ell, you can’t accuse Disney of not picking its moment – although, as it turns out, the universe really picked it for them. Nearly five months after its debut in the US, after a long-period of fan-frustrating non-confirmation and further waiting, the UK launch of the Disney+ streaming service is finally upon us, beaming into your living rooms and laptops from Tuesday. And just as self-isolation from the coronavirus is making home entertainment the only entertainment for many, the timing is almost morbidly perfect. After all, it’s not as if you’ll be able to get your Disney fix on the big screen for a while now: following the lead of several other studios, the Mouse House has indefinitely postponed the cinema release dates of blockbusters Mulan, The New Mutants and Antlers, with Black Widow widely expected to follow. Instead, for £5.99 a month or an annual subscription fee of £49.99 (which goes up by a tenner if you subscribe after the launch), you’ll be granted access to a slightly daunting array of Disney and Disney-adjacent content. It makes the old, now-defunct DisneyLife platform look as quaint as a Blockbuster Video store by comparison. Sign up to our Film Today email Read more The full list of content would take me several columns to get through. Broadly, we’re looking at 450 films from Disney’s back catalogue, not including the full range of Pixar features and shorts (except for the resently released Onward), the collected works of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and all the Star Wars romps but the last one. TV-wise, we’re looking at more than 200 Disney series, again not including assorted Marvel and Star Wars spinoffs. An archive of 640 episodes of The Simpsons is the most prominent asset in an otherwise somewhat random assortment of properties inherited from the company’s Fox takeover – which includes family-suitable films ranging from The Sound of Music to Mrs Doubtfire to Avatar. And for conscientious parents concerned about their children consuming too many hours of bubblegum Disney content on the trot, there’s at least a hefty library of National Geographic documentaries to vary the programming with something a little more edifying. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Watch a trailer for Disney+ The star attractions of the service are obvious enough. Many families that will seize upon it for the kids’ umpteenth viewing of Frozen or The Lion King – both the joyous 1994 and soulless 2019 versions are available, though why anyone would pick the latter in a side-by-side situation is beyond me. Many will be subscribing for The Mandalorian alone: the world premiere of the first live-action series in the Star Wars franchise has been the most loudly and eagerly anticipated of all new Disney+ offerings. (Well, those who didn’t impatiently find it through, er, less legitimate means when American fans got it back in November.) Following months of hype that saw Baby Yoda become a ubiquitous internet meme even with those who hadn’t seen it yet, the Star Wars series – set between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens in the saga’s timeline – won’t disappoint die-hards, but it’s not solely for them. Dispensing with the somewhat dour pompousness of the last few films, its cheerfully silly, western-influenced storytelling came as a tonic to this agnostic. It gets the Saturday-matinee spirit that 2018’s strained Solo missed. Advertisement If The Mandalorian acts as an auspicious flagship for the Disney+ range of original series, their roster of original films has yet to land on an equivalent bullseye. A live-action remake of Lady and the Tramp is innocuous but insipid, made to feel all the more pointless – like, indeed, almost all of Disney’s recent rehashes – when the silky animated original is right there. More ambitious is Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made, a kid-detective caper made with a cockeyed sense of quirk by Tom McCarthy. Pretty much the last thing we’d have expected from the writer-director after the Oscar-winning Spotlight, it’s amiably odd, but just not funny enough to fly. Better is Stargirl, a sweet, slightly fey YA romance that director Julia Hart (who made the excellent Fast Color, recently discussed in this column) imbues with a winning strangeness amid the more predictable “be yourself” messaging. Still, there’s nothing yet to compete with classic Disney, and it’s here where critical recommendations from the catalogue are all but futile: Disney+ will be a service that thrives on nostalgia and devoted fandom, so pick your own childhood favourite as your children pick theirs. I’ll be taking return trips to The Little Mermaid, The Great Mouse Detective and Bambi, for starters, bingeing on the sharp early years of The Simpsons and the warm-and-fuzzy charms of assorted Muppets films, while mourning the absence of The Muppets Take Manhattan– but, hey, we can’t have everything. Pick your own comfort viewing and settle in: we may be here a while, after all. New to streaming & DVD this week Facebook Twitter Pinterest Watch a trailer for Le Mans ’66 Advertisement Le Mans ’66 (Fox, 12) Also known by its US title Ford v Ferrari, this chunky slab of racing-car history is old-school Hollywood movie-making of a satisfying order: familiar dramatic beats pumped up by the Oscar-winning flash of its editing and sound design. Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Drakes Avenue, 12) Not to be confused with the Eugene O’Neill adaptation released last week, Bi Gan’s bewitching waking dream of a film bends space and time to depict the haunting effect of a lost love – though it does lose something at home without its virtuosic 3D finale. The Biggest Little Farm (Parkland, PG) John Chester’s hugely appealing documentary follows the director’s own quest to leave the rat race of LA and pursue biodiverse farming. The results are gentle, family-friendly and piglet-cute, but with an incisive streak. Autumn Sonata (Mubi) If last week’s Max von Sydow appreciation got you in an Ingmar Bergman mood, head to Mubi’s impeccable Mother’s Day selection: a sharply anguished, bruise-tender mother-daughter study, with Ingrid Bergman magnificent in her final film role.