The Little Mermaid is a American animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name. Distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, the film was originally released to theaters on November 17, 1989 and is the twenty-eighth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. During its initial release, The Little Mermaid grossed over $84 million in the United States and an additional $99 million internationally.. Retrieved April 28, 2007.

After the success of the 1988 Disney/Amblin film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Little Mermaid is given credit for breathing life back into the animated feature film genre after a string of critical or commercial failures that dated back to the early 1980s. It also marked the start of the era known as the Disney Renaissance.