In order to celebrate the premiere of the 100th Disney Channel Original Movie, Disney Channel has 60 or so DCOMs available for streaming on their website. It's been a struggle for me to decide which movies to watch, so I thought I'd make your choice a little easier by providing one sentence synopses of 55 of DCOMs (listed in no particular order).
1. High School Musical
It's "Grease" with a wholesome ending.
2. High School Musical 2
Troy is still dangerously impressionable and Ryan and Chad are secretly dating.
3. Halloweentown
“Halloween is cool.”
4. Halloweentown 2: Kalabar's Revenge
The title ruins the ending.
5. Halloweentown High
I think this is addressing segregation.
6. Return to Halloweentown
That is NOT MARNIE!
7. The Luck of the Irish
An adolescent boy’s parents withhold telling him that he’s Irish because that will somehow clue him in to his leprechaun roots, but then Lassiter from "Psych" steals his lucky coin and causes his family to turn back into leprechauns, and I think this might be offensive.
8. The Thirteenth Year
"Mer-man" (also Dave Coulier is in this movie for some reason).
9. Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off
Eddie’s terrible friends mock him for loving to cook, which miraculously becomes a universally agreed-upon feminine activity for the sake of the story.
10. Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century
A girl from a futuristic space station is banished to Earth to live with her aunt in a town that looks exactly the same in 1999, but that’s only because the town isn’t into "progression."
11. Zenon: The Zequel
Watch it just for the title.
12. Zenon: Z3
The cousin is an annoying and unnecessary addition to the cast and for some reason everyone has taken to saying “Zetus Lupetus” as an exclamation.
13. Smart House
It's a film that's probably supposed to teach us a lesson about artificial intelligence and reality but all it made we do was want to live in the Smart House.
14. Pixel Perfect
“But first, the rain.”
15. The Even Stevens Movie
Like the "Truman Show" but ignites fewer feelings of existential angst (also Dave Coulier is in this movie, too).
16. The Cheetah Girls
They make up a lot of slang that took me three watches and turning on the subtitles to understand, but dang, are they stylish.
17. The Cheetah Girls 2
No one gives a crap about this amazing opportunity they have to sing at a prestigious concert in Barcelona, causing Galleria to be as much of a drama queen as she was in the first movie, but this time she has an emotional solo.
18. The Cheetah Girls: One World
A gratuitous amount of singing and big, Bollywood-style dance numbers ineffectively try to mask the poorly written script.
19. Brink!
The inclusion of an exclamation point in the title speaks for itself.
20. Read It and Weep
A girl is tormented by her alter ego who convinces her to treat her friends badly and act like a jerk, but no one seems to notice or care that she is in some serious psychological distress.
21. Gotta Kick it Up
Susan Egan, the voice of Megara from "Hercules," is in this movie, and so is America Ferrera!
22. Motorcrossed
Blatant sexism, but don’t worry, that's cleared up at the end, and also I think the title is a reference to cross-dressing.
23. The Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama
Skip to the end when Kim and Ron get together, because that’s really the only reason anyone watched it.
24. Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior
A high school student spends half of the movie campaigning for homecoming queen (for some reason) and the other half flirting with a guy who she tells everyone is her cousin.
25. Lemonade Mouth
I would be less embarrassed to admit that I actually kind of like this movie if the title weren’t “Lemonade Mouth.”
26. Get a Clue
A girl and her friends try to find out who is responsible for the disappearance of their teacher, and it’s exactly who you thought it would be.
27. Jump In!
Forget the movie and just watch Corbin Bleu’s music video to “Push it to the Limit.”
28. Tru Confessions
Disney Channel was trying out something new.
29. Camp Rock
A girl ditches her true friends and lies about her mother’s career in order to hang out with supposedly popular girls who only have two friends.
30. Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam
Nick Jonas has a bigger role.
31. Princess Protection Program
One of those movies in which the protagonist is as mean as the antagonists, but no one cares because she comes around eventually.
32. The Scream Team
The disturbing story of a girl who teams up with some dead people to save her grandfather from hell, I think?
33. Stuck in the Suburbs
Teenage girls ruin a weirdly understanding popstar’s life and then his clearly 35-year-old friend takes over his career.
34. Double Teamed
A father signs his daughters up for basketball, pressuring one of them to her breaking point and forcing the other one to quit the activity she loves most in order for him to live through his children, but it’s all okay because they go on to play professionally.
35. Frenemies
Someone got paid a lot of money to write this.
36. Don’t Look Under the Bed
A genuinely terrifying movie in which the forgotten imaginary friends turn into hideous, demonic creatures instead of going to "Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends."
37. Teen Beach Movie
It's kind of boring but an inoffensive filler-movie.
38. Teen Beach 2
There was a sequel?
39. Cadet Kelly
I am on everybody's side except for Kelly's.
40. Disney Descendants
Disney felt the need to be creepy and give Dopey from "Snow White" a son.
41. Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie
This was quite intense, as if the creators were really giving it their best shot.
42. Twitches
It’s pretty much "Sister, Sister" except they’re witches--they’re playing the same characters and even meet at a clothing store.
43. Twitches Too
I can’t remember for the life of me what happens in this movie.
44. Zapped
Lack of consent.
45. Radio Rebel
The creators of this movie have never met a shy person in their entire lives.
46. The Ultimate Christmas Present
Some girls from L.A. just want a snow day and Santa Claus is really mean and scary to them.
47. The Color of Friendship
A movie made when Disney Channel used to "go there," about a topic too deep for Disney Channel but too important to forget about.
48. Cow Belles
Two annoying girls played by the magnificent Aly and A.J. make bad decisions and wear nice clothes.
49. Starstruck
A terrible girl treats a celebrity like crap and he falls in love with her anyway.
50. The Proud Family Movie
Nothing else matters besides the dance off between the island natives and Penny and her friends, during which the whitest girl to exist busts a freakin' move.
51. Go Figure
She says “Kristi Yamaguchi” about a million times.
52. Going to the Mat
A blind kid joins the wrestling team in order to fit in at his new school, but never mind that, Zero from "Holes" is playing his friend!
53. Now You See It
This kid, who everyone thinks is an amazing magician but who is actually a wizard, makes a really doofy-looking face that the other characters assure the audience is meant to convey fear.
54. Minutemen
It's worth a watch just for the "Back to the Future" references and the fact that they call themselves the "Minutemen."
55. Alley Cats Strike
There was a hole in the market for teen bowling movies.
Now, go take your pick. Despite my commentary, you really can't go wrong. Unless you pick "Frenemies."
