The 15 best films on Disney Plus to watch in February 2026
From an underrated 2025 film to a Denzel Washington classic, these are the best movies on Disney Plus
Disney Plus has some of the most iconic and best films ever made, and these are the greatest movies you should check out in February.
After all, how do you pick between the vast multitudes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, every Star Wars film, countless other franchises, and a broad library of horrors, rom-coms, dramas, and more?
If you’ve already burned through the best movies of 2025 and now you’re scrolling through the House of Mouse’s catalogue, don’t worry. We’ve rounded up and ranked the 15 best films on Disney Plus right now.
The best movies on Disney Plus
Ella McCay
- Genre: Comedy, Drama
- Year: 2025 (on Disney Plus from February 5)
- Cast: Emma Mackey, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Lowden, Woody Harrelson
- Director: James L. Brooks
- Runtime: 1 hour 55 minutes
What it’s about: At 34 years old, Ella McCay unexpectedly becomes the governor of the state she was born and raised in, forcing her to juggle her family and work life like never before.
Why to watch: Ella McCay didn’t get good reviews last year. It also flopped hard. And yet, it’s on this list – and not just because it’s a new addition to the platform. For the most part, it’s a sweet, grown-up comedy worthy a few sharp nasal affirmations – plus, it has one of the strongest casts you could dream up in your head. It’s also endearingly optimistic; sometimes, it’s just nice to be nice.
Man on Fire
- Genre: Action, Thriller
- Year: 2004
- Cast: Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Christopher Walken
- Director: Tony Scott
- Runtime: 2 hours 26 minutes
What it’s about: A former CIA officer is hired by a wealthy family in Mexico to protect their daughter, Pita, amid a spate of brutal kidnappings. When she’s taken, Creasy promises to do whatever he can to find her – no matter how much blood he needs to shed.
Why to watch: Man on Fire, a violent, exhilarating revenge movie, is Tony Scott and Denzel Washington at their berserk best. Some will say it’s too disorientating (parts were shot with hand-cranked cameras) – they’re weak and don’t deserve cinema like this.
Heat
- Genre: Crime, Thriller
- Year: 1995
- Cast: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer
- Director: Michael Mann
- Runtime: 2 hours 50 minutes
What it’s about: Neil McCauley, the leader of a group of bank robbers who’ve never been caught, plans one last job that will allow him to retire. There’s just one problem: LAPD detective Vincent Hanna is determined to stop him.
Why to watch: Heat is the definitive cops-and-robbers epic: a slick, brutal, and soulful action movie that set a gold standard for cinematic gunplay.
But there’s something deeper beneath the bullets: two men bound by obsession, chasing purpose in a world that only makes sense when they’re on opposite sides.
Finding Nemo
- Genre: Animation, Family
- Year: 2003
- Cast: Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould
- Director: Andrew Stanton
- Runtime: 1 hour 40 minutes
What it’s about: When Nemo swims out beyond the reef to prove himself, he’s abducted by a scuba diver. Marlin, his overprotective father, vows to find him – and he meets Dory, a forgetful fish, along the way.
Why to watch: There’s a moment near the (devastating) start of Finding Nemo where Thomas Newman’s piano creeps in, the harsh moonlight on the rippling water turns to sun, and it feels like the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. It does this multiple times; it’s just a bonus that it has Albert Brooks voicing a fish.
The Star Wars movies
- Genre: Sci-fi, Acton
- Year: 1977 – present
- Cast: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Ewan McGregor, Daisy Ridley
- Directors: George Lucas, Irvin Kershner, Richard Marquand, J.J. Abrams, Rian Johnson
- Runtime: 20 hours 30 minutes
What it’s about: In a galaxy far, far away, the light (good) and dark (evil) sides clash in a decades-long story, starting with Luke Skywalker discovering his destiny as a powerful Jedi.
Why to watch: How do you pick just one Star Wars movie? You could have valid arguments for almost every entry, whether it’s the spellbinding 1977 original, The Empire Strikes Back and its historic twist, the operatic intensity of Revenge of the Sith, or The Last Jedi’s breathtaking, provocative approach to the lore.
They deserve to be bundled together (Attack of the Clones is rubbish, though, so we’re sorry whenever you have to endure that).
Lilo and Stitch
- Genre: Animation, Family
- Year: 2002
- Cast: Daveigh Chase, Chris Sanders, Tia Carrere, Ving Rhames
- Director: Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois
- Runtime: 1 hour 25 minutes
What it’s about: Lilo, a young orphan in Hawaii, makes an unexpected friend: Stitch, a feisty blue alien on the run from the United Galactic Federation.
Why to watch: Lilo and Stitch is arguably Disney’s greatest post-millennium success; if you walk into any of its stores, Stitch plushies are everywhere, and its live-action remake made over $1 billion.
It’s all wholly deserved, because the original is a fun, charming, and richly animated classic. Also, ‘Hawaiian Rollercoaster Ride’ is the best Disney song – talk to the wall!
Little Miss Sunshine
- Genre: Comedy, Drama
- Year: 2006
- Cast: Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Abigail Breslin, Alan Arkin, Greg Kinnear, Paul Dano
- Director: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris
- Runtime: 1 hour 41 minutes
What it’s about: When Olive decides to compete in a beauty pageant, her family embarks on a hectic cross-country trip across the US in a camper van.
Why to watch: Little Miss Sunshine is a delight; an uplifting, dark (but not too dark), and grin-stretchingly outrageous road trip comedy with one of the finest ensemble casts of the aughts. If there are only winners and losers, this is definitely one of the former.
Avengers: Infinity War & Endgame
- Genre: Superhero, Action
- Year: 2018, 2019
- Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Josh Brolin
- Director: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
- Runtime: 5 hours 31 minutes
What it’s about: Thanos vows to balance the universe; in other words, use the Infinity Stones to wipe out half of all living things in the universe. It’s up to the Avengers to stop him, a mission that will change them (and the world) forever.
Why to watch: Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame altered the gravity of pop culture. Across five-and-a-half hours of some of the most rousing superhero filmmaking put to screen, the Marvel Cinematic Universe reached an unassailable peak.
It’ll never see those heights again, but that’s okay; you can just relive that moment with Thor’s hammer.
Titanic
- Genre: Romance, Drama
- Year: 1997
- Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet
- Director: James Cameron
- Runtime: 3 hours 15 minutes
What it’s about: Jack, a poor artist, wins a ticket to board the Titanic, where he meets (and falls in love with) Rose, who’s already agreed to marry another man.
Why to watch: Titanic has a claim to the “best blockbuster of all time” crown; after all, it made James Cameron the king of the box office world.
How can you not be swept up by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet’s chemistry, James Horner’s score, and its devastating inevitability? It’s one of the biggest movies ever made, in budget, scale, and legacy; its heart (and ours) will go on.
The Devil Wears Prada
- Genre: Comedy, Drama
- Year: 2006
- Cast: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt
- Director: David Frankel
- Runtime: 1 hour 49 minutes
What it’s about: Andy, a young aspiring journalist, lands a job as an assistant to Miranda Priestly, New York’s scariest and most demanding fashion editor.
Why to watch: What is a “perfect movie”? Is it a film that’s immaculate in every facet of its being, or is it something that’s so irresistibly entertaining that you could watch it again, again, and again?
The Devil Wears Prada is among the best examples of the latter. Anne Hathaway is fantastic, Emily Blunt is hilarious, the costuming is divine, it’s paced to perfection, and it may be Meryl Streep’s career-defining performance.
Sunshine
- Genre: Sci-fi, Thriller, Horror
- Year: 2007
- Cast: Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Chris Evans
- Director: Danny Boyle
- Runtime: 1 hour 47 minutes
What it’s about: In a not-too-distant future, the Sun is dying. With Earth facing a second Ice Age, a brave team of astronauts embarks on a mission to reignite the star.
Why to watch: Sunshine defies Icarus’ fable by seeing the unseeable, with Danny Boyle creating some of the most awe-inspiring images committed to film. It also has an extraordinary pre-A-list cast, and that’s before we get to John Murphy’s ‘Adagio in D Minor’, perhaps the most powerful piece of movie music ever composed. “What do you see?”
Alien
- Genre: Sci-fi, Horror
- Year: 1979
- Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt
- Director: Ridley Scott
- Runtime: 1 hour 56 minutes
What it’s about: When the crew of the Nostromo respond to a transmission on a faraway moon, things go terribly wrong, pitting them against a dangerous alien life form.
Why to watch: Alien is a true all-timer; an immersive, brooding, viscerally invasive space opera that birthed the most iconic monster in the history of cinema and one of its great heroines.
Rye Lane
- Genre: Romance, Comedy
- Year: 2023
- Cast: David Jonsson, Vivian Oparah
- Director: Raine Allen-Miller
- Runtime: 1 hour 22 minutes
What it’s about: Yas and Dom, two newly single twenty-somethings reeling from bad break-ups, have a chance encounter and end up spending an unusual day walking around South London.
Why to watch: Rye Lane is the best rom-com of the past 10 years; grin-inducing, achingly earnest, and wonderfully performed by two perfect leads.
It’s indebted to the Before trilogy’s winning walk-and-talk-in-a-day, but this still feels original and, best of all, vividly alive. It’s also the best film on BBC iPlayer, if you’re looking for something to watch on another platform.
The Lion King
- Genre: Animation, Drama
- Year: 1994
- Cast: Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Irons, James Earl Jones
- Director: Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff
- Runtime: 1 hour 28 minutes
What it’s about: Simba, a lion cub destined to rule over the animal kingdom, is forced to leave his life behind after an unexpected tragedy. Years later, he returns to face off against his Uncle Scar.
Why to watch: Likening a children’s animated film to Shakespeare may seem like a gross overestimation. However, The Lion King is literally inspired by Hamlet – and, dare we say it, it’s rightly the play’s most popular adaptation.
This is a film that defined (and continues to define) a studio’s quality. Magnificent visuals, soul-tingling music, and quite simply one of the best animated films of all time.
The Toy Story movies
- Genre: Animation
- Year: 1995 – present
- Cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack
- Director: John Lasseter, Lee Unkrich, Josh Cooley
- Runtime: 6 hours 20 minutes
What it’s about: In a world where toys come alive when their owners aren’t looking, Woody is forced to befriend Buzz, Andy’s new favourite plaything. Over four movies, they go on bonkers, emotional adventures together.
Why to watch: Toy Story may be the most iconic franchise in the entire Disney canon. Not only did the first film revolutionise animated filmmaking, but they are all brilliant and beloved.
Don’t just take our word for it, either: Quentin Tarantino said the first three movies make up one of the greatest trilogies ever made, and the only reason he hasn’t watched the fourth is because he cherishes the memory.
That’s a shame, because the fourth – against all odds, including this writer’s scepticism – is a wonderful, touching epilogue. Or so we thought: Toy Story 5 is coming out next year!
Read more: The best series on Disney Plus to stream right now
