Disney+ Review | PCMag

Aside from its classic in-house films, Disney probably owns at least a few other entertainment properties you care about, including Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars. Disney+, the company’s dedicated video streaming service, delivers the vast majority of that content in attractive interfaces with competitive features like 4K streaming, offline downloads, and personalized recommendations. However, you must either pay extra or tolerate ads. If you’re willing to pay even more, you can enjoy content from Hulu without leaving the app. Disney+ will only grow stronger as its original content offerings expand, and—if its ongoing content announcements are any indication—that’s exactly how it plans to take on Max and Netflix.

(Credit: Disney)

What Can You Watch on Disney+?

Disney has been a major media player for a long time, and lately, its growth rate has steadily increased. The company’s 21st Century Fox acquisition added a substantial number of shows and movies to Disney’s arsenal, though Hulu also has numerous shows intended for older audiences. This means that you’ll need both services to watch everything.

On the TV side, Disney+’s library comprises a combination of existing shows and upcoming originals. Some classic Disney shows on the platform include Even Stevens, Gravity Falls, Kim Possible, Lizzie Maguire, Phineas and Ferb, That’s So Raven, and The Suite Life of Zach and Cody. The Simpsons is also available, but other animated programs, such as Bob’s Burgers, Family Guy, Futurama, and King of the Hill, are on Hulu.

Disney+ also offers originals, including Encore!, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, Marvel’s Hero Project, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, The Mandalorian, and WandaVision. Of these, The Mandalorian (because of the Baby Yoda craze) and WandaVision are the most prominent shows. You can also now watch the street-level Marvel shows, such as Daredevil and Jessica Jones, that originally premiered on Netflix.

Disney+ announced that it would launch over a hundred new titles per year (mostly in existing franchises), which is a staggering amount of new content. Still, we would like Disney to move further outside the bounds of its existing content stable. Amazon, Netflix, and Apple TV+ attempt to tell new, compelling stories. Netflix’s Stranger Things, Amazon Prime Video‘s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Apple TV+’s For All Mankind are among the many examples of stellar, completely original show concepts. We also don’t like the staggered schedule of originals. Apple TV+ and Paramount+ employ a similar strategy; this forces consumers to maintain a subscription for the duration of a show’s release cycle. Netflix famously drops entire seasons at once.

The Disney+ movie library does not surpass Amazon Prime, Hul, or Netflix in terms of volume. Still, it’s the way to go if you or your kids dig Disney classics, Pixar animations, Star Wars films, or Marvel movies. Disney’s film catalog is consistently high-quality when compared with many competing video streaming services.

A few of the popular live-action movies on Disney+ include Avatar, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Miracle on 34th Street, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Remember the Titans, The Sandlot, and The Sound of Music. Classic Disney animations include Aladdin, Bambi, Fantasia, Frozen, Frozen II, Lilo & Stitch, Moana, Mulan, Oliver and Company, Peter Pan, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Tangled, The Emperor’s New Groove, The Jungle Book, The Lion King, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Zootopia. Among the Pixar movies on the service are Brave, Cars, Finding Nemo, Inside Out, Monsters Inc., Ratatouille, The Incredibles, The Incredibles 2, Toy Story, and WALL-E.

Star Wars films include Star Wars: Episodes I through IX, as well as Solo and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The Marvel films include Ant-Man, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Iron Man, Thor: The Dark World, and even some Sony Spider-Man films and spin-offs.

Expect more content to move over to Disney+ as other services’ streaming rights expire. In addition to removing content from other services, Disney is removing its content from cable channels. Conversely, content is also disappearing from Disney+, a controversial cost-cutting measure employed by an increasing number of streaming services.

(Credit: Disney)

If you subscribe to both Disney+ and Hulu, you can now enjoy content from both services in the same merged Disney+ app. This gives the library a substantial increase in adult-oriented movies and shows. Standalone Hulu still exists, but the convenient combined app is now a much more well-rounded package, with family-friendly material alongside acclaimed mature shows like Shogun and Oscar-winning films like Poor Things. Just remember that Hulu content costs extra, it doesn’t come included with the base Disney+ subscription.

Cinephiles should check out our roundup of the best movie streaming services. Our top picks, including The Criterion Channel and Mubi, have larger, more diverse, and curated libraries of films to enjoy.

How Much Does Disney+ Cost?

Disney+’s most affordable tier costs $7.99 per month. This Basic tier is an ad-supported plan, serving up a handful of family-friendly commercials each hour. Unlike Netflix’s ad tier ($6.99 per month), Disney+’s ad tier gives you the entire library. However, only Premium subscribers (now $13.99 per month) can enjoy offline mobile downloads along with ad-free viewing. If you grow tired of the service, check out how to cancel your Disney+ account.

In addition, Disney+ has a plan that bundles Hulu’s ad-supported tier, ESPN+, and ad-supported Disney+ for $14.99 per month. There’s also a $24.99-per-month option that bundles ad-free Disney+ and Hulu with ESPN+. For just $9.99 per month, you can ditch the sports and get Disney+ and Hulu with ads. These packages are a good value, bringing much-needed adult content. In international regions, Hulu’s mature content exists inside Disney+ under the Star brand. However, other sports streaming services offer more live sports than ESPN+.

Disney+ is one of the cheaper streaming services, but Apple TV+ ($6.99 per month) and Peacock ($5.99 per month) undercut it. Paramount+’s plan with ads is also $5.99 per month. Ad-free Prime Video ($11.99 per month) and ad-free Netflix ($15.49 per month) are more expensive, while Max costs $15.99 per month ($9.99 per month with ads). Every dollar counts toward reducing monthly subscription costs, especially if you also subscribe to one of the more expensive live TV services. That said, you don’t need to pay for your entertainment if you use a free video streaming service. Our top pick, Tubi, features an excellent selection of popular movies and shows.

Disney+ is available on Android and iOS mobile phones; media streaming devices, such as the Apple TV, Chromecast, Fire TV, and Roku; as well as gaming consoles such as Xbox Series S/X and Sony PlayStation 5. You can also watch Disney+ via a desktop web browser.

(Credit: Disney)

Disney+ Web Interface

Disney+’s web interface uses dark background colors, light text, and consistent elements, which gives it a clean, organized look. You navigate the app via a series of menu items at the top of the screen: Home, Search, Watchlist, Originals, Movies, and Series. Profile details and account settings are accessible via an icon in the upper right-hand corner. Here, you can set autoplay preferences, change your profile photo (options include Disney characters and animal photos from National Geographic), and update your subscription details.

The Home tab highlights featured content from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, and Hulu. Horizontally scrolling lists of other content populate the rest of the page, including Recommended for You, Trending, Out of the Vault, Ultra HD and HDR, and Shorts. The Search section features several more collections, including Disney Through the Decades, Disney Channel Original Movie, Marvel Animation, and Princesses. In a nice touch, the search feature lets you query by titles, genres, and characters. The Originals, Movies, and Series sections show all the entries in those respective categories. You can sort the latter two sections by name, genre, and by those that support the UHD and HDR standards.

When you find something you want to watch, just click a title to view its details. You’ll see a description, run-time, and MPAA rating. Disney+ also suggests related content, video extras (such as trailers or deleted scenes), and an expanded details section with a longer description and cast information. You click the plus button next to a title to add it to your watchlist (which syncs across platforms). Disney+ lacks a feedback system, such as user-written reviews (Shudder offers this) or star-based ratings. Given Disney+’s stated focus on recommendations, this exclusion is odd.

Disney+’s playback screen has the standard 10-second rewind and fast forward buttons, plus built-in caption settings. With shows, Disney+ offers a Skip Intro button, which we appreciate. It also pops up the next episode in a season after the current one ends, instead of making you go back to the episode list to start the next one. We tried streaming The Incredibles via Disney+’s website over a home Ethernet connection (200MBPS download), and did not experience lag or stuttering.

(Credit: Disney)

Disney+ on Mobile

We signed up for the Disney+ service on an Android phone. You must verify your account in the app’s settings by entering a one-time password Disney sends to your email. The mobile app looks sleek with a dark theme and colorful content previews; it’s consistent with the web interface.

You navigate the app via icons at the bottom of the screen: Home, Search, Downloads, and Profile. The Originals, Movies, and Series tabs from the web version live in the Search section. The Downloads section shows an unsortable list of all the titles you downloaded for offline viewing. Downloading content is easy; just tap the down arrow icon on an entry’s detail page (it’s right next to the plus icon for adding it to your watchlist). Oddly, you must visit the app’s profile tab to access your watchlist; it should be a more accessible icon.

The Profile area has a few settings specific to the mobile app too, such as options that let you restrict streaming to Wi-Fi connections and set the quality of downloads. We wish Disney specified the resolution of these downloads, instead of using the vague High, Medium, and Low descriptors. You can also view a graphic that shows your available device storage and opt to download content to any external storage device here.

We watched The Mandalorian episodes via the Disney+ app over a home Wi-Fi connection and had no problems with the video or audio streaming quality. Downloading movies and TV shows worked as advertised, too.

For more on streaming, check out five reasons why you may want to ditch your video subscription and keep cable, read how streaming has ushered in a new trash TV golden age, and learn why companies must preserve their streaming catalogs. In addition, check out our recommended streaming video guides if you don’t know what to watch. 

Disney+ Accessibility and Extra Features

Disney+ offers a good range of accessibility options. For instance, the service supports closed captions and audio descriptions on most titles. Amazon Prime Video and Netflix also support audio descriptions for some original titles. Apple owns all the content on Apple TV+, so it can ensure that all the content on the service supports this feature.

Disney says that its interface works with text-to-speech tools (excluding the PlayStation 4), is high-contrast for readability, and supports alternative navigation methods, including using a keyboard. You can set audio and subtitle preferences directly from the playback screen. Acorn TV offers similar closed captioning settings. Additional subtitle settings are available on the web.

Each Disney+ account supports up to seven customizable user profiles, four simultaneous streams, and 10 total connected devices. That’s a best-in-class offering and great for large households and families. For comparison, Apple TV+ offers six user profiles and Netflix allows five. Amazon Prime Video and Paramount+ allow only three simultaneous streams. BritBox beats Disney+ with its support for five simultaneous streams. Disney+ also offers GroupWatch co-viewing, where seven viewers can watch simultaneously across devices and share reactions for virtual movie nights, similar to Hidive or Teleparty (formerly Netflix Party).

With the addition of the TV-MA (former Netflix) Marvel shows, Disney+ has improved its parental controls. After you log in, you’re asked if you want to access the full catalog or set custom content rating restrictions for each profile. Disney+ also lets you create an Exit Question for kids’ profiles (limited to G, TV-Y, TV-Y7/Y7-FV, TV-G) to prevent them from just switching accounts and lock the ability to create a new profile behind a PIN. These are all major improvements over Disney+’s initial capabilities. Other video streaming services, such as Apple TV+, Max, Hulu, and Netflix, have excellent parental control features.

Disney+ supports offline downloads—a now-standard feature it shares with Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Max, and other streaming services. Hulu added this capability for subscribers to its premium plan, but imposes restrictions on how long you keep a download. Disney+, on the other hand, lacks download limitations for its own content other than needing to connect to the internet at least once every 30 days. Disney+ does not specify what limitations apply to the content it does not own completely. Downloads are large; a high-quality, 22-minute episode of The Simpsons took up nearly 1GB of space. The download was completed in just a few minutes, though.

You can stream some shows in Ultra HD 4K (with support for HDR10 and Dolby Vision) for those platforms that support it, as well as in HD and HDR on supported mobile devices. Some content supports the Dolby Atmos standard, too. Select Disney+ content is even available in “IMAX Enhanced” quality, bringing the fidelity of the large-format film theater resolution to displays that support it. Check an entry’s detail page for the standards it supports. Apple TV+, Prime Video, and Netflix also support all these standards, though Apple TV+ has the best track record thus far in terms of shows supporting them.

Video Streaming Services: What You Should Know

Can You Use a VPN With Disney+?

A virtual private network, or VPN is a good way to protect your internet traffic from your ISP and anyone else lurking on your network. A VPN can also spoof your location, so many video streaming services prevent you from using one to enforce geographic content restrictions. Disney says in its help sections that while it will distribute most content globally, there might be some limited restrictions.

We tried to stream Disney+ from a phone and desktop, devices connected to a US-based Mullvad VPN server. However, Disney+ blocked us from watching anything. We couldn’t even log in to the service on the web.

Even if you find a VPN that works with all of your video streaming services one day, it might not the next. Video streaming services work continuously to block VPN traffic. Instead of trying to find a VPN that works consistently, we recommend picking a VPN based on other factors, such as its security features, privacy policy, value, and performance.

Verdict: Top Content for the Whole Family

Disney+ is a formidable video streaming competitor that leverages Disney’s vast entertainment catalog. We also appreciate its family-friendly features (four simultaneous streams and seven user profiles), sleek web and mobile interfaces, offline downloads, ad-supported tier, and optional Hulu integration. Netflix remains our Editors’ Choice winner for on-demand video streaming thanks to its excellent features and top-tier originals, but Disney+ is quickly catching up.