Ferdinand the Bull

Ferdinand the Bull
1938
★★★☆☆ 6.6/10
⏱️ 8 min
📅 Released
🌐 EN
AnimationComedyFamily
This Oscar-winning short tells of a bull who preferred to sit under trees and smell flowers to clashing horns with his fellow animals. As luck would have it, an untimely bee reveals Ferdinand's ferocious side via pained howls and wild stomping. This lands him in the bull-fighting arena amidst characters based on Walt's animators with a matador reportedly modeled after Walt himself.

Where to Watch (US)

Stream

Disney Plus

User Reviews

CinemaSerf
★ 7/10
December 19, 2025
All poor old “Ferdy” wants to do is sit in peace and enjoy his flowery pasture, but when he gets stung by a bee he runs rampage and that impresses the local bigwigs who conclude he’d be a terror at the next bullfight. With posters everywhere depicting this terrifying and horned beast, he arrives in the ring only to have reverted to his old, gentle, self. No amount of provocation is going to get him to attack the toreador, especially when he espies a posy of flowers thrown into the arena that just reminds him of home. Might he ever manage to charge or is he just destined to head back to his life unheralded? This is really quite an enjoyable animation made more so by some comical facial expressions from amongst the crowd and by the sheer exasperation felt by a bull-fighter who will do just about anything to get a chance to fight the bull! “Ferdinand” is blithely oblivious to all the fuss, the noise and the expectations - and I did quite like the lack of an obvious moral that so often bogged down Disney’s cartoons. Taken on face value, it is entertaining stuff that I quite enjoyed.

Crew

Director
Dick Rickard
Producer
Walt Disney

Production

Walt Disney Productions

Keywords

cartoonshort film