Lilo and Stitch (2002)

There's never been a Disney heroine quite like little Lilo. Of course she's high-spirited and spunky, but she's also troubled, highly imaginative, introverted and vulnerable. An orphan being raised by her teen-aged sister Nani, she quarrels with her sister — not with the defiance of an Ariel but with the unreasoning lashing-out of a child unsure of her boundaries and wanting to be loved.

When she meets Stitch, a vicious little space alien, Lilo sees in him what she needs and wants him to be: a friendly pet whose unsettling behavior means only that he too is troubled and needing love. Yet Stitch isn't cute and cuddly, or even sympathetic. He's a pint-sized bully — an outer-space bio-weapon programmed for destruction. If he can be rehabilitated, it won't be easy.

The theme of family is emphasized, but Lilo is more honest and insightful than typical Disney about the difficulties of growing up without parents. Lilo and Nani know their family is “broken,” and the film doesn't shy away from the harsh realities of Lilo's social awkwardness and latchkey existence or Nani's spotty record as breadwin-ner-homemaker. Yet in the end it's possible to say, with one character, that this family, though “little and broken … [is] still good. Yes, still good.”

Content advisory: Cartoon scifi violence, some mild menace and intense sequences that could be frightening to some children.

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)

What a peculiar genius was A.A. Milne, and what a delightful literary confection are his tales of Winnie-the-Pooh, very sweetly told a very long time ago to Pooh himself under the vigilant attention of Christopher Robin.

Pooh and friends, though visually cutened from Ernest Shepard's classic illustrations, somehow emerge from the Dis-neyfication process more unmistakably themselves than any other literary characters in any other Disney cartoon.

Meanwhile Milne's distinctive voice retains its character with a clarity and integrity exceeding that of any other author Disney adapted, from Collodi (Pinocchio) to Barrie (Peter Pan) to Hugo (Hunchback). (The only author to come close was Carroll in Alice in Wonderland.)

The result, though not perfect, is among the most charming and delightful films for even the youngest viewers.

Actually an anthology of three featurettes based on Milne's writings, The Many Adventures includes the well-known tales of the Honey Tree and the Blustery Day.

The voice work is spot on, from Sterling Holloway's warm, fuzzy cadences as Pooh and John Fiedler's timorous little tones as Piglet to the rich narration of Sebastian Cabot (Bagheera in Jungle Book). A timeless classic.

Content advisory: Nothing objectionable.

Sleeping Beauty (1959)

Recently released in a lavish special-edition DVD, Sleeping Beauty is finally available in its original wides-creen aspect ratio and comes with an audio commentary by the surviving filmmakers.

The last Disney animated feature to be overseen by Uncle Walt, Sleeping Beauty was also the Mouse House's last great fairy tale adaptation for more than 30 years, until 1991 's Beauty and the Beast. A worthy successor to the classic Snow White and Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty with its Tchaikovsky soundtrack lacks the hummable sin-galong quality of Cinderella but more authentically captures the fairy-tale spirit of the original Perrault tale, filling out its third act with a mythic battle of knight versus dragon rather than trotting out cute animal sidekicks.

Compared to Perrault, Disney neglects to establish that the occasion of the confrontation of the fairies over the fate of the infant princess is in fact the child's christening. On the other hand, the film incorporates traces of Christian imagery in the climactic battle: The good fairies equip Prince Philip with armor reminiscent of Ephesians 5 — a “shield of virtue” that actually bears the emblem of a cross as well as a “sword of truth” — with which he stands against Maleficent, transformed into a dragon who expressly declares herself to embody “the powers of hell.”

Content advisory: Depictions of bestial imps and a fearsome dragon, brief comic drunkenness.