3 Best Movies To Watch On Disney+ This Weekend (October 3-4)

Published Oct 2, 2026, 4:20 PM EDT Felipe Rangel is a Movie and TV Journalist ScreenRant. He has been writing about movies and TV since 2021. Felipe joined ScreenRant in 2022, working across different teams, covering everything from breaking news to features to reviews and more. Felipe is a writer who is an avid film and TV fan, with superhero movies and series being his biggest passion. He graduated from college in 2019, having studied Journalism. Before college, he spent a month studying at the Oxford English Centre. His superhero knowledge expands to the comics, with his undergraduate thesis being "Politics Reflected In American Comics." Sign in to your ScreenRant account Disney+ subscribers can get ready for Halloween season starting this weekend on the streaming service, as this new roster of three movies to watch on Disney+ in the first weekend of October comes with projects that suit the spooky season. On last weekend's Disney+ movie recommendations, I explored titles like Toy Story 5, Mufasa: The Lion King, and Deadpool & Wolverine. Out of those, only one movie is trending on the streaming service nationwide this week. That would be the animated Toy Story 5, which is making the most of its recent release on the platform, as the Pixar hit is currently the most-watched movie on Disney+ in the United States. In addition to that, the other four Toy Story movies are also in the Top 10. Looking at last weekend's entries, I decided to follow-up on Deadpool & Wolverine's inclusion with another superhero release. That said, instead of going the live-action route, there is an animated Marvel movie that stands as the perfect selection for the first weekend of October. After all, it connects with Halloween, and it brings back the Marvel team that everyone is thinking about right now. From Steamboat Willie to Encanto · Eight Questions How Well Do You Know Disney Movies? “When you wish upon a star…” 🐭Steamboat EraBlack-and-white Mickey 👑The PrincessesSnow White onward 🦁90s RenaissanceLion King & Aladdin 💡Pixar LampToy Story onward ❄️Modern EraFrozen & beyond UNLOCK THE VAULT → 01 On November 18, 1928, Walt Disney premiered a seven-minute black-and-white short at the Colony Theatre in New York — the first Mickey Mouse cartoon released to the public, and one of the earliest sound cartoons ever made. Whistling Mickey at the helm of a riverboat became the studio’s first iconic image. Name the short. APlane Crazy BSteamboat Willie CThe Karnival Kid DThe Gallopin’ Gaucho ✓ Correct! Steamboat Willie. Mickey actually finished production first on the silent short Plane Crazy earlier that year, but Walt and his brother Roy bet the studio’s entire future on retooling Steamboat Willie with synchronised sound — a brand-new technology that had only just appeared with The Jazz Singer (1927). The gamble worked: Steamboat Willie’s November 1928 release made Mickey an instant national icon and put Disney on the map. The short entered the public domain in January 2024, exactly 95 years after release. ✗ Wrong. The answer is Steamboat Willie. Plane Crazy was actually animated first (May 1928, silent) but didn’t find a distributor. The Gallopin’ Gaucho was the second Mickey short, also originally silent. The Karnival Kid (1929) is where Mickey first speaks. The breakthrough — the first publicly released, sound-synchronised Mickey short — is Steamboat Willie. NEXT → 02 Walt Disney sank the studio’s entire balance sheet, plus a heavy mortgage on his home, into a project Hollywood derisively called “Disney’s Folly” — the first full-length cel-animated feature film ever made in English. It premiered December 21, 1937 at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles to a standing ovation. Name the film. APinocchio BBambi CSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs DFantasia ✓ Correct! Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). The 83-minute film cost $1.49 million — an enormous gamble at the height of the Depression — and grossed $8 million on its initial release, the highest-grossing sound film made up to that point. Walt won an honorary Oscar (one large statuette and seven small ones, presented by Shirley Temple). The film’s success funded the construction of Disney’s Burbank studio and effectively created the feature-animation industry. ✗ Wrong. The answer is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Pinocchio (1940) is the second Disney feature. Fantasia (1940) is the third. Bambi (1942) is the fifth. Snow White was the bet-the-studio first — ridiculed in production as “Disney’s Folly” before becoming the highest-grossing sound film ever made up to 1937. NEXT → 03 Walt Disney’s vision of a film-quality theme park opened to a chaotic, oversold “Black Sunday” debut — counterfeit tickets, a gas leak, and asphalt soft enough to swallow women’s heels. The Anaheim park was built on 160 acres of orange groves in just 12 months. In which year did Disneyland open? A1948 B1955 C1962 D1971 ✓ Correct! July 17, 1955 — press preview day, dubbed “Black Sunday” in Disney company lore. ABC broadcast a live two-hour TV special featuring Ronald Reagan, Bob Cummings and Art Linkletter (collectively winging the script as things went wrong). Disneyland was built on Anaheim orange groves Walt mortgaged his home to fund. Walt Disney World opened in 1971 in Orlando, six years after Walt’s death — that’s the date many people confuse with Disneyland’s opening. ✗ Wrong. The answer is 1955 — specifically July 17. 1948 is when Walt first sketched the concept. 1962 doesn’t mark a major Disney park milestone. 1971 is when Walt Disney World opened in Florida (six years after Walt’s death) — that’s the date most often confused with Disneyland’s. The original Anaheim park opened in 1955. NEXT → 04 The Lion King (1994) was pitched internally as “Bambi meets…” a particular Shakespeare play — and the parallels are unmissable: a young prince’s father is murdered by his uncle, who usurps the throne; the prince later returns to avenge him. Which Shakespeare tragedy provided the bones of the story? AMacbeth BOthello CHamlet DKing Lear ✓ Correct! Hamlet. The internal pitch was famously “Bambi meets Hamlet” (or, in some retellings, “Hamlet with lions”): Mufasa is the murdered king-father (Hamlet Sr.), Scar is the usurping uncle (Claudius), Simba is the exiled prince (Hamlet), and even the ghost-on-a-cliff appearance plays out beat-for-beat. The Lion King grossed $968 million worldwide and remained the highest-grossing animated film for 16 years until Toy Story 3 broke the record in 2010. ✗ Wrong. The answer is Hamlet. Macbeth is the “ambitious wife pushes husband to murder the king” story (the closer Disney parallel there is the Frollo/Esmeralda dynamic in Hunchback). Othello is the jealousy tragedy. King Lear is the divided-kingdom tragedy. The Lion King’s bones are unambiguously Hamlet’s — ghost, uncle-murderer, exiled-prince and all. NEXT → 05 Frozen (2013) became the highest-grossing animated film at the time and won two Oscars including Best Animated Feature. Its standout song — performed by Idina Menzel as Elsa, written by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez — won the Oscar for Best Original Song and dominated radio playlists for an entire year. Name the song. ALet It Go BDo You Want to Build a Snowman? CFor the First Time in Forever DLove Is an Open Door ✓ Correct! “Let It Go” — the Oscar-winning power ballad that fundamentally rewrote the film’s plot in production: Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez wrote the song so persuasively that the directors threw out the existing script and rewrote Elsa from villain to misunderstood protagonist. The song spent over 30 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, was translated into 41 languages for international releases, and its Idina Menzel single sold 10.9 million copies. Frozen grossed $1.28 billion and held the highest-grossing-animated-film record until its own 2019 sequel. ✗ Wrong. The answer is “Let It Go.” The other three options are also Frozen songs by the same Lopez/Anderson-Lopez writing team. “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” is the early childhood-montage number. “For the First Time in Forever” is Anna’s coronation-day song. “Love Is an Open Door” is the Hans/Anna duet. The Oscar-winning monster hit is “Let It Go.” NEXT → 06 In November 1995, Pixar — then a small Disney distribution partner founded by Ed Catmull, John Lasseter and Steve Jobs — released the world’s first fully computer-animated feature film. It became the highest-grossing film of 1995 in North America and won a Special Achievement Oscar for John Lasseter. Name the movie. AA Bug’s Life BToy Story CMonsters, Inc. DFinding Nemo ✓ Correct! Toy Story (November 22, 1995). Made for $30 million, it grossed $373 million worldwide and immediately rewrote what was possible in animation. Steve Jobs — who’d bought Pixar from Lucasfilm in 1986 for $5 million — took the company public a week after the film’s release at $22 a share, instantly making him a billionaire. Disney bought Pixar outright in 2006 for $7.4 billion in stock, making Jobs Disney’s largest individual shareholder. A Bug’s Life (1998) was the second Pixar feature; Monsters, Inc. (2001) the fourth. ✗ Wrong. The answer is Toy Story (1995). A Bug’s Life (1998), Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Finding Nemo (2003) are all later Pixar features. Toy Story was the studio’s first — and the first fully computer-animated theatrical feature in cinema history. Its release a week before Steve Jobs took Pixar public effectively turned him from struggling NeXT-era founder into a billionaire. NEXT → 07 In a roughly seven-year span, Disney made a sequence of franchise acquisitions that transformed it from an animation studio into a global IP empire. Pixar (2006, $7.4B), Lucasfilm (2012, $4.05B) and 21st Century Fox (2019, $71.3B) bracket the era. The remaining major brand — bought in 2009 for $4 billion — brought Iron Man, Spider-Man and the Avengers under Disney’s roof. Name it. ADC Entertainment BImage Comics CMarvel Entertainment DDark Horse Comics ✓ Correct! Marvel Entertainment, acquired August 2009 for $4 billion. The deal followed Marvel Studios’ first independent production (Iron Man, 2008) and gave Disney rights to over 5,000 characters — though crucially not Spider-Man (still under a Sony deal) or the X-Men/Fantastic Four (under Fox until the 2019 acquisition reunited them). Disney’s combined Marvel-Lucasfilm-Pixar-Fox portfolio is now the largest IP holding in entertainment history. ✗ Wrong. The answer is Marvel Entertainment. DC Entertainment is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery (since the 1969 Kinney/National acquisition). Image Comics and Dark Horse remain independent. Disney bought Marvel in August 2009 for $4 billion, two years after Marvel Studios’ first self-financed film (Iron Man, 2008). NEXT → 08 Disney Animation’s Moana (2016) features Hawaiian newcomer Auli’i Cravalho as the title role and Dwayne Johnson as the demigod Maui. Its musical numbers — including “How Far I’ll Go” and “You’re Welcome” — were co-written by a Pulitzer- and Tony-winning Broadway composer who’d become a household name with Hamilton the previous year. Name him. AStephen Sondheim BAndrew Lloyd Webber CLin-Manuel Miranda DAlan Menken ✓ Correct! Lin-Manuel Miranda — co-writing with Te Vaka frontman Opetaia Foa’i and composer Mark Mancina. Miranda’s Hamilton had opened on Broadway the year before (August 2015) and turned him into the rare Disney songwriter with crossover Broadway-rap credibility. Miranda has since become a Disney mainstay, returning for Encanto (2021), where his songs “Surface Pressure” and “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” topped the Billboard Hot 100. ✗ Wrong. The answer is Lin-Manuel Miranda. Stephen Sondheim wrote Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods and West Side Story’s lyrics — but never a Disney animated feature. Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote Cats, Phantom and Evita — also never a Disney film. Alan Menken is the great Disney Renaissance composer (Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin) but didn’t write Moana’s songs. Moana is Miranda’s, with Foa’i and Mancina. REVEAL MY RATING → The Castle Has Spoken · Final Tally Your Magic Kingdom Standing 👑 / 8 True Disney royalty — or just a tourist with churros? ⤴ ANOTHER WISH The other two movies on this Disney+ weekend recommendations are all about ghosts. That said, they are likely to provide more fun than scares, if that is how you like your ghost stories. These are the best movies to watch on Disney+ this weekend: 3 Spidey and the Avengers: Halloween Team-Up! (2026) First up is a unique entry on the list, as Spidey and the Avengers: Halloween Team-Up! is a special, not a full-on movie. That said, this Disney+ animated release comes at the perfect time. This is the best project on the list for families with children, as young viewers have already helped make the animated series that started this franchise, Spidey and his Amazing Friends, a massive Disney+ success. Spidey and the Avengers: Halloween Team-Up! is #2 on Disney+'s movie list in the United States. In Marvel's Spidey and the Avengers: Halloween Team-Up!, this shared universe's versions of Spider-Man and Iron Man, who each lead their own show, come together with heroes like the Hulk, Captain America, Black Panther, and the Wasp to fight two Halloween-themed villains. As this new Avengers team assembles before the 2027 series Marvel's Avengers: Mightiest Friends, they take on Hallows' Eve and Jack O'Lantern. 2 Casper (1995) Casper is currently the 9th most-watched movie on Disney+ nationwide, trending on the chart for four days, which just goes to show how subscribers view it as appointment viewing for Halloween season. It is easy to understand why, as the 1995 movie is funny, charming, and has just the right dash of scary business in it for young viewers. That said, Casper packs so much heart in a story that stands the test of time that the supernatural fantasy movie continues to be worth watching for viewers of all ages to this day. Casper follows Malachi Pearson as Casper McFadden, the friendly ghost haunting Whipstaff Manor in peace, as he befriends Christina Ricci's Kat Harvey. Bill Pullman also stars as Dr. James Harvey, Kat's father. 1 Ghostbusters (1984) The final entry on our Disney+ weekend recommendations is tied to Casper in the ghost business, as that is what is at the core of the 1984 sci-fi classic Ghostbusters. On Thursday, October 1, Ghostbusters became available on Hulu on Disney+ right at the start of Halloween month. If you have not yet watched the first movie in the iconic franchise, then you must have at least seen a Ghostbusters costume once or multiple times over the year, as they tend to take over Halloween season. Watching Ghostbusters on Hulu on Disney+ will explain why. The movie holds a near-perfect 95% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes and a high 88% audience score. Ghostbusters stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson as the title team as they come together to solve New York City's growing ghost problem. It is the perfect movie to end the weekend on Disney+ on an energetic note. Casper 7/10 Release Date May 26, 1995 Runtime 100 minutes Casper is a 1995 supernatural fantasy comedy centered on friendly young ghost Casper, who lives in the haunted Whipstaff Manor with his mischievous uncles, the Ghostly Trio. When paranormal therapist James Harvey and his daughter Kat arrive to remove the spirits, Casper befriends Kat while the mansion’s new owner searches for a hidden treasure. Cast Christina Ricci, Bill Pullman, Cathy Moriarty, Eric Idle, Malachi Pearson, Joe Alaskey, Joe Nipote, Brad Garrett, Devon Sawa, Chauncey Leopardi, Spencer Vrooman, Garette Ratliff Henson, Jessica Wesson, Amy Brenneman, Ben Stein, Don Novello, Terry Murphy, Ernestine Mercer, Doug Bruckner, John Kassir, Wesley Thompson, Michael Dubrow, J.J. Anderson, Jess Harnell, Michael McCarty Director Brad Silberling Ghostbusters 8/10 Release Date June 8, 1984 Runtime 107 minutes Ghostbusters follows Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Egon Spengler after they establish a business dedicated to capturing supernatural entities in New York City. Joined by Winston Zeddemore, they investigate escalating paranormal activity linked to an ancient threat. Cast Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, Annie Potts, William Atherton, Ernie Hudson, Slavitza Jovan, David Margulies, Steven Tash, Jennifer Runyon, Michael Ensign, Alice Drummond, Jordan Charney, Timothy Carhart, John Rothman, Tom McDermott, Roger Grimsby, Larry King, Joe Franklin, Casey Kasem, John Ring, Norman Matlock, Joe Cirillo Director Ivan Reitman