Sleeping Beauty (1959 film)

Sleeping Beauty
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Supervising director Clyde Geronimi Sequence directors Eric Larson Wolfgang Reitherman Les Clark
Story by	Erdman Penner Joe Rinaldi Winston Hibler Bill Peet Ted Sears Ralph Wright Milt Banta
Based on	"Sleeping Beauty" by Charles Perrault
Produced by	Walt Disney
Starring	Mary Costa Bill Shirley Eleanor Audley Verna Felton Barbara Luddy Barbara Jo Allen Taylor Holmes Bill Thompson
Edited by	Roy M. Brewer Jr. Donald Halliday
Music by	George Bruns
Production company	Walt Disney Productions
Distributed by	Buena Vista Film Distribution
Release date	January 29, 1959 (1959-01-29)
Running time	75 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$6 million[1]
Box office	$51.6 million (United States and Canada)[2]

Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by Buena Vista Film Distribution. Based on Charles Perrault's 1697 fairy tale, the production was supervised by Clyde Geronimi, and was directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, Eric Larson, and Les Clark. Featuring the voices of Mary Costa, Bill Shirley, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Barbara Luddy, Barbara Jo Allen, Taylor Holmes, and Bill Thompson, the film follows Princess Aurora, who was cursed by the evil fairy Maleficent to die from pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel on her 16th birthday. She is saved by three good fairies, who alter Aurora's curse so that she falls into a deep sleep and will be awakened by true love's kiss.

Sleeping Beauty began development in 1950. The film took nearly a decade and $6 million (equivalent to $62,712,329 in 2023) to produce, and was Disney's most expensive animated feature at the time. Its tapestry-like art style was devised by Eyvind Earle, who was inspired by pre-Renaissance European art; its score and songs, composed by George Bruns, was based on Pyotr Tchaikovsky's 1889 ballet. Sleeping Beauty was the first animated film to use the Super Technirama 70 widescreen process and was the second full-length animated feature filmed in anamorphic widescreen, following Lady and the Tramp (1955).^[3]

It was released in theaters on January 29, 1959, to mixed reviews from critics who praised its art direction and musical score, but criticized its plot and characters. The film was a box-office bomb in its initial release, grossing $5.3 million (equivalent to $55,395,890 in 2023), and losing $900,000 (equivalent to $9,406,849 in 2023) for the distributor and many employees from the animation studio became layoffs. Sleeping Beauty's re-releases have been successful,^[4] and it has become one of Disney's most artistically acclaimed features. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture at the 32nd Academy Awards.

Maleficent, a live-action reimagining of the film from Maleficent's perspective, was released in 2014, followed by a sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, in 2019. The latter year, Sleeping Beauty was selected for preservation in the United States Library of Congress' National Film Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".