The 17 Best Movies That Follow the Hero's Journey
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Everyone who's interested in how stories are made is bound to have heard the term "the Hero's Journey." Also known as the monomyth, it's a story archetype coined and popularized by Joseph Campbell in the mid-1900s when he noticed that heroes in myths typically go through the same 17 stages in their journey, from the call to adventure that gets the character out of their comfort zone, to the freedom to live found at the end of the ordeals in their adventure.
This narrative template has served as the basis and inspiration of countless stories throughout history – including numerous outstanding films. From a grand fantastical story like Star Wars , to something more grounded in reality like O Brother, Where Art Thou? , these movies don't always follow every single one of the steps outlined by Campbell, but they stick to more than enough to call each of them a hero's journey . A tried-and-true way of telling successful stories that resonate with audiences of all ages and nationalities, movies that follow the Hero's Journey, if well-written, are always a delight like no other.
17 'Men in Black' (1997)
Directed by barry sonnenfeld.
One of the most iconic movies you may not know is based on Marvel comics , Men in Black is the story of a cop ( Will Smith ) who, after a chase with an otherworldly being, is recruited by an organization that monitors and polices alien activity on Earth. There's something for every sci-fi fan to enjoy in this movie, from visually stunning special effects to mind-blowing action and just the right amount of humor.
Men in Black follows the Hero's Journey nearly to a tee , from Agent J getting the call to join the mission of protecting the planet from alien threats and initially refusing the call, to him finally learning to master his two worlds and become the hero he was meant to be. The result is a thrilling sci-fi action adventure that doesn't get nearly enough praise nowadays, with a heroic protagonist who's a joy to follow through his journey.
Men In Black
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16 'Kingsman: The Secret Service' (2014)
Directed by matthew vaughn.
Kingsman: The Secret Service , one of the funniest action movies of the 21st century so far , is based on the popular comic books of the same title. It's about a super-secret spy organization that recruits a promising but rough-around-the-edges street kid into their training program, while a twisted tech genius emerges as a global threat. With a star-studded cast and Matthew Vaughn 's colorful direction, it's a delightfully entertaining film with a traditional Hero's Journey narrative.
As traditional and monomythical as protagonist Eggsy's journey toward heroism is, Vaughn and his co-screenwriter Jane Goldman still find ways to make the story feel fresh, exciting, and unpredictable. By the time the explosive third act comes around, audiences are delighted to see how far Eggsy has come and how badass the movie's action sequences can be.
Kingsman: The Secret Service
15 'o brother, where art thou' (2000), directed by joel and ethan coen.
The Coen brothers are masters of making some of the most entertaining crime movies, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? is definitely one of their best. Loosely based on Homer 's The Odyssey , it's about three fugitives roaming the southern U.S. in search of treasure with the law hot on their heels. Unlike the Greek classic, however, the Coens' crime film has great Southern American music, traditional Western tropes, and stars George Clooney , Tim Blake Nelson , and John Turturro .
The characters in O Brother, Where Art Thou? encounter mentors, face challenges, and go through profound transformations , just like the heroes in the monomyth do. The ensuing adventure is as humorous as it is exciting, an offbeat adaptation of a massively important and influential classic. You can't go wrong with a well-written and well-directed Coen brothers movie, so O Brother should easily please all cinephiles' palates.
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
14 'batman begins' (2005), directed by christopher nolan.
Movies with Hero's Journey archetypes are fun enough as they are, but mix those elements with a superhero origin story, and you get one of the best entries in the superhero genre . That's what Batman Begins is, as it reinvents the story of Bruce Wayne's ( Christian Bale ) origins as the vigilante hero Batman, by placing the character on a journey to become the guardian that his beloved Gotham City deserves.
Christopher Nolan's first installment in his Dark Knight Trilogy feels more like a character-driven thriller than a traditional superhero film, in the best sense possible. The director cleverly fits Bruce's process of becoming the Dark Knight into Campbell's monomyth , showing audiences how the hero is eventually able to master his new identity to save his city.
Batman Begins
13 'the northman' (2022), directed by robert eggers.
With his 2015 folk horror gem The Witch , Robert Eggers emerged as one of the most outstanding and exciting new voices in Hollywood. With his third outing, he departed from the horror genre to instead make one of the most barbaric action dramas of the 2020s so far: The Northman , the Hamlet-like tale of an exiled Viking prince on a quest to avenge his father's murder.
The Northman is one of the best R-rated fantasy movies , employing Eggers's unparalleled eye for visual and narrative details to tell a riveting story led by Alexander Skarsgård 's surprisingly nuanced lead performance. As a story inspired by classic tales of old, The Northman sticks close to Hero's Journey tropes, but always elevating them with nail-biting action and thrilling character work.
The Northman
12 'iron man' (2008), directed by jon favreau.
As one of the most famous superheroes in existence and the Marvel Cinematic Universe's anchor being, Iron Man (played by a perfectly cast Robert Downey Jr. ) is now a household name. Back in 2008, however, only hardcore Marvel fans knew who he was. That all changed with Jon Favreau 's Iron Man , the movie that birthed the MCU, about a billionaire who engineers a unique weaponized suit of armor to fight crime.
Whereas the franchise that it spawned would go on to have a sprawling structure spanning many media, Iron Man wisely falls into a traditional heroic journey as it follows Tony Stark into the cave where he meets his mentor and creates his armor, and into his entailing odyssey of self-discovery and heroism. To this day, the result is remembered as one of the MCU's greatest films.
11 'The Matrix' (1999)
Directed by lana and lilly wachowski.
When the Wachowskis released The Matrix before the turn of the century, the world was taken by storm, and the sci-fi genre in films would never be the same again. In the movie that cemented him as an action star, Keanu Reeves plays Neo, a man who joins a group of insurgents in their fight against the powerful computers who rule Earth. To this day, The Matrix still receives praise as one of the best sci-fi movies ever .
With its visual innovations, clever cinematography, and unique philosophical themes that have been endlessly analyzed throughout the years, The Matrix was unlike anything audiences had seen before at the time of its release . Perhaps one of the main reasons why its story clicked so well with viewers around the world was because it closely follows the stages of the Hero's Journey, as Neo goes from an average Joe to an all-powerful hero.
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10 'Kung Fu Panda' (2008)
Directed by mark osborne and john stevenson.
For those that think that family animated movies are exclusively for children, Kung Fu Panda is the perfect mind-changing watch. It follows Po ( Jack Black ), a lazy panda who dreams of being a kung fu hero, as he's thrust into a journey of discovering his destiny as the Chosen One. There are many examples of the Hero's Journey in movies that logically follow the same structure, but the creative things that Kung Fu Panda does with the archetype are entirely its own .
Just like all the compelling heroes of Campbell's model, Po is called to action, goes through several life-threatening ordeals with help from friends and allies, and finds that the power to be the guardian of the Valley of Peace comes from within. Sprinkled with hilarious humor, outstanding voice acting, and some of the best action in any animated film , it's undoubtedly one of DreamWorks Animation's best efforts.
Kung Fu Panda
9 'finding nemo' (2003), directed by andrew stanton.
Hero's Journey movies are usually action-focused epics, and not often family-friendly stories about fish. That only makes Finding Nemo even more special. It's the story of Marlin ( Albert Brooks ), a timid clownfish who, after his son Nemo ( Alexander Gould in one of the best child voice performances in animated cinema) is kidnapped, sets out to find him against all the threats that the deep blue sea has to offer.
Though Finding Nemo isn't your typical kind of hero's journey, where the story is much more intimate and the biggest threats that the characters face are mostly internal, it very much follows the formula . What finds itself transformed in the end is the relationship between Marlin and Nemo, in one of the most touching endings of Pixar's filmography.
Finding Nemo
8 'the truman show' (1998), directed by peter weir.
One of the most creative, smart, subversive, and philosophically profound comedies ever put to film, The Truman Show stars Jim Carrey (in one of the most inspired casting decisions of the '90s) as the titular Truman Burbank, an insurance salesman oblivious to the fact that his entire life is a reality TV show and every single person in his town — including his family and friends — are actors.
The Truman Show proves that any story can follow the Hero's Journey, not only genre action flicks . As he starts uncovering the truth, goes through an existential crisis, and eventually decides to escape his manufactured reality, the story of Truman sticks close to Campbell's stages of a narrative. The result is a fascinating movie that finds the perfect balance between smart humor and poignant drama.
The Truman Show
7 'the wizard of oz' (1939), directed by victor fleming.
An exciting adventure that uses both black-and-white and beautiful color , through a fantastical land that any movie fan would love to live in, The Wizard of Oz follows Dorothy ( Judy Garland ) in her journey through the magical land of Oz, searching for a mysterious wizard who can send her back home.
The movie was an absolute sensation when it came out, and even after more than three-quarters of a century, it's still remembered as one of the greatest American movie masterpieces. The stages of the monomyth are clear in The Wizard of Oz : the ordinary world is Kansas, Dorothy crosses a very literal threshold to a vastly different world, and her journey of transformation is full of faces both friendly and menacing.
The Wizard of Oz
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6 'The Lion King' (1994)
Directed by roger allers and rob minkoff.
1994's The Lion King is a movie that needs no introduction. Many would say that it's the best animated movie to ever come out of Disney, and it's fully understandable, thanks to its timeless songs and the animated film's brilliant depiction of grief . It's the grand and epic story of Simba ( Matthew Broderick ), a lion cub prince who's tricked into exile by his uncle Scar ( Jeremy Irons ), who wishes to have the throne for himself.
The animation is majestic, with some really charming character designs, and the story is compelling from beginning to end. Its philosophical themes of identity and self-discovery are beautiful, and the way they're conveyed through a classic hero's journey structure in The Lion King is simply perfect . The film is in certain ways an adaptation of William Shakespeare 's Hamlet , but its fidelity to Campbell's monomyth is much more interesting to dissect.
The Lion King
5 'harry potter' saga (2001 - 2011), directed by chris columbus, alfonso cuarón, mike newell, and david yates.
The Harry Potter series features not just one, but eight of the movies that best follow the Hero's Journey. From Chris Columbus 's Sorcerer's Stone to David Yates 's Deathly Hallows — Part 2 , the franchise follows the coming-of-age story of the titular character ( Daniel Radcliffe ) and his two best friends, as they grow to become key players in a war against an evil wizard.
Everyone has a different favorite installment in the series, but every Harry Potter movie plays an equally crucial role in the overarching narrative of the story, which very closely follows the monomyth . Not only that, but each film follows a smaller version of the general model as well. It's probably what makes these movies so easy to enjoy, since they so faithfully walk along the lines laid out by Campbell and so many filmmakers from before 2001.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
4 'seven samurai' (1954), directed by akira kurosawa.
Master Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa is one of the best to ever do it, having inspired and influenced countless directors that came after him. He made many of the best films of all time throughout his career, but his most acclaimed is usually agreed to be Seven Samurai , a 3-and-a-half-hour-long action epic about seven samurai being hired for protection by a village of farmers exploited by bandits.
With Seven Samurai , Kurosawa pretty much invented the cinematic version of the Hero's Journey, which would be imitated and followed by a myriad of filmmakers in the future. Easily the best and most influential samurai film ever made, Seven Samurai expands on Campbell's monomyth and shows the range of enthralling stories that it's able to give a foundation to.
Seven Samurai
3 'the lord of the rings' trilogy (2001 - 2003), directed by peter jackson.
There are countless things that make Peter Jackson 's The Lord of the Rings trilogy one of the best fantasy film franchises of all time, and one of the most important is the fact that all three installments in the trilogy truly feel like part of a greater whole, as they collaborate in telling the story of Frodo ( Elijah Wood ), the Fellowship of the Ring, and their efforts to destroy the greatest tool of an evil tyrant terrorizing Middle-earth.
Of course, the monomyth-following template was already there, set in stone by the legendary J.R.R. Tolkien when he wrote what's undoubtedly one of the best series of fantasy books in history. Even yet, the way Jackson and company built on top of that, telling a story that feels undeniably cinematic, is admirable beyond measure.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2 'citizen kane' (1941), directed by orson welles.
When Orson Welles made his passion project Citizen Kane , he probably had no idea that he was making what would in the future be referred to as the single greatest film of all time by thousands of people, as well as one of the most essential movies of the '40s . Inspired by magnate William Randolph Hearst , it's a character study about a group of reporters trying to decipher the last words of Charles Foster Kane (Welles), a powerful newspaper tycoon.
Citizen Kane is an entirely unique picture, and the way it's structured is just as well. Citizen Kane follows Campbell's monomyth formula in a very non-traditional way , which only makes it more of a groundbreaking story. There are plenty of good reasons for its fame, and that's certainly one of the biggest.
Citizen Kane
1 'star wars' (1977), directed by george lucas.
Perhaps no movie more famously follows the Hero's Journey archetype than Star Wars , with George Lucas having taken direct inspiration from Campbell . The hero in this particular story is Luke Skywalker ( Mark Hamill ), a young farm boy who's thrown into an adventure far greater than anything he'd encountered before, joining the Rebellion against the dictatorial Galactic Empire.
One of the best space operas of all time, Star Wars showcases what makes the monomyth such an effective way of telling stories and celebrating the art of storytelling itself. Luke is a deeply compelling hero, his journey is incredibly entertaining, and all the allies and villains that he encounters along the way are equally iconic. As far as modern myths go, Star Wars is certainly one of the best.
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
NEXT: Movies You Didn't Realize Were Based on Greek Mythology
22 Most Heroic Classic Disney Protagonists, Ranked
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One of the reasons why Disney's classic animated feature films are so timeless is because they're able to recreate or reinvent old tales so that kids can enjoy them without being traumatized (you'll understand if you've ever read the original Grimm' Fairy Tales) and their lessons still shine through. These stories often center on one or more characters who have to overcome an obstacle of some sort of epic proportions, oftentimes that means overcoming a personal flaw, usually by way of learning through struggle against a big bad guy. That's the hero's journey in the tiniest of nutshells.
Those classic films of the Disney renaissance left us with a plethora of heroes to choose from as we grew up but they weren't all perfect role models. Some were more heroic than others, sometimes because their stories allowed for greater acts of heroism and sometimes because the classic heroic traits just weren't a huge part of their character. We're going to go through twenty of Disney's animated human heroes from the Disney renaissance to see which ones acted more heroically than others. We're interested in which characters performed most heroically given their circumstances, which ones acted with bravery, compassion, humility as well as what or who they saved and why.
Out of an unquenchable desire to explore the human world, Ariel makes a deal with the evil Ursula and loses her voice in exchange for a chance to be human. This one act allows Ursula to threaten, not just Atlantica but the entire world since the sea witch was able to acquire Triton's power and trident. In the end, it's not even Ariel that vanquishes Ursula, it's Prince Eric.
Her adventure wasn't completely absent of good. She saved Eric from drowning, which makes her a hero, and Ariel's love for Eric did ultimately bring the human world and Atlantica that much closer by proving to Triton that humans aren't all that bad. Whether or not that's actually heroic in any way is up to you. Regardless, it's why Ariel has earned a place at the bottom of this list.
21 PETER PAN
It's worth reiterating that all we're interested in here are the actions of these heroes. The reason why we say that is because even though Pan represents the freedom and levity of youth, a lot of his actions are mean-spirited. Of course, he's a hero. He saved the Lost Boys, Tiger Lily, Wendy and her brothers from the clutches of Captain Hook, but let's remember that he also tossed Hook's hand to the crocodile after cutting it off.
It was an act he boasted about several times, like to the mermaids at Mermaid Lagoon. The ones that threatened to drown Wendy while Peter laughed about it. He's naive and a childlike, so it's sort of understandable that he'd act that way, but there's a lesson to be learned here...you can't have true heroism without a sense of maturity.
20 PRINCE NAVEEN
This frog prince is far from a heroic character in the beginning of The Princess and the Frog, but over time he proves that, despite his somewhat hedonistic lifestyle, he has a truly noble heart. He may not have fought off the Shadow Man but he showed a willingness to give up at least a little happiness for the good of someone else when he offered to marry Charlotte to ensure Tiana got her restaurant.
Let's not forget that he also risked his life as a frog when he literally leapt into action when Tiana was captured by those swamp-dwelling hunters looking for dinner. It may not be the most heroic thing you'll see in Disney's animated features, but it's worth a place on this list.
Tiana had a tough life growing up, one made easier by her father's diligence and her mother's love. It inspired her to work as hard she could in order to realize an old dream she shared with her father. The fact that she was ready to give up her dream shows growth, which is admirable in a way.
What really made her a hero is the fact that she was able to fight the temptation that Dr. Facilier offered. Even when faced with a crumbling dream and all the voodoo power that Facilier possessed, Tiana didn't falter, which is why she was able to smash the pendant and defeat the Shadow Man. That's worthy of recognition, even if it isn't nearly as heroic as others.
18 PINOCCHIO
Speaking of a lack of maturity, let's take a look at Pinocchio for a minute. Being an innocent puppet boy, he's easily persuaded to venture to Pleasure Island and partake in some of the island's activities like drinking, smoking and roughhousing in an actual roughhouse. Unbeknown to Pinocchio and the other boys, it all comes at the cost of a truly scary transformation.
We're not taking hero points away from the puppet for not knowing about things he couldn't have possibly understood. In the third act of the film, he performs heroically enough by diving to the depths of the ocean to search for Geppetto in the belly of a whale named Monstro. That took a lot of courage and love, which is why he's on this list at all. All in all however, this one act of heroism doesn't quite measure up to the virtues of the other Disney heroes.
Aside from what looks to be an ability to skate across entire canopies, Tarzan is just a normal, incredibly fit human being. That makes his acts of bravery that much greater, like when he took on Sabor with his bare hands and won, or when he stood up to his adoptive father, Kerchak, a full grown male gorilla. Tarzan is undoubtedly brave, as one would be after a lifetime in the unforgiving jungle.
After his friends, Tantor and Terk rescued everyone from Clayton's ship, Tarzan immediately headed back into the jungle, fully aware of the kind of weapons Clayton had at his disposal. He risked his life to rescue his family, unconcerned that he might not have help behind him. He's definitely got a noble and heroic heart, but there are still plenty more Disney characters more heroic than Tarzan.
16 PRINCE ERIC
Imagine the crazy world Eric was pulled into where he was saved by a mysterious mermaid, hypnotized into almost marrying a stranger a while later only to discover that the stranger was an evil sea witch. Instead of going insane, Eric acted bravely and vanquished the evil witch using some world class ship steering skills.
He dove into that battle to save Ariel and freed all the mer-people Ursula had imprisoned in her twisted little garden, even if it wasn't actually his intention. He was truly a noble prince and because of that, Triton rightly made peace with the human world, finally unafraid of allowing his daughter to live and love freely up there.
Before judging this mysterious Greek minion of Hades, remember that the cynicism you see from her comes from a place of pain. She sold her soul to Hades to save the man she loved only to have him leave her for someone else. Trapped forever in service to the god of the Underworld, you have to forgive her for trying to manipulate Hercules the way she did. It clearly wasn't her choice.
Even though Hades still owned her soul, she still acted nobly to save the demigod from certain doom when he left to fight the Cyclops without his godlike strength. Even afterwards, she stood by him and ended up sacrificing her own life to save him by pushing him out of the way of a falling column. Hercules' story is one of heroes and Meg is definitely one of them.
14 PRINCE PHILLIP
The handsome prince defeated the evil witch and rescued the princess. That's the ending we're all used to hearing. Sleeping Beauty unfolded a little differently. Yes, technically it was Prince Phillip that slayed Maleficent and rescued Aurora but his heroic acts (which were heroic, we're not disputing that) were only possible thanks to the powerful magic of Flora, Fauna and Merryweather.
Phillip was a brave prince, there's not doubt there. Even with a magical sword and shield, fighting a powerful dragon sorceress isn't something many people could accomplish, that's assuming their first instinct isn't to just run away. Phillip is also fairly freespirited and open-minded, he tries to dissuade his father from enforcing that arranged marriage (it's the 14th century, we'll take what we can get). He's hero and a charming one at that, just not the most heroic.
13 FLORA, FAUNA AND MERRYWEATHER
It's worth repeating, Flora, Fauna and Merryweather were the real heroes in Sleeping Beauty . Merryweather was able to alter the curse Maleficent placed on Aurora and the three fairies spent sixteen years devoting themselves to the care of the princess, which included giving up magic...for the most part. Then, when Aurora pricked her finger anyway, it wasn't just the prince that rescued her, it was the three fairies.
They freed Phillip from imprisonment in Maleficent's castle. They armed him with the Sword of Truth and Shield of Virtue so he could face Maleficent. We haven't even gotten to the fact that they ensured stability within the two kingdoms by placing everyone gathered under a spell until princess Aurora had been rescued. The story of a prince and princess has its charms, but the good fairies were the real heroes of this tale.
Impossibly kindhearted and exceptionally bright, Belle doesn't physically defeat evil villains in Beauty and the Beast but she does everything she can. There's no doubt that she would have thrown herself between Gaston and the Beast at that critical moment if she had the chance. The reason why we know that is because she gave herself up in exchange for her father's life almost without hesitation.
She acts with nobility throughout the entire film, doing her best to protect the ones she loved from the townspeople. The only fault she ever really showed -- and we're nitpicking here -- is a lack of respect for privacy, when she wandered into the West Wing. Given the circumstances, that's pretty understandable. With that unrelenting optimism and courage, she's definitely a heroic character.
11 JOHN SMITH
You wouldn't be wrong for thinking that John wasn't very heroic in the beginning of the film. He was completely ready to shoot Pocahontas before seeing her, assuming she was simply a savage. His prejudice might be somewhat understandable since we don't know what his past experiences are and after magically learning how to communicate with Pocahontas, he seems to be immediately abandon those prejudices and fights for peace between his people and hers.
His willingness to do so culminates in the climactic execution scene in which, after the chief tries to put an end to the violence, Ratcliffe attempts to assassinate the chief, only to hit John, who dove in front of Chief Powhatan. While a bit of it was certainly motivated by love, it's undeniable that a lot of his actions were driven by a more selfless desire for peace.
After seeing what Frollo had done to the city, Phoebus undermined his corrupt authority and every turn and it didn't take long for Phoebus to completely relinquish his role as Captain of the Guard and begin a new fight for justice. It began after he was asked to burn down a miller's house for no good reason. There's an argument to be made that he could have acted sooner, but consider the society of medieval Paris. Giving it up was not an easy choice.
Continuing to fight against Frollo later on as a powerless but well-trained soldier wasn't easy either. It showed bravery and compassion unlike many of the characters throughout The Hunchback of Notre-Dame . While it's hard to argue that he was pure-hearted, but fighting against one's own flaws is itself heroic in a way and in the end, he picked the right fight.
It's undeniable that Aladdin has always acted unselfishly. We see that in the beginning of Aladdin when our hero stole bread (forgivable because it was clearly a matter of survival), evaded the guards after a lengthy chase and dance number but still gave that bread away to starving children, right before saving those same kids from a harsh lashing from a snobby noble.
He's flawed, of course. He asked the Genie to turn him into a prince in order to get close to Jasmine but then he lost everything, including the Genie and was forced to act with what he had. It was your average human against an all-powerful sorcerer. He did it to rescue Jasmine as well as the rest of Agrabah from the clutches of that maniac. He's proven himself to possess many of the qualities that make a true hero.
8 POCAHONTAS
Pocahontas was wiser than most Disney characters. Her understanding of nature and the unity of all its elements was doubtlessly one of the reasons why she was able to fight for peace so well between two peoples that wanted nothing but war and vengeance. She never faced an adversary with aggression. In fact, the only time she showed any real hostility was after Thomas shot Kocoum. Who wouldn't act that way?
She was selfless in the way she flung herself right into the middle of what would have been a battle, were it not for her timely intervention. Her father was right. That really was courage and wisdom beyond her years and that's why she's definitely earned her place on this list.
7 ESMERALDA
Again, keeping the society of medieval Paris in mind, Esmeralda's actions -- like showing compassion to Quasimodo during the Festival of Fools -- are incredibly courageous. As a gypsy, she was an outcast. As a woman, she was very much oppressed and yet she made sure her voice was heard and never stopped acting with the kind of compassion she wished all people could receive (as she essentially expressed in her song in Notre-Dame.
Even in the face of evil, moments before her life was about to be taken in the darkest of ways, she showed no fear. We must also mention that she saved Quasimodo at the end, keeping him from falling for as long as she did, which is an impressive show of strength. Esmeralda doesn't act out of selfish desire, she does all this for what knows to be good.
6 QUASIMODO
One of the few people who acted purely out of the human decency and kindness in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame was Quasimodo, who was raised by Frollo to believe himself a monster, taught that the people beyond the walls of the cathedral were evil and yet still emerged a good-hearted man.
He wasn't afraid to face the ugliness of the soldiers and his only father figure as they besieged the cathedral, intent on executing Esmeralda. Quasi ventured out and risked his life time and time again: venturing into the Court of Miracles, leaping into flames to save Esmeralda and fighting Frollo. Even after he discovered that Phoebus and Esmeralda wanted to be together, he showed no ill will toward either and parted with them as friends, which shows more humility and bravery than a lot of real people, unfortunately.
5 PRINCESS KIDA
The only heroic character in Atlantis that acted with confidence was Kida, who fought to help Atlantis and grabbed the first real opportunity to do so. Whether or not it was brave or foolish of her to trust outsiders is debatable, we're more interested in how she acted when things went wrong and Commander Rourke and his men tried to abscond with the Heart of Atlantis.
We know she's brave. When threatened, she took down a soldier or two before Rourke displayed superior strength in weapons. Then, when called by the crystal, she willingly embraced it to spare the people around her and the city above them from destruction. Judging from what happened to her mother, that was quite the sacrifice and the willingness to make sacrifices for the greater good is an important feature in all heroes.
This demigods whole story revolved around what it means to be a true hero, so of course the main protagonist of Hercules is going to appear near the top of this list. Herc performed many heroic acts in the first and second acts of the film but as his father Zeus pointed out, none of it were acts of a true hero because none of it required sacrifice or any real bravery and, perhaps most importantly, none of it was even wholly selfless. He was trying to get to Mount Olympus.
His first truly heroic act was going up against the Cyclops in Thebes without his incredible strength, because there was a very real chance that he wouldn't make it out of that fight alive. His second, most heroic act was venturing into the Underworld to rescue Meg, risking his life in that ghoulish whirlpool. It was clear that he wasn't doing it for himself. He was doing it almost solely for another person. That, couple with the fact that he took on Titans and saved the Olympian gods themselves places him among the greatest Disney heroes.
3 MILO THATCH
Consider for a second who Milo Thatch was before the events of Atlantis . He was a humble but brilliant linguist and cartographer who was treated as little more than a nuisance of sorts by his colleagues at the musuem. Throughout the search for Atlantis, he showed a great amount of intelligence and compassion but nothing as heroic as the qualities he displayed when Rourke made off with the Heart of Atlantis.
Almost without hesitation, he prepared to take on Rourke and his forces using one of the Atlantean vehicles. He then led a small battalion through a volcano to free Kida from imprisonment. That took a lot of guts. The kind you'd expect from someone like Rourke or anyone else on that expedition, not Milo. But Milo risked his life, not just for Kida but for the people of Atlantis, who relied on the power of the crystal to survive. It was incredibly selfless and in the end, he saved an entire city.
- hercules (film)
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