In 1919 Sarasota, Florida, equestrian performer and World War I amputee Holt Farrier returns after the war to his previous employer, the Medici Brothers' Circus, run by Max Medici. The circus has run into financial troubles; Medici reveals he was forced to sell his stable of horses after Holt's wife and co-performer, Annie, died from the Spanish flu outbreak. After Holt reveals that he lost his arm in the Battle of the Argonne, Medici instead hires him as the caretaker for Mother Ella Jumbo, the circus' pregnant Asian elephant. She gives birth to a calf with unusually large ears, and Medici orders Holt to hide them, fearing how the public might react to such a deformity.

However, the calf accidentally reveals his ears in his debut performance in Joplin, Missouri, and the crowd laughs and mockingly calls the calf "Dumbo" while pelting him with peanuts and other objects. Mrs. Jumbo, angered by her son's mistreatment, rampages into the ring, causing extensive damage, collapsing the big top, and accidentally killing Rufus, a handler who antagonizes her. Anticipating public outrage over the incident, Medici sells Mrs. Jumbo. Holt's son and daughter, Joe and Milly Farrier, comfort Dumbo and discover that he can fly by flapping his ears and that feathers benefit his willingness to fly.

Dumbo is then forced to play the role of a firefighter clown tasked to put out a fire with water sprayed from his trunk, but the performance goes awry, and Dumbo is trapped on a high platform surrounded by flames. Milly delivers a feather to Dumbo, giving him the confidence to fly to safety. The audience is astounded, and word of his talent begins to spread. V. A. Vandevere, the wealthy owner of the Bohemian amusement park Dreamland, approaches Medici and proposes a collaboration: If Medici becomes Vandevere's business partner, the Medici Brothers' Circus' troupe will permanently be employed to perform at Dreamland, solving their financial problems.

Dumbo's debut performance at Dreamland with Vandevere's star performer, French trapeze artist Colette Marchant, quickly goes wrong when he nearly falls off a high platform and starts trumpeting in panic after realizing that there is no safety net available to prevent possible injuries and fatalities. Hearing his mother's response to his call and realizing that she was placed in an exhibit at Dreamland called Nightmare Island after being sold, he flies out of the circus ring and reunites with her, greatly disappointing the audience. Annoyed by Dumbo's disobedience and fearing the possibility of his mother becoming a distraction to him, Vandevere fires the Medici troupe and orders Mrs. Jumbo's exhibit to be shuttered to secure his sterling reputation.

When Holt and the Medici troupe learn that Vandevere intends to have Dumbo's mother euthanized and that it is no longer safe for the two elephants to live with them, they make plans to free both of them. The circus performers utilize their various talents to break Mrs. Jumbo out of her enclosure, while Holt and Colette guide Dumbo to fly out of the circus. Vandevere attempts to stop them but starts a fire by mishandling Dreamland's electrical system, which spreads and destroys the park. After Dumbo saves Holt and his family from the fire, they are joined by Colette and the rest of the troupe to bring Dumbo and his mother to the harbor, where they board a ship back to their native home in India.

Sometime …

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Early development for a live-action adaptation of Dumbo began in 2014, when Ehren Kruger gave producer Derek Frey a script for the film, which Frey gave the green light to. On July 8, 2014, it was announced that the film was in development for Walt Disney Pictures. Kruger was confirmed as the screenwriter, and Justin Springer as a producer along with Kruger. On March 10, 2015, Tim Burton was announced as the director. On July 15, 2017, Disney announced Dumbo would be released on March 29, 2019. The film features a different storyline from the original film's, though as star Colin Farrell described, "[t]he one central thing that holds true in both the original animation, the original cartoon" and the 2019 film, is the message of "believing in yourself and finding something inside you that allows you to become the best version of what you thought you could even be, and that we're all, regardless of the things that sometimes society says, should arrive us at being outcasts; they're the things that make us all individual, special, and beautiful regardless of how crippling a certain thing may be or how polarizing a certain physical attribute even may be."

The film does not feature talking animals, focusing instead on the human characters. Kruger wrote the script so that it "offered a way to tell that story in a framework that expanded it, but without redoing the original [film]", and a story that "was simple, with an emotional simplicity, and didn't interfere with what the basic through line of the original is about." As in the original film, Dumbo depicts the protagonist as a symbolic figure who does not fit in and uses their disabilities as an advantage. Kruger wrote the script in order to "explore how the people of the circus world would relate to Dumbo's journey", while Springer said that "[the production team] really wanted to explore the human side of [Dumbo's] story and give it historical context. In the animated feature, Dumbo flies for the world at the end of the film. [They] wanted to find out how the world reacts when people learn that this elephant can fly". The group of crows from the 1941 film that had been criticized as being racist were excluded from the film, and their dialogue was instead said by a ringleader character.
In January 2017, it was announced that Will Smith was in talks to play the father of the children who develop a friendship with the elephant after seeing him at the circus. However, Smith later passed on the role due to scheduling conflicts with Bad Boys for Life, among other reasons. He went on to be cast as the Genie in Disney's 2019 live-action film adaptation of Aladdin. Bill Hader, Chris Pine and Casey Affleck were also offered the role, but passed on it before Colin Farrell was cast. Farrell, a fan of Burton, chose to work on the film because "[t]he idea of [acting in] something as sweet and fantastical and otherworldly, while being grounded in some recognizable world that we can relate to, under the direction of [Burton], was a dream ... I've alway…

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On October 4, 2017, Danny Elfman was announced as the composer for the film's score. He said that "[he and the production team] knew [they] would have to find a musical identity for Dumbo that was purely Dumbo." Elfman developed "a very simple [main] theme" as Burton "feels it's a simple story." Elfman also wrote background music for the film's scenes in the circus, and themes based on the characters' experiences. He also wrote a theme for Medici and Vandevere which he described as "a bit of a wicked thing." The score pays homage to Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace's score from the original film.

Arcade Fire's version of "Baby Mine" was released as a single on March 11, 2019. The soundtrack was digitally released on March 29, 2019 and physically released on April 26, 2019.