to moments that were understated before. It's one of the worst Disney remakes, but there are more obnoxious ones out there.

3 'Dumbo' (2019)

Directed by Tim Burton

Dumbo the elephant and many members of the cast look ahead in 'Dumbo'.
Image via Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

2019's Dumbo was Tim Burton's second time in the director's chair for a Disney live-action remake. Unfortunately, it was also his second misfire, lacking any of the spirit of the 1941 film and once again leaning far too heavily into his own style. In the remake, Dumbo can no longer speak, with much of the story's emotional weight coming from sad looks and a cast of entirely new human characters. This new approach could be interesting, but the execution is so poor that it is a tedious watch, especially when compared to the original.

Much like Alice in Wonderland, Dumbo's most obnoxious trait is that it strays so far from the source material. It hits the basic story beats, but it presents them in deeply unsatisfying ways (notably "Pink Elephants on Parade") while bloating its runtime with its uninteresting human characters. Making matters worse is the fact that the script is painfully uninspired, with dialogue so bland that not even actors like Michael Keaton and Danny DeVito can save it. Had Burton made a film that was more faithful to the original, but allowed Dumbo more space to further develop as a character, it could have been a very memorable Disney remake, but instead, his version of the classic film is an obnoxious reimagining that lacks the emotional staying power of its precursor.

2 'Alice Through the Looking Glass' (2016)

Directed by James Bobin

Mad Hatter, played by Johnny Depp, looks confused in 'Alice Through the Looking Glass'.
Image via Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

While 2010's Alice in Wonderland was a bad film, it was also a financial hit, grossing more than $1 billion at the box office, and eventually leading to the creation of a sequel six years later. Sadly, while Alice in Wonderland could easily be written-off as a flawed experiment that just didn't quite work, its sequel, Alice Through the Looking Glass, almost seems to be a product of its filmmakers ignoring the criticism of the first movie, instead doubling down on its many flaws to create an even worse film.

The one thing that Through the Looking Glass does right is that it does offer viewers a peak at a version of Wonderland, or Underland as it's known within this continuity, with far more color and life. Aside from that, though, the film is a complete mess, largely due to its plot. There's a heavy focus on time-travel now, as Alice (Mia Wasikowska) seeks to save Mad Hatter's (Johnny Depp) family in the past in order to prevent his impending death in the present. The time-travel elements feel out-of-place, and a heavier spotlight is given to Depp's interpretation of Mad Hatter, which is even more off-putting the second time around. This sequel absolutely did not have to happen, and it's a shame that it obnoxiously doubles down on some of the worst parts of its predecessor, rather than learning from its mistakes.

1 'The Lion King' (2019)

Directed by Jon Favreau

Baby Simba is lifted by Rafiki, voiced by John Kani, in 'The Lion King'.
Image via Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

2019's The Lion King is one of the most faithful live-action Disney remakes. Much of the dialogue is lifted straight from the original, most of the songs sound nearly unchanged from their original compositions and few new characters or musical numbers are added, ensuring that, in theory at least, watching the remake is a very similar experience to watching the original. Unfortunately, while very similar, The Lion King is massively inferior to the 1994 film as a result of its constant battle with its new art style.

Like the 2019 remake of Lady and the Tramp, The Lion King replaces the expressive 2D animation of the original with impressive, realistic CGI that unfortunately leaves Simba (JD McCrary and Donald Glover) and his friends looking emotionless throughout the film. Committing to a realistic art style, especially in a setting devoid of humans, is an exceedingly bizarre choice that makes it impossible to recommend the remake over the original. Scenes like Simba reacting to the death of his father, Mufasa (James Earl Jones), simply don't hit as hard when the vocal performance feels so disconnected from what is visible onscreen. The fact that it completely misses the mark despite the strong foundation it's built on makes The Lion King the most obnoxious live-action Disney remake.

NEXT: The 10 Biggest Disney Disappointments of the 2010s, Ranked