By Jocelyn Buhlman
Let’s face it: Dinosaurs are awesome. We don’t need an excuse to celebrate how cool our favorite Disney dinos are, but we have an extra reason to roar today: 20 years ago in 2000, the animated film Dinosaur debuted in theaters. In addition to being a landmark film for its state-of-the-art computer character animation combined with digitally enhanced live-action backgrounds, Dinosaur reminds us how just plain fun stories about dinos can be. To celebrate this milestone anniversary, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite animated Disney dinos who you can watch on Disney+ right now.
Dinosaur (2000)
What better way to start off our roundup than with the film we’re celebrating? Dinosaur follows the adventure of Aladar, an Iguanodon originally raised by lemurs before reuniting with his own kind. As the film’s title promises, you get to meet all kinds of cretaceous creatures during this daring adventure, including a Brachiosaurus, a Styracosaurus, and the dreaded Carnotaurus!
Fantasia (1940)
Fantastic music and animation come together to make the magic of Fantasia—and while some sequences take viewers to amazing worlds of myth and fantasy, the “Rite of Spring” sequence takes us back in time to when dinosaurs roamed the earth—and they didn’t always get along. One the sequence’s most iconic images is the epic battle between the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Stegosaurus.
The Toy Story Films
Dinosaur fans, you’ve got a friend in all four Toy Story films—specifically, a friend named Rex. You’ll never catch the loveable, green T-Rex starting fights or roaring loud—he’d rather just play video games and stay out of trouble. If you want double the dino fun, make sure to watch Toy Story 3 and Toy Story 4, which include Trixie the Triceratops, a fun-loving dinosaur toy who shares Rex’s love of video games.
Meet the Robinsons (2007)
This charming story fills us with optimism for the future—it’s a reminder to keep moving forward to see what comes next…. and sometimes what comes next are dinosaurs! Well… maybe that’s not what the movie was trying to tell us, but we do appreciate seeing Tiny the T-Rex cause hilarious havoc during the course of the film. First used for nefarious purposes by the mysterious Bowler Hat Guy, Tiny eventually becomes a friend—with tiny arms, a big head, and an even bigger place in our hearts.
The Good Dinosaur (2015)
The Toy Story films aren’t the only Disney and Pixar films featuring some darling dinos. The Good Dinosaur, as the name suggests, is full of extremely good dinosaurs. From Arlo the Apatosaurus and Butch the Tyrannosaurus Rex to Bubbha the Velociraptor, you are guaranteed to enjoy a variety of dinosaur characters while you follow Arlo’s adventure in an alternate timeline where dinosaurs and humans lived side by side.
