The new Disney movie Disenchanted stumbles in plenty of ways, but one thing it does right is bother to ask what happens after “happily ever after”—particularly as it pertains to that most durable of contemporary heroines, the Disney Princess. Dismissed as antifeminist, then reclaimed as plenty feminist; pilloried for lack of diversity, then diversified; and stubbornly beloved pretty much the whole time by children everywhere, the Disney Princesses have been through a lot over the past century. Now Amy Adams has to bring middle-aged regrets onto their plates! Disenchanted’s rivalry between a former princess and a suburban mom turned sorta-evil queen also raises the question of pitting princesses against each other in pointless, pitiless battle. So let’s think about what makes a great Disney princess, and rank them all on one free-for-all list!
As with any royal undertaking, there must be ground rules, declared by fiat: First, this list will go beyond the scope of the officially recognized Disney Princesses Product Line, because we’re not soulless monsters. Second, because maybe we are no soulless monsters, no television-only princesses will be permitted. No disrespect meant to Elena of Avalor or Sofia the First, but their mythologies are simply too complicated to warrant consideration alongside the stars of 70-minute features. Third, live-action reincarnations of previously animated princesses will not count as separate entries, or even at all, because those Disney remakes are mostly just VR karaoke—pretenders to the throne, in other words. Finally, princesses now owned by Disney because of acquisition do not count, except for one specific sort-of-exception to be named during the list.
Here is every Disney princess, ranked:
22. Eilonwy (The Black Cauldron)
Just because this movie nearly destroyed Disney Animation for good doesn’t mean its princess should be stricken from the record! Eilonwy, who meets the weak-willed hero during his slow and underpopulated search for his all-powerful pig (this is a boring, bad movie), sets sort of a Luna Lovegood model of the serenely loopy English-accented quasi-mystic (she follows around a glowing bauble). It’s a likable and even welcome variation on the princess type, but this character is really given her due in the Chronicles of Prydain books that Disney bastardized to make The Black Cauldron. In this telling, her fashion (and bone-structure) bites heavily from the non-royal get-up of #21—meaning even her blatant thievery is on the bland side. The best thing about this version of Eilonwy is that she likely wouldn’t get too fussed about placing last on the list.
21. Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)
The sweet nature of the old-school Disney Princesses has probably gotten a bad rap in recent years; a female character doesn’t need to be a badass warrior to be some little girl’s hero, and the kindness of a character like Cinderella should not be underestimated. That said: Is Aurora from Sleeping Beauty good, or merely, in the Stephen Sondheim distinction of the word, nice?
20. Mia Thermopolis (The Princess Diaries; The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement)
People love Anne Hathaway’s gawky-to-glam makeover in the Princess Diaries movies so much that she may yet get roped into doing a decades-later third installment. Hathaway certainly showed off an early form of her star power in these typically cutesy Garry Marshall comedies, but the damage she did to the curly-haired and thick-browed communities cannot be overestimated.
19. Dejah Thoris (John Carter)
Fun fact: Disney’s legendarily massive financial bomb John Carter was based on a book called A Princess of Mars, a vastly cooler title that was dropped out of the company’s fear that it would alienate male moviegoers. (A year and change later, Frozen alienated male moviegoers to the tune of $400 million domestic.) Lynn Collins doesn’t exactly give a galvanizing performance as Dejah; she wears some cool outfits, resists betrothal, and gets into it with the strapping designated hero. But it’s novel to see an accidental version of a Disney Princess given the high-fantasy treatment.
18. Snow White (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs)
There’s a clear subservience streak to Snow White that rankles, even when re-re-evaluating the Disney Princess canon; she’s kind and gracious to be sure, but the degree to which she commits herself to upholding the domesticity of seven messy bachelors feels a tad regressive. She feels like the type of princess it would be hard to converse with—that she would keep distracting herself with busying little chores, hums and animal-tending. Style-wise, though, she is on point, less for the much-vaunted whiteness of her skin than the ebony-black tone of her hair and the rose-red tone of her lips.
17. Cinderella (Cinderella)
Pretty much all of the humans in Cinderella are handily upstaged by the mice, and while that’s true of the heroine too, you have to give Cinderella some credit: The reason her home is overrun with adorable vermin to begin with is her gentle, possibly slightly touched way with animals. This is a lady who keeps small mouse-sized clothing on hand in her drawer, in order to civilize the tiny rodents constantly scampering, naked and fearful, underneath her feet. Come to think of it, if anything, Cinderella is kind of a Not-So-Manic Pixie Dream Girl, or, as they used to be known, a local eccentric. Which is actually pretty cool as far as royalty goes. We can only imagine what kind of bonkers royal decrees she made once she got inside the palace—expensive initiatives to cloth all the mice and drown all the fattest cats, that sort of thing.
16. Kida (Atlantis: The Lost Empire)
The female lead of Disney’s adventure story Atlantis: The Lost Empire is probably the most-forgotten princess this side of The Black Cauldron, though that’s not for lack of a memorable design, influenced by comic book artist Mike Mignola, who worked on the film. Kida is undoubtedly the only Disney Princess with long white hair and dangling bangs; she’s also got a certain amount of seniority, being nearly 9,000 years old. It feels a little condescending, though, that the movie’s adventurer-nerd hero has to explain so many of the lost city’s secrets to a millennials-old member of its royal family—and then save her from her own chosen-one status, albeit one that brings in some more distinctive design work.
15. Ariel (The Little Mermaid)
You gotta hand it to her: Girl goes after what she wants. She also gives voice to the frustrations of millions of young people the world over by asking, in song: “When’s it my turn?” Obviously Princess Ariel didn’t actually write the greatest-ever “I want” song, but it’s such a major part of Disney Princess lore that you kind of have to credit Ariel (and her voice, memorably provided by Jodi Benson) for the “Part of Your World” effect.
14. Giselle (Enchanted; Disenchanted)
Amy Adams has brought an inherent sunniness to a number of her roles, including the Junebug breakout that likely got her the necessary attention to win the part of Giselle, but you wouldn’t necessarily look at her filmography and think “Disney Princess incarnate.” Her characters in The Master, Her, Arrival, American Hustle and Big Eyes (or, for that matter, to pick one of her worst movies, Hillbilly Elegy) are imbued with different forms of subtle, aching sadness, and it’s a tribute to her skill as an actor that she can somehow seem like a natural fit to play a cartoon princess in Enchanted, and then bring such depth of feeling to the role—twice, no less! If these movies were better-written, Giselle would likely rank even higher; Adams beautifully navigates the perilous optimism of importing fairy-tale values into the harsh light of day. But the movies’ sense of that reality, and even of the fairy-tale rules Giselle is supposed to be operating on, often feels a bit water-y and underdeveloped. It’s a great princess performance in search of better material.
13. Pocahontas (Pocahontas)
Disney’s first post-Lion King feature was a bid for respectability that wasn’t especially well-received then, and has plenty that makes it seem worse now, including a both-sides-ing of the conflict between Native tribes and English colonizers. Accordingly, both the movie and its heroine have receded a bit from the Disney Princess line-up over the years, and it makes sense. But in retrospect, Pocahontas also blazed a trail for more modern Disney Princess figures—call it the “daughter-of-the-chief model” that informs the likes of Moana and Raya—and the character herself doesn’t need to be discounted just because she’s in a clumsy (if beautifully animated!) movie co-starring Mel Gibson. Also, on the music front, she sings “Colors of the Wind,” which remains a banger.
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