The 10 Best Disney Channel Original Movies

Those that still live rent free in your brain.

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Your favorite Disney Channel Original Movie says a lot about your childhood: what age you were when you watched programming targeted at tweens; if you considered yourself a sporty, artsy, bookish, or jack of-all-trades kind of kid; even your childhood hopes and dreams.

If asking what your hobbies were as a child is akin to asking about your Meyers-Briggs Personality Type, asking which Disney Channel Original Movie is your favorite is like asking for a 30-page personal manifesto.

Today, I’ve rounded up 10 Disney Channel Original Movies that defined my childhood and delight me to this day:

10. The Luck of the Irish (2001)

Kyle is the star of the basketball team and generally gets everything he wants in life… until he loses his lucky medallion and it all goes belly up. As luck would have it, Kyle is part leprechaun, and if he wants to stay human, he needs to fight off evil leprechauns and reclaim his magical medallion. 

Disney Channel Original Movies were often marked by their sheer absurdity: they were made for kids, after all. In perhaps one of the DCOM brand’s wackiest efforts, The Luck of the Irish is a story about luck, family, high school basketball, and fighting off evil leprechauns. 

What makes The Luck of the Irish stand out in a sea of DCOMs is the actors' comedic chops. Though many of the lines are a little corny, the film is still laugh-out-loud funny for adults and kids alike. While clearly produced on a low budget, the special effects (shrinking actors to leprechaun size) aren’t too shabby for the early 2000s. They even have countless moving crane shots! 

This little movie wasn’t trying to be bigger than it was, but it was a fun, campy romp through Irish-American silliness that is perfect to watch on a weekend afternoon leading up to St. Patrick’s Day. 

9. Johnny Tsunami (1999)

Johnny, a surfing Hawaiian boy and the descendant of a surfing legend, is forced to move to Vermont when his dad gets a new job. Johnny picks up snowboarding, but struggles to fit in with his skiing classmates. When Johnny competes with a skier for their mutual crush, they decide to settle their rivalry on the slopes. 

For kids in 1999 who were lucky enough to have parents who shelled out for the Disney Channel as an addition to their cable package, Johnny Tsunami was all anyone could talk about.

This movie’s got everything: waves, snow, school-aged squabbles, and Y2K hairstyles that will have you screenshotting to send to your stylist.

I particularly loved Johnny Tsunami for encouraging kids to stay open-minded to situations that are less than totally radical, dude. 

The only downer was the focus on Johnny’s annoying dad, who seems to exist solely to punish Johnny for having any kind of fun. Eventually, Johnny’s mom helps the dad change his ways, which was probably validating to see for kids of strict parents. 

Even so, the movie really shines most when its lead stars (and their respective stunt doubles) are on the mountain and in the water. 

8. Cadet Kelly (2002)

Kelly (Hilary Duff) is a free-spirited teen shipped off to military school by her new straight-laced stepfather. Though Kelly is harassed by her commanding officer Jennifer (Christy Carlson Romano), Kelly reluctantly joins Jennier’s drill team to get closer to a boy. After a series of pranks and shenanigans, Kelly and Jennifer must overcome their differences to win their next competition.

Statistically, very few kids attend military academies, but many viewers can likely relate to feeling suffocated by rules and rigidity at school. 

Cadet Kelly offers a glimpse into a world in which one might actually end up enjoying structure. To a child, that concept alone is mind-blowing.

Factor in young women excelling in a male-dominated institution and it's shocking more viewers didn’t spontaneously combust. Needless to say, examples like this weren’t too easy to come by for young girls in the early aughts.

Fans of Even Stevens and Lizzie McGuire truly ate this film up. By consequence, this movie single-handedly prompted many a preteen to ask their parents if they could go to military school, (well, at least it prompted me and my friends to consider asking.) 

The film was released just months after the 9/11 attacks at a time when most viewers were too young to comprehend the issues at play. While we can debate the ethics of this timing, I think any example of finding joy in a hopeless place is always a welcome treat. 

7. The Cheetah Girls (2003)

Four teenage girls in New York create a music group, aim to win their school’s talent show, and sign a record deal - all while staying true to themselves and prioritizing their friendships. Oh, and there’s a cute dog that the Cheetah Girls ultimately save with the power of music.

The first musical Disney Channel Original Movie, The Cheetah Girls (along with one lone musical episode of Even Stevens that came just before it) kicked off the live-action musical trend that would go on to define the Disney Channel as we know it.

Indeed, The Cheetah Girls walked so High School Musical (spoilers for this list!) could run. 

The Cheetah Girls did what the Disney Channel does best: It created a dream scenario in which a kid sees their talents recognized and wildest ambitions come to fruition. 

Whether you were secretly a pop star like Hannah Montana, a closeted psychic as in That’s So Raven, or an everyday teen whose voice is worthy of a record deal, the Disney Channel knew that every kid wants to feel special and they capitalized on it. 

At the same time, The Cheetah Girls also exemplified one of the main themes found in most Disney Channel Original Movies: believing in yourself and standing up for what you believe in, even if that means going against societal pressure or disappointing people. 

By this measure, The Cheetah Girls was a turning point in the Disney Channel’s mission and paved the way for some of the more iconic programming that followed. 

6. Brink (1998) 

Andy aka “Brink” is an inline skater that competes with a group of other teens in southern California who think skating should be done for fun, not for profit. But when Brink’s family runs into financial trouble, he’s forced to join a corporate-sponsored inline skating team and work with the people he hates the most. 

Starring early 2000s teenage heartthrob Erik Von Detten and a gaggle of other boys who were equally easy on the eyes, Brink was certainly popular among Disney Channel’s audience.

You don’t have to look hard to find DCOMs featuring extreme sports: Motorcrossed, Right On Track, and Jump In! come to mind. Still, none stood the test of time like Brink did. 

I suspect this is due to Brink’s ability to resonate through adulthood. Many young adults who grew up with the movie are now struggling to find the balance between paying their bills and compromising their ethics and beliefs. As cheesy as these films can seem, I for one am grateful that these types of dilemmas were being represented in our media at an early age. 

Disney does a good job of balancing the sappier moments with sick skating tricks. Admittedly, the moves and stunts were a lot more impressive when I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed youngster, but the film is just so fun. It almost feels like a music video or skating compilation artificially engineered to serve up Y2K skating vibes. 

#5 Halloweentown (1998)

On her thirteenth birthday, Marnie (Kimberly J. Brown) secretly follows her grandmother home to Halloweentown and realizes she belongs to a family of witches. While Halloweentown is magical, it's also filled with evil warlocks that her family must fight before they take over the world. 

It’s corny, it’s funny, and it's filled with Halloween camp and candy-corny zingers. In fact, even today, Halloweentown is one of the best Halloween movies to watch with young children (or anyone who cannot bear to watch anything actually scary.)

My personal favorite line in the film is uttered by Hollywood legend Debbie Reynolds, who plays Marnie’s grandmother, when she says, “Being normal is vastly overrated.” Halloweentown gave me permission to be as weird as I cared to be. 

(Having recently moved to Salem, MA – the closest to Halloweentown a real city may ever be – I clearly took this sentiment to heart.) 

p.s. I still think about the magic microwave – with “Bubble, Toil, and Trouble” settings – weekly.

4. Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century (1999)

Zenon (Kirsten Storms) is a rebellious thirteen-year-old living on a space station with her family and friend Nebula (Raven-Symoné) in the year 2049. After getting in trouble yet again, Zenon is “grounded” and sent to Earth. There, she learns about a nefarious plot that could put the space station in danger and has to team up with Earthlings to save the day. 

Based on a book of the same name, the film adaptation of Zenon was pitched to Disney by the writer as Eloise at the Plaza but on a space station, which I’d say is an accurate description. 

If nothing else, as a certified tween sci-fi film, Zenon armed kids across the Y2K USA with futuristic slang such as “stellar” aka cool and “cetus lupeedus” (often misspelled as “zetus lepetus,” which is probably how it should be spelled) in lieu of “oh my god.” 

Notably, Zenon predicted facetiming and tablets a decade before they came into existence. The film also features Proto Zoa, a male pop star with bleach-frosted tips and metallic clothing that had viewers running to their local mall’s Limited Too.

Though the sets and costuming are fabulous, the movie doesn’t spend too much time dwelling on the bells and whistles. In fact, the film moves at a bounding pace that feels natural for Zenon – who probably has undiagnosed ADHD – making it the perfect DCOM to watch for the dopamine-overloaded brains of today. 

3. Smart House (1999)

Teenage computer nerd Ben Cooper wins a computerized house in a contest. Training its AI on 1950s TV shows depicting housewives, Ben attempts to program the house to perform motherly duties to stop his widowed father from dating new people. Before long, all goes haywire, and Ben has to team up with his father’s love interest to save his family.

A '90s movie about the dangers of artificial intelligence, it’s hard to believe Smart House was made for children. Written by Zenon writer Stu Krieger and directed by beloved Reading Rainbow host LeBar Burton (I know, right?!), Smart House is a bar trivia question author’s dream come true. 

Smart House is particularly interesting to rewatch today, twenty-five years after its release, in a world grappling with the future of AI. 

In the film, while the house does go off the rails, the events don’t fill characters with the same existential dread about AI and humanity’s future that we feel today. In fact, the home is presented as insanely cool: the kitchen makes food on demand, videos play wall-to-wall in rooms across the house, and the house even cleans itself! It’s easy for Smart House to feel a little dated in the time of Siri and Alexa, but the film still presents a fun fantasy to spend 90 minutes in.

When the house goes off the rails, the female scientist who created the house swoops in to team up with Ben and save the day. Unfortunately, this woman is otherwise relegated to a diminished role as Ben’s father’s love interest, which is a huge missed opportunity in my book.

Even with the film’s sexism, Smart House does propose the idea that Artificial Intelligence could be anything we ask it to be: Will we ask it to ruin humanity or simply ask it to turn on the lights and make our lives easier? 

2. The Color of Friendship (2000)

Based on a true story, the movie follows Piper, a teenage black girl and the daughter of Congressman Ron Dellums, in the 1970s as she invites a South African foreign exchange student into her family’s home. Expecting to pick up another black girl at the airport, Piper finds her exchange student, Mahree, is white and the daughter of a South African apartheid policeman. After getting over the initial shock, the two girls learn about tolerance, equality, and friendship. 

The Color of Friendship is widely regarded as one of Disney’s first big steps in confronting racism.

For many young children in the United States, including myself, The Color of Friendship was one of the first pieces of children’s media that addressed racism and inequality, and their first exposure to the atrocities of South African Apartheid at all. 

Remarkably, it's actually still a really entertaining watch, filled with complex, layered humor and fantastic performances, especially by the actors who play Piper’s parents, Carl Lumbly and Penny Johnson Jerald. There’s even a classic early 2000s montage depicting Piper and Mahree’s first attempt at back-to-school clothing shopping.

I particularly loved the “welcome” surprise party scene, in which Piper’s family and friends greet Mahree by waving South African freedom flags, playing drums, and other cultural signals that completely freak Marhee out upon arrival. The film’s ability to mix humor and fun into an otherwise pretty heavy movie, and thereby keeping an audience of children invested and engaged, is a marvel. 

Spoiler Alert: By the end of the film, Mahree returns to South Africa with a hidden freedom flag for Black South Africans. Unfortunately, in real life, the Dellums lost track of Mahree and it is assumed she was killed for her activism. While I understand why this tragic ending was left out of a TV movie made for children, I think it’s still important to learn about this as an adult. It adds a level of complexity to the story that makes you realize how brave Mahree became and the power of education and kindness. 

1. High School Musical (2006)

High school basketball star Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) falls in love with the bookish Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) over holiday break. When they get back to school, the couple wants to audition for the school musical, but doing so turns out to be no small feat when their families and fellow classmates want them to stick to the status quo. 

Given the film’s game-changing success, I would be remiss if I didn’t put High School Musical as #1 on the list. Directed by Kenny Ortega (previously of Hocus Pocus and Newsies fame), High School Musical was by far the most popular Disney Channel Original Movie ever made. 

Within its first five years of existence, the HSM franchise earned a whopping $4 billion worldwide. Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens are now household names. Even Olivia Rodrigo, one of the 2020’s biggest pop stars, had her big break on High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, a meta mockumentary television show and the latest installment in the HSM franchise. 

Before the worldwide success set in, the “scrappier” elements we came to expect from Disney Channel Original Movies were still present in the first High School Musical film: The film was shot in Salt Lake City’s East High and the film kept the school name the same , likely to save money. Vanessa Hudgens’s Gabriella sings an entire solo song under almost exclusively natural light. The story had an inspiring message while still featuring all the silly antics and romance Disney Channel viewers craved. 

To their credit, Disney Channel promoted the film to the point where everyone I knew was excited for its premiere. I fondly remember piling onto the couch with my siblings and friends to watch it, not knowing the rest of our middle school experience would be defined by what we were about to watch.

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Honorable mentions:

Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off (2003) - As a food-in-film writer, I can’t help but mention Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off, which combines the social themes of High School Musical with the charm of The Great British Bake-Off and the production value of The Luck of the Irish. If you never saw this underrated DCOM as a child, watch it and be transported back to a time when life was simple, and the media you consumed regularly featured mashed potato volcanoes and food fights. 

Disney Channel's Theme: A History Mystery (2022) - I’d also like to give a shout out to a YouTube documentary that has made the rounds. Documentary-lovers, archival researchers, history buffs, and ‘90s kids alike have sung the praises of Defunctland’s investigation into who exactly came up with the Disney Channel theme jingle, and it’s a wild, poignant ride.

Leave a comment below letting us know your favorite Disney Channel Original Movie!