List of Disney Channel original films
Since its launch on April 18, 1983, American cable and satellite pay television channel Disney Channel airs and/or releases/distributes of original first-run television films under the banner names of Disney Channel Premiere Films until October 1997, Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM) until March 2023, and Disney Original Movie thereafter.[1]
Most of these films were subsequently released on home video formats such as VHS, DVD, or more recently, Blu-ray, whiles others do not. Beginning with Princess Protection Program in 2009, releases of DCOMs on DVD months following their television premieres got reduced to a week after television premieres. The 2009 television film also became the first DCOM to appear in high-definition widescreen, although DCOMs have been produced in such a format since the release of Go Figure on June 10, 2005.
The highest-rated premiere for the banner/brand came in August 2007, when High School Musical 2 set a record for basic cable with 17.2 million viewers. The second highest-rated premiere is held by Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie, which premiered with 11.4 million viewers. DCOMs include sequels-turned-franchises such as Under Wraps, Halloweentown, Zenon, Twitches, The Cheetah Girls, High School Musical, Camp Rock, Teen Beach, Descendants and Zombies.
During the Memorial Day holiday weekend of 2016, Disney Channel began to air many older DCOMs in a specialized marathon programming block in celebration of its 100th film, Adventures in Babysitting, starting off with the 51 most popular films airing over the four-day weekend from May 27, 2016[2] and concluding on June 24, 2016 with the premiere of the aforementioned 100th Disney Channel Original Movie.[3]
From April 5 to May 24, 2021, Disney Channel hosted an eight-week event called "DCOM & Dessert", where a Disney Channel Original Movie would air every Monday night at 7:00 PM. Zombies 2 stars Ariel Martin and Chandler Kinney hosted this event and had their own baking segments where they would make interactive dessert recipes that families could make at home.[4]
The following films did not originally premiere under the "Disney Channel Original Movie" label, though they were sometimes later promoted as such:
The following were produced by the Disney Channel, but premiered on Disney+ without being labeled as Disney Channel Original Movies:
The following films are based on Disney Channel shows or Disney Channel Original Movies, but were released theatrically. However, some of them later premiered on Disney Channel: