The Aristocats (1970)
★★★ — The Aristocats (1970)
There's a version of The Aristocats that could have been genuinely great. Aristocratic Parisian cats, moonlit rooftops, smoky jazz clubs, a roguish alley cat with all the charm in the world. The ingredients are right there. And yet, sitting with it, you get the feeling that Disney made this one with their feet up. It's lovely. It's pleasant. And then it's over, and you've already half-forgotten it before the credits finish rolling.
The setup is simple enough: a family of pampered cats, the elegant Duchess and her three kittens, get bundled out of their comfortable Parisian life by a scheming butler who wants to cut them out of their wealthy owner's will. It's not the most threatening premise, and the film never really pretends otherwise. Thomas O'Malley, voiced with easy, loose charm by Phil Harris, saunters in to help them find their way home, and what follows is a gentle amble through the French countryside and back into the city. Danger is occasionally gestured at, then waved away. The villain is more hapless than frightening. Conflicts dissolve almost as soon as they appear.
But look, I don't want to be too hard on it, because when The Aristocats is good, it's genuinely good fun. The hand-drawn animation has that gorgeous, slightly loose quality of late-sixties Disney, with soft watercolour backgrounds that feel like illustrated postcards from a Paris that never quite existed but absolutely should have. And "Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat" is a proper joy, a number that fizzes with twenties jazz energy and actual personality. For a few minutes, the film becomes exactly what you wanted it to be all along: loose, swinging, alive. Then it settles back down onto the sofa for another nap.
The kittens are cute, no question. The voice work is warm throughout. There's a relaxed charisma to the whole thing that makes it easy company. But easy company isn't the same as memorable company, and that's the honest problem here. Compare it to One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), another Disney film built around animals in peril, and the difference in narrative momentum is stark. That film crackles with genuine menace and urgency. The Aristocats mostly drifts, like a cat stretched out in a patch of afternoon sunlight, content to just be warm and pretty.
And it's worth saying that Disney made this with a similar rogues-and-roamers spirit just a few years later in Robin Hood (1973), which has its own problems but at least leans harder into the scrappy adventure energy this film keeps hinting at without committing to. The Aristocats always feels like it's about five minutes away from really getting going, and then it ends instead.
None of this makes it a bad film. For young kids, it's perfectly pitched: bright, warm, easy to follow, no nightmare fuel. For adults revisiting it with some nostalgia attached, there's enough charm here to make an afternoon of it. Phil Harris is great value, the Paris setting is gorgeous, and the jazz sequence alone is worth the time. But if you're coming to it fresh, as I'd encourage anyone to do with their eyes open, you might find yourself nodding along pleasantly while waiting for a film that never quite arrives.
Three stars. Disney at its most relaxed, which is to say comfortable, occasionally lovely, and just a little too sleepy for its own good.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 1970 | Watched: 2026-04-14
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Wolfgang Reitherman: One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) · Robin Hood (1973)
More with Phil Harris: Robin Hood (1973)
More from the 1970s: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Here and Elsewhere (1976) · Italianamerican (1974) · Punishment Park (1971)
More animation: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)
More comedy: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · Americana (2023) · The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
