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Best Princess Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of princess cinema — measured across 866 indexed frames from 13 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

Princess films over-index on crown, tunic and rock — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    Sleeping Beauty (1959)

    Clyde GeronimiIMDb 7.2TMDB 6.9See in full on FrameThrower →

    After the beautiful Princess Aurora is born into royalty, everyone gathers to celebrate. Everything is perfectly fine until an unwanted guest appears, the evil fairy Maleficent. Maleficent curses the young princess and announces that she will die by pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel before sunset on her 16th birthday. Fortunately, one of the good fairies, Merryweather, changes the spell so Aurora will fall into a deep sleep instead, and the only way to wake her from her sleep is true love's kiss. Finally the day comes.

  2. 2

    Shrek 2 (2004)

    Conrad Vernon, Kelly AsburyIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    Shrek (Mike Myers) has rescued Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz), got married, and now is time to meet the parents. Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey (Eddie Murphy) set off to Far, Far Away to meet Fiona's mother and father. But not everyone is happy. Shrek and King Harold (John Cleese) find it hard to get along, and there's tension in the marriage. It's not just the family who are unhappy. Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) returns from a failed attempt at rescuing Fiona, and works alongside his mother, the Fairy Godmother (Jennifer Saunders), to try and find a way to get Shrek away from Fiona.

  3. 3

    Your Highness (2011)

    David Gordon GreenDP Tim OrrIMDb 5.5TMDB 5.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    Throughout history, tales of chivalry have burnished the legends of brave, handsome knights who rescue fair damsels, slay dragons and conquer evil. But behind many a hero is a good-for-nothing younger brother trying just to stay out of the way of those dragons, evil and trouble in general. As two princes on a daring mission to save their land, they must rescue the heir apparent's fiancée before their kingdom is destroyed. Thadeous (McBride) has spent his life watching his perfect older brother Fabious (Franco) embark upon valiant journeys and win the hearts of his people. Tired of being passed over for adventure, adoration and the throne, he's settled for a life of wizard's weed, hard booze and easy maidens. But when Fabious' bride-to-be, Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel), gets kidnapped by the evil wizard Leezar (Justin Theroux), the king gives his deadbeat son an ultimatum: Man up and help rescue her or get cut off. Half-assedly embarking upon his first quest, Thadeous joins Fabious to trek across the perilous outlands and free the princess. Joined by Isabel (Natalie Portman)-an elusive warrior with a dangerous agenda of her own-the brothers must vanquish horrific creatures and traitorous knights before they can reach Belladonna. If Thadeous can find his inner hero, he can help his brother prevent the destruction of his land. Stay a slacker, and not only does he die a coward, he gets front row seats to the dawn of an all-new Dark Ages.

  4. 4

    Donkey Skin (1970)

    Jacques DemyDP Ghislain CloquetIMDb 7.0TMDB 7.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    The education of a princess wrapped in a love story. A king and queen live happily until her sudden death. The king decides to marry his lovely daughter. She's willing, but the Lily Fairy serves as a social conscience, intent on thwarting incest. She instructs the princess to request a series of dresses impossible to make; however, the king's tailor succeeds. So the fairy plots the princess's escape, wearing the skin of the king's prize donkey. She's spirited away to be a scullery maid dressed in the noisome skin. A wandering prince sees her in the woods and is smitten. Can love find its course, and does the princess learn a lesson of life's hardships?

  5. 5

    Legend (1985)

    Ridley ScottDP Alex ThomsonIMDb 6.3TMDB 6.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    Set in a timeless mythical forest inhabited by fairies, goblins, unicorns and mortals, this fantastic story follows a mystical forest dweller, chosen by fate, to undertake a heroic quest. He must save the beautiful Princess Lili and defeat the demonic Lord of Darkness, or the world will be plunged into a never-ending ice age.

  6. 6

    Aladdin (1992)

    John Musker, Ron ClementsIMDb 8.0TMDB 7.7See in full on FrameThrower →

    Aladdin is a poor street urchin who spends his time stealing food from the marketplace in the city of Agrabah. His adventures begin when he meets a young girl who happens to be Princess Jasmine, who is forced to be married by her wacky yet estranged father. Aladdin's luck suddenly changes when he retrieves a magical lamp from the Cave of Wonders. What he unwittingly gets is a fun-loving genie who only wishes to have his freedom. Little do they know is that the Sultan's sinister advisor Jafar has his own plans for both Aladdin and the lamp.

  7. 7

    Ponyo (2008)

    Hayao MiyazakiDP Atsushi OkuiIMDb 7.6TMDB 7.8See in full on FrameThrower →

    The son of a sailor, 5-year-old Sosuke lives a quiet life on an oceanside cliff with his mother Lisa. One fateful day, he finds a beautiful goldfish trapped in a bottle on the beach and upon rescuing her, names her Ponyo. But she is no ordinary goldfish. The daughter of a masterful wizard and a sea goddess, Ponyo uses her father's magic to transform herself into a young girl and quickly falls in love with Sosuke, but the use of such powerful sorcery causes a dangerous imbalance in the world. As the moon steadily draws nearer to the earth and Ponyo's father sends the ocean's mighty waves to find his daughter, the two children embark on an adventure of a lifetime to save the world and fulfill Ponyo's dreams of becoming human.

  8. 8

    Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

    Guillermo del ToroDP Guillermo NavarroIMDb 8.2TMDB 7.8See in full on FrameThrower →

    In 1944 Falangist Spain, a girl, fascinated with fairy-tales, is sent along with her pregnant mother to live with her new stepfather, a ruthless captain of the Spanish army. During the night, she meets a fairy who takes her to an old faun in the center of the labyrinth. He tells her she's a princess, but must prove her royalty by surviving three gruesome tasks. If she fails, she will never prove herself to be the true princess and will never see her real father, the king, again.

What princess films are made of

How much more often each element appears in a princess frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — crown is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.

  • crown33.9×
  • tunic10.2×
  • rock4.9×
  • stone wall4.4×
  • girl2.6×
  • tree2.3×
  • clouds2.2×
  • grass2.0×

How princess films are shot

Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate princess from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.

  • 26%widevs 20% baseline
  • 16%closeupvs 21% baseline
  • 15%high keyvs 12% baseline

What breaks the pattern

Spencer (2021) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.

Method

Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 866 frames from 13 films carrying the princess label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (408,752 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.

Machine-readable: /api/list/princess

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These are real movie frames, shown at reduced resolution. All rights remain with their respective owners; they appear here for study, commentary and education under fair-use principles. How these are meant to be used