Disney+ is still the top streaming service for families. The amount of kid-friendly offerings is unprecedented. No other streaming service can compete with Disney’s library of family programming. The possibilities are endless, from Pixar and Marvel to Star Wars and Disney animation.
This spring marks the arrival of Mufasa: The Lion King, an origin story of how Simba’s father became king of the Pride Lands. Mufasa was a smash hit at the box office at the end of 2024, and now it can be watched repeatedly on Disney+. Find Mufasa and other Disney+ titles below.
Need more recommendations? Then check out the best new movies to stream this week, the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on Max, and the best movies on Disney+.
Before Simba became the king of the Pride Lands, his father had to ascend to the throne in Mufasa: The Lion King. After a flood separates him from his parents, Mufasa (Aaron Pierre) befriends Taka (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), a young lion prince. Taka’s mother, Queen Eshe (Thandiwe Newton), takes Mufasa in, and he grows up with the family. Despite being an outsider, Mufasa slowly becomes an integral member of the royal family. It all leads to a life-changing exchange between Mufasa and Taka that will set them on different paths, with one becoming king and the other becoming the treacherous uncle from The Lion King.
11-year-old Alexander Garcia (Thom Nemer) goes from a tough day to a horrifying excursion in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip. Alexander and his family — including mom Val (Eva Longoria), dad Frank (Jesse Garcia), teen sister Mia (Paulina Chávez), Grandma Lidia (Rose Portillo), and Grandpa Gil (Cheech Marin) — pack their bags and head to Mexico City in an RV.
The trip quickly becomes a nightmare. Everything that can go wrong does. The family blames their misfortunes on a cursed idol that brings them bad luck. The group must return the idol to its rightful place to reverse the curse.
Before Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart rebooted the franchise, Jumanji belonged to the late Robin Williams. Judy (Kirsten Dunst) and Peter Shepherd (Bradley Pierce) discover a board game, Jumanji, after moving into a vacant mansion with their aunt. The siblings quickly find out that the game has magical powers, especially when Alan Parrish (Robin Williams) is freed from captivity.
Nearly 30 years ago, Alan got stuck inside the game while playing with a friend. Alan is not the only thing freed, as the jungle’s many animals infiltrate the real world. The only way to stop the game is to keep playing. However, Alan must recruit the same friend, Sarah Whittle (Bonnie Hunt), who played with him the day he disappeared. It’s her turn to roll the dice.
You’ve never seen The Lion King like this before. The 2019 version is a photorealistically animated version of the 1994 movie. Don’t worry, it’s still the same story with the iconic hit songs. In the Pride Lands, King Mufasa (James Earl Jones) and Queen Sarabi (Alfre Woodard) rule the kingdom, and their son, Simba (Donald Glover), will one day inherit the crown.
However, Mufasa’s younger brother, Scar (Chiwetel Ejiofor), has his own plans for the throne, which involve exiling Simba from Pride Rock. After being rescued by Timon (Billy Eichner) and Pumbaa (Seth Rogen), Simba grows up with a carefree lifestyle. When Scar’s tyrannical reign threatens the Pride Lands, Simba must embrace his destiny and return home to claim his kingdom.
Life is most certainly a highway in Cars, Pixar’s animated movie that imagines a world of anthropomorphic vehicles. Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) is a hotshot rookie race car who dreams of becoming a champion. While traveling to an important race, Lightning accidentally destroys the main road of the desolate town of Radiator Springs, Arizona.
As punishment, Lightning must repave the road. Lightning gets more than he bargained for after meeting the town’s judge, Doc Hudson (Paul Newman), a jaded car who used to be a talented racer. As he spends more time in Radiator Springs, Lightning bonds with the townspeople, including Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) and Sally (Bonnie Hunt). Perhaps there is more to life than racing than Lightning originally thought.
It’s been a huge year for The Wizard of Oz thanks to the popularity of Wicked. While Wicked depicts the inception of the witches, Oz the Great and Powerful highlights the origins of the man who will one day become the Wizard of Oz. Oscar Diggs (James Franco) is a magician and con artist working for a traveling circus in Kansas.
While riding in a hot air balloon, Oscar is swept away in a tornado, which takes him to the magical world of Oz. In Oz, Oscar is mistaken for the powerful wizard who has been prophesized to become king after defeating the Wicked Witch. However, three wizards — Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz), and Glinda (Michelle Williams) — are skeptical of Oscar, who must prove he’s worthy of such a great title.
One of the best Disney Channel original movies from the late 1990s is Halloweentown. Imagine an area dedicated to ghouls, ghosts, and witches all year round. That’s Halloweentown, a secret world where these creatures live away from humans. Marnie (Kimberly J. Brown) and her two siblings are surprised to learn that their grandmother Aggie (Debbie Reynolds) is secretly a witch living in Halloweentown. Marnie also learns her family comes from a long line of witches, including Aggie. Marnie is a witch too, who must learn to master her powers before her 18th birthday. She’ll have to do it fast because Halloweentown needs her powers in a battle against a sinister evil.
Dan is a passionate and multitalented content creator with experience in pop culture, entertainment, and sports. Throughout his career, Dan has been a writer, broadcaster, podcaster, editor, and social media manager. At Digital Trends, Dan covers film and television, from reviewing upcoming projects to interviewing actors and directors. Outside of Digital Trends, he has been an Oscar prognosticator since 2016 as well as a sportswriter with a special concentration in New York professional sports. Dan is still waiting for the New York Knicks to win a championship, but unfortunately, he will have to wait a lot longer for this dream to become a reality.
Blair Marnell has been an entertainment journalist for over 15 years. His bylines have appeared in Wizard Magazine, Geek Monthly, SYFY Wire, Superhero Hype, Collider, DC Universe, and the official sites for Star Trek and Marvel. He also lends his pop culture expertise to Digital Trends on a variety of TV, movie, and streaming features.
Holden is a writer with a focus on streaming service guides. He has also written content for Screen Rant and FanSided and is eagerly anticipating every Star Wars series set to debut in the coming years.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.