Plan Your Summertime Binge With These Epic Disney Plus Shows

Stepping away from the Skywalker saga, Star Wars: The Acolyte takes things back 100 years before the story of The Phantom Menace to explore a collection of new characters in the High Republic era. It’s a space crime thriller that puts a group of Jedi in detective mode as they track down a mysterious dark force that is slowly taking out Jedi targets one by one.

Iwájú is a futuristic adventure that takes viewers to Lagos, Nigeria, where a young girl named Tola leaves her home to explore the hidden dangers of the world around her. This coming-of-age tale from Walt Disney Animation Studios and Kugali Media highlights important issues like inequality and classism through a distinctly African lens. 

This meta comedy is inspired by the hit High School Musical movies. The series takes place at a fictional version of East High School, where the movies were filmed. This is a teen drama with plenty of humor thrown in, featuring the sorts of highs and lows you’d expect. And yes, it’s also a delightful musical.

Star Wars: Visions is a fun and edgy animated anthology series that adds an exciting new element to Lucasfilm’s long-established franchise. Seven Japanese animation studios were tapped to create nine unique noncanonical episodes for the program. Additional episodes from Spain, Ireland, Chile, the United Kingdom, South Korea, France, India, Japan and South Africa were released in the show’s second installment. 

Doctor Who kicked off 60 years ago, and since then, the sci-fi series has been revamped multiple times. Actors like David Tennant and Matt Smith helped bring the iconic Time Lord into the present day with the program’s run of modern era seasons. Ncuti Gatwa is the latest actor to take the reins as the Doctor, marking the first time in the program’s history that a Black actor has stepped into the role. Doctor Who made the move to Disney Plus in 2023. New episodes (starting with season 14) will exclusively air on the streamer.

Bluey is a phenomenon, plain and simple. The kids’ show, which follows a family of anthropomorphic dogs — Bluey, her sister Bingo, dad Bandit and mom Chilli — was the most streamed series in 2023, and for good reason. Nearly all the episodes run at around eight minutes in length, making it an easy binge. And while the tone remains light and playful, the series digs into relevant and poignant topics in a way that never talks down to its audience. Who knew a show about an Australian dog family would be so addictive? Disney Plus knew.

Simply put, I think Andor is the best Star Wars series Disney Plus has made. The program ditches the flashy, and often clichéd, production values of its predecessors and goes all-in on some intense ground-level storytelling. Expanding the story of the characters featured in the one-off film Rogue One, Andor comes through with the emotional stakes thanks to its smart writing and the excellent performances of its cast. Phenomenal stuff, right here.

This fresh take on Rick Riordan’s cherished books aims to erase the live-action movies from our collective memories. And, for the most part, it accomplishes its task. The eight-episode first season follows the events of Lightning Thief, which is the first book in the series. Thanks to a younger cast and lighter stakes, this Percy Jackson series is positioned to be a YA hit for Disney Plus.

Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau took their love of Star Wars to new heights with The Mandalorian. It’s the first live-action Star Wars series to hit Disney Plus and it set the standard for everything that came after. Stylistically inspired by things like the Lone Wolf and Cub manga, Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo and Sergio Leone’s iconic Dollars trilogy (which starred Clint Eastwood as the Man With No Name), the series follows a lone bounty hunter who gets a second chance at life when he’s hired to protect a little green alien you may know simply as Baby Yoda.

This three-part documentary series puts us smack-dab in the creative maelstrom of one of the world’s biggest musical groups. Directed by Oscar-winner Peter Jackson, The Beatles: Get Back gives a cinéma vérité-style look at a band at the top of their game, and on the precipice of collapse. This previously unseen footage shows John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in rehearsal for their infamous rooftop concert at their Apple Corps headquarters on London’s Savile Row. It was their last live performance. It’s breathtaking, inspiring and heartbreaking. And definitely worth a watch.

X-Men: The Animated Series ended its five season run in 1997. Almost three decades later, X-Men ’97 continues the story of everyone’s favorite mutant superhero crew. The pacing is quick, the writing is tight and the 2D animation style acts as a nice bow tying this lovely nostalgic gift together for ’90s kids everywhere.

Echo (Alaqua Cox) was first introduced in a three-episode arc in Hawkeye. Marvel’s Echo is centered on the hearing-impaired antihero. She’s also a member of the Choctaw Nation, which leads the series to wonderfully explore these aspects of her identity. Her association with Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) further connects the MCU shows on Disney Plus with those previously on Netflix — and sets up the arrival of Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and crew quite nicely.

The Bad Batch is an intense, action-packed spin-off of celebrated Star Wars animated series The Clone Wars. Audiences have seen the fallout of Order 66 take shape in various forms throughout the Star Wars franchise, but never like this. The Bad Batch follows a squad of elite clone troopers with genetic defects. They may have special abilities, but that doesn’t make them invisible to the top-secret execution order. In turn, the animated series fills in some blanks in Star Wars lore. It does so in an incredibly entertaining way.

Ms. Marvel is a breath of fresh air for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Disney Plus series flips the script on what we have grown to expect from Marvel shows on the streamer. Iman Vellani is a revelation as the titular hero. It’s a challenge for a show to balance the heavy responsibilities of being a superhero with the trials and tribulations of high school. The story pulls it off, and does so with a welcome helping of Muslim representation.

WandaVision started it all on Disney Plus. It’s the first original series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to hit the streamer. It’s a genre-bending adventure that finds Wanda and Vision living out different realities inspired by TV sitcoms, from I Love Lucy and The Dick Van Dyke Show to The Brady Bunch and Family Ties. How does the emotional fallout of Avengers: Endgame (and Vision’s death, specifically) affect Wanda? Well, let’s just say her grief takes her down one heck of a weird rabbit hole.

Read our full WandaVision review.

American Born Chinese is a bold take on classic Chinese mythology. Based on Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel of the same name, the series is a bold, bright, fun and heartfelt coming-of-age immigrant story. The humor and fight sequences add to the mystique of the show. It’s a new take on the iconic tale of The Monkey King and the involvement of Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Daniel Wu help solidify it as a must-watch.

Tom Hiddleston has appeared as Loki, the God of Mischief, throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the past decade. Thanks to Disney Plus, he finally leads his own odd adventure. The quirky sci-fi series puts Loki in the unlikely position of hero. Here, he works with a barrage of interesting characters, including Owen Wilson’s Mobius M. Mobius, to correct the timeline. It’s an offbeat, fun and thoroughly weird series that appeals to die-hard fans and newbs alike.

What happens when Captain America hangs up his shield? That’s the question going into Marvel’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Here, Sam Wilson (better known as Falcon) and Bucky Barnes (aka the Winter Soldier) buddy-up in a surprisingly funny and heartfelt series that deals with trauma, grief and classism as the world picks up the pieces from the earth-shattering events of Avengers: Endgame.

This new take on RL Stine’s beloved Goosebumps books brings some spooky chills to Disney Plus. Justin Long headlines the supernatural series which follows a group of teens who find themselves investigating the death of a kid named Harold Biddle. As they learn about the boy, insidious secrets come to light connecting their parents to his passing three decades prior. 

Moon Knight stars Oscar Isaac as Steven Grant, a troubled man with dissociative identity disorder. These aren’t simple anxiety issues — no, Grant actually shares his body with a mercenary named Marc Spector. The discovery of this alter-ego leads Grant on an adventure that pits him against a sinister cult leader named Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke) and a gang of formidable Egyptian gods. It’s a trippy ride that may even scratch that Indiana Jones itch.

Read our full Moon Knight review.

Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem Band get top billing in Muppets Mayhem, Disney Plus’s latest series inspired by Jim Henson’s Muppets. Here, the Electric Mayhem Band struggle to record one more album. But record company politics and other past mistakes make things complicated for the crew — and boy do those complications lead to some hilarious on-screen antics! Of all the Muppets programs to hit TV in recent years, Muppets Mayhem comes closest to the wacky, fun vibe of the original. 

Marvel’s Hawkeye is surprisingly fun. Instead of delving too deeply into Clint Barton’s trauma following the events of Avengers: Endgame, the series takes on the shape of a holiday journey home (akin to, say, Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Christmas Vacation). The result is a necessary new layer in Clint’s story. Plus, we get Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop — the necessary comedic foil to Clint’s hardened personality.

Read our full Hawkeye review.

Chris Hemsworth sheds his Thor persona to take audiences on an epic wellness journey. Each episode of Limitless follows Hemsworth as he strives to push his body to the limit. Different elements of science play a part in the series, which keeps its adventurous focus on each mission Hemsworth tackles. Needless to say, the show is energetic, inspiring and gives audiences a side of Hemsworth we’ve never seen before.