Disney Plus Review: Not Just for Kids

The House of Mouse streams way more than Mickey. It’s a place where Jedi knights enchant viewers with their powers and where Marvel’s antiheroes cause chaos and save lives. It’s a classroom to learn about nature or the cosmos. It’s a haven for Disney princesses who don’t have to fit into any box. And it’s the only place to stream the latest Pixar films like Turning Red.

Like so many other Disney properties, from Rise of Skywalker to Encanto to WandaVision, its streaming service is a phenomenon. Disney Plus launched in November 2019, and by the end of 2021 the platform claimed nearly 130 million subscribers with plans to expand in more countries this year.

Its marquee original series, The Mandalorian, gave fans Baby Yoda theories, merchandise and memes. Its first Marvel Cinematic Universe-set series WandaVision quickly became one of the most popular shows worldwide. All this success has Netflix and other big names taking notice. And at $8 a month, it’s still one of the best values in streaming.

The big question: Is it worth the money to you? If you’re a cord-cutter, especially one with children, then Disney Plus is likely a must-have. With only a few notable exceptions, Netflix is losing a host of Disney and Marvel content to the service, meaning if you or the little ones want to watch Daredevil or Liv and Maddie, for example, you’ll need a Disney Plus subscription. It’s the best streaming service for kids, but appeals to older viewers too.

Whether it allows you to ditch Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime Video depends on your budget and priorities. Disney Plus lacks the steady firehose of new, original TV found on Netflix, for example, but it still belongs in the top tier of streaming services. It has a massive catalog of popular TV shows and movies you can’t find anywhere else, a well-designed app and an affordable price without making you watch any ads. For those reasons it deserves CNET’s Editors’ Choice Award.

The content

In contrast to the meager selection of shows offered by Apple TV Plus at launch, Disney hit the ground running with 500 movies and 7,500 TV shows on its first day. The catalog continues to grow with additions such as Turning Red, Encanto, Hocus Pocus 2, Moon Knight and Agatha: House of Harkness and more. There’s a ton of Marvel, a bucketful of Star Wars, a boatload of Pixar and a healthy sprinkle of National Geographic (which is owned by Disney). Depending on the content and device there is support for both 4K HDR video and Dolby Atmos surround sound.

With so many movies and TV shows already online, it’s likely that if you can think of a Disney movie or TV show, it’s there. Even before you try searching, the interface serves up plenty of suggestions, including a great mix of nostalgia, princess movies, originals and superhero action.

Some of Disney’s pre-1990s and beyond content may be forgotten in the annals of your mind, but the streamer’s interface will reacquaint you with movies from its past, such as Flight of the Navigator. While not everything is there — missing episodes of Andi Mack and Recess may disappoint young fans — the search interface works in a similar way to Netflix by suggesting similar content instead. There’s no lack of things to watch.

The interface

If you’ve used any streaming service at all, bar Disney’s own Hulu, then the interface of Disney Plus will be instantly familiar. The very top of the home screen is a web-like carousel with a selection of Disney’s biggest hits.

Underneath this, the brand’s most popular properties appear across the page as static icons: Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and National Geographic. Hover over each and the icon will animate, and if you click on it a short animation will appear before the branded page appears. While the interface is designed to scale to low-powered devices like USB sticks we saw little difference between any of the dozen-or-so devices we tried.

On the branded pages as well as the home page, the rows of icons are titled according to genre and help to hone the content to your requirements. Disney told us that, like the Netflix engine, the Disney Plus interface will adapt to the types of content that you watch over time. 

At the left of the screen is a Netflix-like sidebar that lets you search for content or choose from your preselected profiles. 

The only real way to configure Disney Plus is through user profiles, and by default your Primary profile offers access to all of the content. It can’t be set to a kids profile, but you can turn autoplay off or on or alter the main language. In comparison, kids’ profiles work to surface content suitable to younger viewers and has a brighter, blue background. 

The biggest problem I found with the interface is that some popular things might be hidden — you may not know The Muppets is there, for example. But this is an issue that larger services such as Netflix also suffer from. 

Read more: Disney Plus vs. Netflix vs. Apple TV Plus vs. HBO Max: Which Streaming Service is Right for You?

We tested Disney Plus on Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, iOS, smart TV (LG and Samsung), Android TV and the web and they all worked in the expected fashion. Voice commands worked well on Apple TV, Fire TV and Roku in directing us to the show title or the Disney service in general. If your streamer supports 4K HDR then there is a healthy selection of titles like the recent Marvel movies and shows and newer Star Wars content like the Mandalorian, but others like the recent Muppets titles are only in HD. 

It is also worth noting that some of the content on Disney Plus may have changed since you last watched it elsewhere. For instance, The Simpsons is currently only available in widescreen, with no 4:3 option for older seasons that were not HD native. The Han-shot-first scene in the original Star Wars movie, A New Hope, has apparently been edited yet again. So as you can see in the video below, it’s not perfect.

The cost

Disney Plus is one of the most affordable streaming services on the market. As a standalone option, it’s only $8 a month. But there are multiple ways to bundle it with Hulu and ESPN Plus to save even more money. 

Hulu Plus Live TV customers receive Disney Plus and ESPN at no extra charge, as long as you’re being billed by Hulu. New and existing Hulu subscribers who don’t have the live TV package can sign up for the Disney Bundle. It costs $14 monthly for the ad-supported version and $20 per month without ads. Currently, Hulu-billed members who don’t have Disney Plus can get it as an add-on for just $3 a month.

Compared to its competitors, Disney Plus is on the lower end of the price pole. With Netflix shooting up to $15.50 per month for its two-screen streaming plan and HBO Max charging $15, it comes down to your wallet and viewing palate.

Disney Plus vs. HBO Max, Netflix, Prime and Hulu

	Disney Plus	HBO Max	Netflix	Amazon Prime Video	Hulu
Monthly price	$8	$10 for basic with ads, $15 for ad-free	Starts at $10	$9 (or included with $120/year Prime membership)	Basic $7 with ads, ad-free Premium for $13 Live TV for $70
Ads	No	Yes	No	No	Yes
Top titles	The Mandalorian, Loki, Encanto, The Simpsons	Game of Thrones, Friends, Euphoria, DC Comics series, Sesame Street	Stranger Things, Squid Game, Better Call Saul, Money Heist	Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Reacher, The Boys, The Wheel of Time	Handmaid’s Tale, How I Met Your Father, The Bachelor, Bob’s Burgers
Mobile downloads	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
4K HDR available	Yes	No	Yes (on Premium plan)	Yes	Yes
Number of streams:	4	3	1 (2 for Standard, 4 on Premium)	2	2 (Unlimited with Live TV $9.99 add-on)

Should you get it?

For Disney’s legions of Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar fans who want to enjoy those movies and their extra features, the service is easily worth the monthly fee. The same goes for parents who want their kids to enjoy Disney’s myriad family movies and TV shows. And ditto for anybody who wants to follow the latest adventures of Baby Yoda or Boba Fett. 

Are people going to quit other services in order to afford this one? Possibly. If it’s a choice between this or Apple TV Plus then get this. If it’s a choice between Disney and standalone Hulu and you have kids? Get this. If we were to rank the services by order of importance ours would be: 1. Netflix 2. Disney 3. Prime Video. Your priorities may be different. 

Original programs like The Mandalorian, Loki and The World According to Jeff Goldblum are fun, but it’s the programming spanning almost 100 years that will likely encourage users to renew their subscriptions each month. Disney Plus is fun, easy to use and relatively affordable.