Watch ‘Ratatouille’ Online for Free With Disney+, Celebrate the Humble Rat

According to the Chinese Lunar Calendar, the Lunar New Year of 2020 (Saturday, January 25th) will have us entering the Year of the Rat. And I couldn’t be more thrilled, because one of my favorite movies of all time is Disney/Pixar’s Ratatouille. And though Ratatouille isn’t on Netflix, it is available to watch online for free with a Disney+ subscription. Disney+ has a free, week-long trial for those who are new customers, and they also offer a year of free Disney streaming to Verizon customers who have unlimited data plans.

As a result of my love for this movie, I’m constantly lobbying against rat hostility. Rats get a bad wrap, and logically speaking, there’s no reason a movie about a rat gourmand shuffling around a professional kitchen should have ever been picked up.

Nevertheless, Ratatouille has seen a lot of success. BBC heralds the movie as one of the best movies of the 21st century. Even Anthony Bourdain raved about how accurately the movie represents kitchen culture, “down to the barely noticeable pink burns on one of the character’s forearms.” Like Bourdain, I think Ratatouille “captures a passionate love of food in a way that very few other films have.”

But Ratatouille touches on much more than food. The rat, Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt), is the perfect protagonist for a wholesome rags-to-riches story that has him pursuing his culinary dreams purely for the love of it. Rags-to-riches protagonists often reek of professional ambition and financial motives. But Ratatouille is uniquely set up to dispel this common stench—Remy’s a rat, after all, what’s he going to do with money?

Remy is a categorical outsider to the space he wants to occupy—the kitchen. Yet, he finds a way in, on the back of Linguini, who has everything—his species, his connections—but his clumsiness working for him. Things, of course, don’t go perfectly the whole movie. That’s the point. Adversity is a given when you’re trying to follow a dream the world doesn’t want you to have. But, in the end, Remy’s talent manages to bring even the most pompous diner, the critic Anton Ego, down to earth.

The Lunar Calendar characterizes rats as “clever, quick thinkers” that are “successful, but content with living a quiet and peaceful life.” Ratatouille is a peasant’s dish of vegetables and herbs that Remy puts together to salute the complexity and power of humble beginnings. Ratatouille is a movie that Disney/Pixar put together to salute the unlikely dreamer who makes things happen, in spite of it all.

Where to stream Ratatouille