Mulan
A young woman cuts her hair, binds her chest, and marches off to war disguised as a man — and Disney somehow made it soar. Mulan arrived in 1998 with stirring action, a wisecracking dragon, and a credits song that launched a pop star's career.
Directed by Barry Cook and Tony Bancroft and released on June 19, 1998, Mulan was Disney's take on the Chinese legend "The Ballad of Mulan," and it arrived fully formed: Ming-Na Wen spoke the character while Lea Salonga sang her, Eddie Murphy voiced the tiny wisecracking dragon Mushu, and BD Wong and Donny Osmond split the role of Li Shang. Matthew Wilder and David Zippel wrote the songs and Jerry Goldsmith supplied the sweeping orchestral score — and "Reflection" and "I'll Make a Man Out of You" became standards, the kind that still get belted decades later.
But the credits carried a secret payload: the end-credits pop version of "Reflection" was Christina Aguilera's first US release. It led directly to her RCA Records contract and kickstarted one of the biggest pop careers of the next decade. The film itself backed up every bit of that momentum. With a $90 million budget, it grossed $304 million worldwide and earned a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes and an A+ CinemaScore — critics and audiences agreed on this one.
A live-action remake would follow in 2020, but it was this 1998 version, with its dramatic premise — a daughter taking her aging father's place in the army — and its unwavering visual confidence, that made the legend live on screen for a generation.
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