On what date did Sleeping Beauty premiere?

Sleeping Beauty premiered on January 29, 1959. The first showing took place at the Fox Wilshire Theater in Los Angeles, with the film also opening that day in selected theaters.

Disney presented the premiere as a major showcase for its new large-format process. The program included Grand Canyon, a Disney documentary short using music from Ferde Grofé’s Grand Canyon Suite. Initial engagements featured Super Technirama 70 projection and six-track stereophonic sound.

Some references describe the film as reaching wider theatrical distribution later, including reports that many theaters received it in April. That broader-release timing is different from the Los Angeles premiere date, which is the date normally sought by this question.

The production had taken nearly a decade and had been repeatedly delayed from planned 1950s release dates. Its eventual January 1959 debut made Sleeping Beauty Disney’s 16th animated feature.