The 1959 Disney animated film based on the fairy tale of a princess who pricks her finger is Sleeping Beauty. The film follows Princess Aurora, whose christening is disrupted when the offended fairy Maleficent places a curse on her. Before her sixteenth birthday ends, Aurora will prick her finger on a spinning-wheel spindle and fall into an enchanted sleep.
Three good fairies—Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather—raise Aurora in hiding and try to protect her. Merryweather cannot erase the curse, but changes its outcome from death to sleep, which can be broken by true love’s kiss. Aurora’s promised partner, Prince Phillip, ultimately confronts Maleficent and reaches the castle.
Disney’s story draws on older European versions of the Sleeping Beauty tale, including Charles Perrault’s “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood” and the Brothers Grimm’s “Little Briar Rose.” The film is commonly mixed up with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or Cinderella, but those heroines have different stories, characters, and release dates. Sleeping Beauty was Disney’s sixteenth animated feature.