Description And Comments

Entering through a re-creation of Hollywood's Chinese Theater, guests board vehicles for a fast-paced tour through soundstage sets from classic films including Casablanca, Tarzan, The Wizard of Oz, Alien, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Each set is populated with new-generation Disney audioanimatronic (robot) characters, as well as an occasional human, all augmented by sound and lighting effects. One of Disney's larger and more ambitious dark rides, The Great Movie Ride encompasses 95,000 square feet and showcases some of the most famous scenes in filmmaking. Life-sized audioanimatronic sculptures of stars, including Gene Kelly, John Wayne, James Cagney, and Julie Andrews, inhabit some of the largest sets ever constructed for a Disney ride.

A Tennessee family thinks the attraction needs some freshening up:

As someone who attended the grand opening of [DHS] in 1989, I think The Great Movie Ride seems stuck in the 1980s.

A teenage girl from Fanwood, New Jersey, agrees (with attitude):

A big suggestion for Disney: update The Great Movie Ride, for goodness' sake! Start by getting rid of scenes from movies no one remembers or knows--Footlight Parade? What?--and put in scenes from recent films that are sure to become tomorrow's classics: The Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire, Across the Universe... I could very easily go on.

Touring Tips

It's rare to see a wait of more than 30 minutes at Great Movie Ride except during Christmas. Part of the reason is that it's an interval-loading, high-capacity attraction, and part of the reason is that the films shown are probably not relevant to anyone under age 40. For what it's worth, actual wait times usually run about one-third shorter than the time posted.

The Great Movie Ride Wait Times

This chart shows you roughly how long you'll wait for The Great Movie Ride when you visit on a day with a given Disney's Hollywood Studios Crowd Level. The blue bars represent the average "peak" wait time (that is, how long the line will at its busiest). The bottom and top black lines represent the range of peak wait times to expect (for you fellow nerds out there: it's the 5th percentile and 95th percentile of peak wait times). Please note that these are estimates, and for a better forecast for your travel dates, see The Great Movie Ride Wait Times.

Attraction Photos

Special Comments

Elaborate, with several surprises.

Special Needs

Disney Dish with Jim Hill

ONE SET OF THEME PARK RIGHTS TO RULE THEM ALL

For the past few years, both Disney and Universal have been wooing Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson in hopes of getting the theme park rights to his high-grossing trilogy of films. WDI wants to use the cinematic versions of J. R. R. Tolkien's characters to update a scene in The Great Movie Ride, whereas Universal is looking to use the films as a springboard for a brand-new "land" at Islands of Adventure, done in the highly detailed style of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Jackson, to his credit, has reportedly postponed making any decisions on this issue until he finishes production of his two-part Hobbit movie.

Additional Resources

Other Attractions in Hollywood Boulevard

Touring Plans with The Great Movie Ride

What is a Touring Plan?

Lands