Stitch, Ariel, The Lion King, the villains: when you buy a Disney jigsaw puzzle, the character is usually settled before anything else. That's the easy part. What tends to go wrong is the piece count, because Disney shows up in 12 piece puzzles for a three year old and in 1000 piece puzzles that keep an adult busy for a whole weekend.

Start with the person. The film comes second.

Buy a Disney jigsaw puzzle by the age of whoever will do it

Use this table as a starting point. The ages are the ones the brands print on the box, and they are minimums: a child who is used to puzzles can move up a step with no trouble, and an adult who has never done one may be happier a step below.

Between 500 and 1000 there is a halfway option that works really well with tweens: Educa's Villains & Princesses, two 500 piece puzzles in one box. Each one is done in a few sittings, so the first is finished before patience runs out.

For little ones, the picture matters as much as the pieces

At four, a 48 piece puzzle with a flat blue sky covering half the picture is a punishment. Go for images where the characters fill almost everything, because then every piece carries a bit of a face, an ear or a dress the child recognises.

Boxes with several puzzles have another advantage: three small pictures are three wins in one afternoon, instead of a single one that may never get finished. Clementoni's 4 in 1 Disney Princesses works this way. At seven, the Educa Disney 200 piece needs more focus, and at eight the Educa Stitch 300 piece, with Stitch and Angel surrounded by hearts and tropical patterns, comes out at 40 x 28 cm.

There are plenty more in our kids' puzzles collection, which you can filter by piece count.

Disney for adults: four different routes

Classics and collages

These are the easiest Disney puzzles to give an adult fan, and the friendliest to do. In a collage with dozens of characters, every area has its own colours and lines, so the puzzle keeps moving. Clementoni's Disney Classics finishes at 70 x 50 cm; the Educa Disney Collage and The Wonderful World of Disney finish at 68 x 48 cm. For fans of one particular film, Clementoni's Story Maps series has Story Maps: Ariel, also with 1000 pieces.

Villains

Some people like Ursula more than Ariel, and that is what Clementoni's Disney Villains is for. Villain images tend to have dark backgrounds. When that is the case, set those pieces aside early and solve them by shape at the end.

Clementoni's Nightmare Before Christmas belongs here too: Jack and Sally in front of a huge full moon, Zero floating by and a field of pumpkins, all in purple, black and gold. It makes sense in October and in December, because the film moves between Halloween and Christmas.

Panoramas

Three of our 1000 piece Disney puzzles come in panoramic format, 98 x 33 cm: Panorama Disney, Panorama Villains and Panorama Stitch. They have the same number of pieces as a regular 1000, but you need almost a metre of free table length. Once glued, they look great above a desk or a headboard.

Stitch

Stitch has his own collection, and fair enough. For adults, the Educa Lilo & Stitch (1000 pieces) and the Panorama Disney Stitch are the most demanding. If you want fewer pieces, there is Clementoni's Stitch and Angel, 500 pieces and 49 x 36 cm. See them all in Stitch puzzles.

Before you order

Every product page shows the difficulty, piece count, estimated time and finished size. For a 1000 piece puzzle, count on several evenings; a Disney collage usually goes faster than a landscape with the same number of pieces.

If you are buying for several children in the family, the discount applies automatically in the cart from 5 puzzles (5 €) and from 8 puzzles (10 €). Gift wrapping is 2 € on each product page, and the full range is in Disney puzzles.