10 Best Songs from the Moana Movies Ranked
- Joao Nsita
- 7 minutes ago
- 8 min read
If you have ever found yourself humming How Far I'll Go at completely random moments three days after watching Moana — congratulations, you are experiencing one of the most powerful soundtracks in Disney history, and there is genuinely nothing you can do about it.
The Moana franchise has produced some of the most beloved Disney songs of the 21st century. Between the original 2016 film — featuring Lin-Manuel Miranda's genius applied to Polynesian-inspired music — and the 2024 sequel, which brought back composers Mark Mancina and Opetaia Foaʻi alongside new songwriters Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, there is enough great music to fill a very long road trip.
But not all songs are created equal. Some are cultural phenomena. Some are genuinely great songs that never got their due. Some are good but overrated. And one is quite simply the greatest Disney song of the 21st century, and if you disagree you are wrong and I say this with love.
This list ranks the 10 best songs from both Moana movies — from the good to the undeniably, permanently, extraordinarily great. Every ranking comes with the why — what makes the song work, what it accomplishes for the story, and why it stays in your head.
Let's rank them 👇
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10. Tulou Tagaloa — Moana 2 (Opening Song) 🌊
From: Moana 2 (2024) Performed by: Olivia Foaʻi and Te Vaka
Tulou Tagaloa opens Moana 2 with the specific, reverent Polynesian-language energy that the first film established with Tulou Tagaloa's predecessor — setting the geographic and spiritual context for the adventure that follows with the same commitment to authentic cultural musical language that has always distinguished the Moana franchise from generic Disney adventure.
It is not the best song on this list, but it is a respectful and musically accomplished opening that signals immediately the sequel's commitment to continuing the cultural integrity of the first film's musical world.
Why It Works: The opening establishes that we are back in the Polynesian cultural context the franchise has always taken seriously — a necessary anchor before the contemporary pop-leaning songs that follow.
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9. Shiny — Moana (2016) 💎
From: Moana (2016) Performed by: Jemaine Clement as Tamatoa Written by: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foaʻi, Mark Mancina
Shiny is the Moana franchise's great villain song and one of Lin-Manuel Miranda's most delightfully specific compositions — a David Bowie glam rock tribute performed by a giant, vain, bioluminescent crab who literally eats people and is primarily concerned with his own aesthetic.
Jemaine Clement commits completely to the absurdity of the premise, and the result is one of the franchise's most purely entertaining sequences. The twist — that Tamatoa spends the entire song criticising Maui's dependence on his magical hook while himself being entirely dependent on stolen shininess — is the kind of thematic wit that elevates a villain song from entertainment to genuine creative achievement.
Why It Works: A villain song that is also a character study, a comedy number, and a David Bowie tribute simultaneously. Only Lin-Manuel Miranda would attempt all three at once.
8. Can I Get a Chee Hoo? — Moana 2 (2024) 🎉
From: Moana 2 (2024) Performed by: Dwayne Johnson as Maui Written by: Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear
Can I Get a Chee Hoo? is the sequel's most enthusiastic attempt to recreate the infectious energy of You're Welcome, and while it does not reach those heights — as multiple critics noted, very few songs in Disney history do — it is a genuinely enjoyable Maui showcase that delivers exactly the overconfident, charming-despite-himself energy that makes the character irresistible.
The Hawaiian chant element in the hook is one of the sequel soundtrack's most effective musical choices, grounding the contemporary pop-trap energy in the cultural specificity that the franchise has always valued.
7. We Know the Way — Moana (2016) ⛵
From: Moana (2016) Performed by: Opetaia Foaʻi and Lin-Manuel Miranda Written by: Opetaia Foaʻi and Lin-Manuel Miranda
We Know the Way is perhaps the most culturally significant song in the Moana franchise — a bilingual (English and Tokelauan) celebration of Polynesian voyaging culture that is simultaneously the franchise's most beautiful expression of its cultural mission and one of its most genuinely moving musical moments.
The transition in the song from the ancient voyagers to Moana connecting with that heritage across time gives the sequence its emotional power — this is not just a sailing song, it is a song about the specific, embodied knowledge that was passed through generations until it could reach one child standing on a beach.
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Why It Works: The most culturally authentic song in the franchise, and the one that most fully justifies the respect the whole franchise earns from Pacific Island communities.
6. Beyond — Moana 2 (2024) 🌟
From: Moana 2 (2024) Performed by: Auliʻii Cravalho as Moana Written by: Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear
Beyond was marketed as the "spiritual sequel" to How Far I'll Go, and while nothing can replicate the original's impact, Beyond is a genuinely moving coming-of-age song that gives Auliʻii Cravalho the opportunity to demonstrate how much her voice has grown since 2016.
The song was nominated for the 2024 Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best Original Song in an Animated Film, and the nomination is deserved. Beyond is not How Far I'll Go — it is a different song for a different Moana, a Moana who is no longer asking where she belongs but who is ready to go further than she has ever gone.
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5. I Am Moana (Song of the Ancestors) — Moana (2016) 💙
From: Moana (2016) Performed by: Auliʻii Cravalho and Rachel House as Gramma Tala Written by: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foaʻi, Mark Mancina
I Am Moana is the franchise's most emotionally precise song — the moment where Moana, at her lowest point, is reached by her grandmother's spirit and reminded of who she is. The progression from loss to recovery to resolution, all within a single song, is a masterwork of Broadway-influenced animated filmmaking.
The I Am Moana lyric itself — "I am the girl who loves my island / I am the girl who loves the sea / It calls me / I am the daughter of the village chief / We are descended from voyagers / Who found their way across the world / They call me" — is some of the finest writing in the Disney animated songbook.
Why It Ranks Here: The emotional payoff song that earns everything that comes before it. Every song in the film exists to make this one hit harder.
4. Knowing Who You Are (Te Fiti's Return) — Moana (2016) 💚
From: Moana (2016) Performed by: Auliʻii Cravalho as Moana Written by: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foaʻi, Mark Mancina
The sequence in which Moana approaches Te Kā — the lava demon who is actually Te Fiti, the goddess of creation, separated from her heart — and sings Know Who You Are while walking toward her across the burning sea is the film's most emotionally devastating moment and one of the greatest sequences in Disney animation history.
The song itself is barely a song — it is a lullaby, a restoration, a gentle act of recognition that the rage and the darkness come from the same wound that the love comes from. The harmony between Moana's voice and the film's orchestration in those final seconds before Te Fiti blooms back into being is simply perfect.
3. You're Welcome — Moana (2016) 😎
From: Moana (2016) Performed by: Dwayne Johnson as Maui Written by: Lin-Manuel Miranda
You're Welcome is the perfect comedy song — written by Lin-Manuel Miranda in the Hamilton era for a character whose entire personality is summarised in the words "you're welcome," performed by Dwayne Johnson with the specific combination of enormous physical confidence and surprisingly good vocal delivery, and built on a Hamilton-influenced rapid-fire lyrical structure that rewards listening carefully.
It is also the funniest song in either film. Maui listing every gift he has ever given humanity with the specific air of someone who is receiving the gratitude he absolutely deserves is pure comic writing, and the sequence is among the franchise's most rewatchable minutes.
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2. Where You Are — Moana (2016) 🌺
From: Moana (2016) Performed by: Full cast Written by: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foaʻi, Mark Mancina
Where You Are is the best opening song Disney has written since Be Prepared — a deceptively complex piece of musical storytelling that establishes Moana's world, her family's love for her, her father's fear for her, her grandmother's encouragement of her, and the fundamental tension of the entire story in under five minutes of music.
The brilliance of Where You Are is in what it hides underneath the warmth: every verse is the island's people telling Moana exactly who she should be, and the sequence shows us simultaneously that she is not that person and that she loves the people telling her so completely that she keeps trying to become it.
1. How Far I'll Go — Moana (2016) 🌊✨
From: Moana (2016) Performed by: Auliʻii Cravalho as Moana Written by: Lin-Manuel Miranda
How Far I'll Go is the best Disney song of the 21st century. This position is not actually controversial if you sit with it honestly. The song does what only the greatest Disney songs manage — it establishes a character, her world, her conflict, her desire, and the precise texture of her longing in approximately three minutes of music that sounds like it has always existed.
Lin-Manuel Miranda composed it to be specifically Polynesian in musical character while accessible globally, working with Opetaia Foaʻi to ensure the cultural grounding was real rather than generic. Auliʻii Cravalho, then sixteen years old recording her first Disney role, delivers a vocal performance of extraordinary power and specificity. The moment where Moana stands on the reef edge and the music swells and the ocean is in front of her — it is one of those moments where animation and music and voice and story all become one thing, perfectly.
It stayed on charts globally for months. It became one of the most performed songs at school concerts for years following the film's release. It made an entire generation of children feel — perhaps for the first time — that the call of the ocean inside them had a name and a melody.
Why It Ranks First: Because it is perfect. Sometimes the most popular thing is the most popular thing because it is actually the best thing.
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Conclusion
The Moana franchise has given us one of the great Disney soundtracks of any era — a collection of songs that range from pure comedy (You're Welcome) to profound cultural celebration (We Know the Way) to the kind of emotional precision that leaves you sitting with tears and no idea how they got there (Know Who You Are).
How Far I'll Go is first because it deserves to be. But every song on this list earned its place through a different kind of excellence — and together, they add up to one of the most complete animated film soundtracks in Disney's history.
Replay them. Learn the harmonies. And the next time you hear the ocean, you will know what it is saying.
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