Sleeping Beauty
1 Oscar Nominations·National Film Registry
Rent/Purchase
Cursed to die by the evil fairy Maleficent when she was a baby, Princess Aurora is sent into hiding under protection from three good fairies. As she grows up far away, Maleficent becomes increasingly determined to seal the princess's fate.
What critics thought
Critics in 1959 were sharply divided: nearly everyone marveled at the visual ambition — the widescreen compositions, bold graphic style, and Maleficent — but a striking number felt the human characters were thin and the story too close to Snow White to stand fully on its own. Reputation has grown considerably since, with later critics treating it as a high-water mark of Disney's postwar aesthetic, though the charge that it dazzles the eye while leaving the heart relatively untouched has never fully disappeared.
“the colors are rich, the sounds are luscious and magic sparkles spurt charmingly from wands”
Bosley Crowther·The New York Times
“Even the drawing in Sleeping Beauty is crude: a compromise between sentimental, crayon-book childishness and the sort of cute, commercial cubism that tries to seem daring but is really just square.”
Time
“the masterpiece of the Disney Studios' postwar style”
Dave Kehr·Chicago Reader
“far more magnificent, far more advanced, it does not touch the heart as did Snow White.”
Lorna Carroll·St. Petersburg Times
Genres
Adventure, Animation, Family
Cast & Crew
DirectorClyde Geronimi
StarringMary Costa, Bill Shirley, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Barbara Luddy
ComposerGeorge Bruns
Sleeping Beauty
1 Oscar Nominations·National Film Registry
Cursed to die by the evil fairy Maleficent when she was a baby, Princess Aurora is sent into hiding under protection from three good fairies. As she grows up far away, Maleficent becomes increasingly determined to seal the princess's fate.
What critics thought
Critics in 1959 were sharply divided: nearly everyone marveled at the visual ambition — the widescreen compositions, bold graphic style, and Maleficent — but a striking number felt the human characters were thin and the story too close to Snow White to stand fully on its own. Reputation has grown considerably since, with later critics treating it as a high-water mark of Disney's postwar aesthetic, though the charge that it dazzles the eye while leaving the heart relatively untouched has never fully disappeared.
“the colors are rich, the sounds are luscious and magic sparkles spurt charmingly from wands”
Bosley Crowther·The New York Times
“Even the drawing in Sleeping Beauty is crude: a compromise between sentimental, crayon-book childishness and the sort of cute, commercial cubism that tries to seem daring but is really just square.”
Time
“the masterpiece of the Disney Studios' postwar style”
Dave Kehr·Chicago Reader
“far more magnificent, far more advanced, it does not touch the heart as did Snow White.”
Lorna Carroll·St. Petersburg Times
Genres
Adventure, Animation, Family
Cast & Crew
DirectorClyde Geronimi
StarringMary Costa, Bill Shirley, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Barbara Luddy
ComposerGeorge Bruns
Rent/Purchase