Top 10 Hauntingly Beautiful Songs in Animated Movies

Who are we inside? Do we recognize our reflection? Are we ready to accept our imperfections? Mulan, a young Chinese woman, asks herself these questions following an embarrassing incident at the Matchmaker’s involving tea, fire, and a cricket. Despite Mulan doing her best, she’s told that she’ll never bring honor to her family. That evening, our protagonist breaks into song, lamenting that her true self isn’t being seen by others. During her stirring serenade, she bares her soul and eventually her face, only adding to the number’s power and symbolism. This moment is one of the catalysts for Mulan's decision to leave home, and the song is sure to cause some major self-reflection.

Forget about pigs, here you can see elephants fly. “Dumbo” is the story of the iconic circus elephant with abnormally large ears. After his mother goes into a protective outburst, she’s taken away while he’s forced to perform humiliating and dangerous stunts. This song plays as Dumbo, feeling miserable, finds his mom locked in solitary confinement. She can’t see him, but she can slip her trunk through the bars and metaphorically hold him close to her heart. In this tender moment, mother and child reunite, crying as this lullaby about always being together overlays their too-brief reunion. Be prepared to call your own mom after listening to this heartbreaking melody.

In the sequel to “Frozen,” Elsa, Anna, and the gang follow a voice into the unknown, untangling a web of elemental magic and ancestral treachery. After Elsa seemingly gives up her life to uncover the truth about her grandfather, Anna breaks down. This simple melody penned by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez profoundly expresses her hopelessness, loneliness, and confusion. What do you do when everything’s gone wrong? Despite her pain, she decides to keep moving forward through the course of this song. The raw vocals imbue this performance with a deep sense of heavy emotion and vulnerability that will surely send chills down anyone’s spine.

After a Día de los Muertos mishap, Miguel ends up in the Land of the Dead searching for a famous musician with the help of the skeletal scoundrel, Héctor. Towards the end of the film, he learns that the latter is actually his great-great-grandfather. As Héctor sings this lullaby, we flashback to a sepia-tone scene where he and his daughter Coco (Miguel’s great-grandmother) perform it before he leaves on a music tour. This moment, where he gently asks her to remember him, is especially poignant. It reminds us that though people fade in and out of our lives, we can bring them back through memories. It’s certainly one we’ll remember.

Esmeralda is a member of the Romani people who, in 1400s Paris, are ruthlessly persecuted by Judge Frollo. She’s given sanctuary inside the church, and with this number, laments the humiliation and suffering that her people and other outsiders face. Filled with compassion and empathy, she offers a simple prayer to God asking for mercy and relief for those who are rejected and downtrodden. Despite being Esmeralda’s sole musical number in the entire movie, it has become an instantly recognizable melody of humility, hope, and comfort. After all, who hasn’t felt like an outcast before?

This French musical tells the story of a monster, dubbed Francœur, who communicates through music, and yet is cast aside and hunted by society. With nowhere else to turn, the creature collapses in an alley and for the first time we hear him sing. Performed by Matthieu Chedid in French and Sean Lennon in English, this haunting melody spotlights a desire and fear to rise above stereotypes. Francœur mourns how they’ve been rejected because of their monstrous exterior, with only the rain for company. You can hear the raw emotion in the character’s voice. Much like many of us, the titular monster seeks to cast off society’s identity and create their own.

Grab the tissues for this one. When Woody is stolen by a collector intent on putting him in a museum, cowgirl doll Jessie doesn’t understand his desire to go back to his owner, Andy. We come to learn that Jessie has her own tragic history with a girl named Emily. As this song plays out we watch how she was once loved and then discarded. The number places the audience firmly in the cowgirl’s boots, making us keenly feel her loneliness and pain. The melancholic song never fails to elicit a stream of tears along with feelings of nostalgia, grief, and betrayal. It even has the power to unearth some of our own memories in the process.

“Anastasia” is the story of the missing Romanov heiress as she attempts to reunite with the last surviving member of her family. This song plays as the title character (now an amnesiac) recalls her last vague memories of her family, brought on by re-entering the palace of her childhood. It captures Anastasia’s feelings of hidden memories, haunting her just out of reach as ghost-like figures of people she used to know appear around her. The melody continually ties Anastasia to her past and loved ones, and it’s majestic. Maybe your nostalgic memories involve less Imperial parties, but this tune invites us all to reflect on the wonders of childhood.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

"Someone's Waiting for You," “The Rescuers” (1977)
Nothing Tugs at the Heartstrings More Than a Number That Plays as a Little Girl Weeps

“You Can’t Take Me”, “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron” (2002)
This Ballad of Freedom Will Get You in Your Feelings

“Oogway Ascends”, “Kung Fu Panda” (2008)
Every Mentor’s Death Deserves a Moving Melody

“Tears of Joy”, “Inside Out” (2015)
Sometimes the Best Memories Are Tinged with Sadness

“Sally’s Song”, “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (1993)
Because Even Corpses Have Feelings

This 1998 film opens with this pleading prayer as people toil away in the mud and sand, beaten and pushed around by the taskmasters. The scene then shifts to follow Yocheved, a young mother forced to part with her baby, Moses, who’s life is in danger because of the Pharaoh. The song movingly illustrates both the mother's anguish and the plight of the community, while also foreshadowing Moses’ destiny as a savior. However, it is Yocheved’s quieter moment as she prepares to send Moses into the river that truly twists the heart. While the weight of hope, prophecy, and despair hang over the scene, at its heart is a mother’s desperate desire to send her child into a better life.