Every Pixar film, ranked from worst to best
Now that Inside Out 2 is out, where does it fall in our countdown of Pixar's 28 animated features?
Film Features Pixar
Although Pixar has had its fair share of disappointments and missteps, at its height, there was no one doing it better. For nearly three decades the studio has been creating crowd-pleasing features and taking audiences into imaginative new worlds. The secret to its success is a potent combo of gorgeous images, classic storytelling, emotional resonance, and memorable characters. Many of those characters would go on to become permanent fixtures in our pop culture lexicon: Woody and Buzz, Lightning McQueen, the Parr family, WALL-E.
With the release of Inside Out 2, we have even more characters to add to the list. Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust are all back, and with Riley on the verge of puberty, they’re about to get some company. New emotions like Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui are joining the crew to help Riley survive adolescence. Not everyone agrees on the best way forward, though, sparking a battle for control of Riley’s evolving self image.
So how does Inside Out 2 stack up against the rest of Pixar’s roster? Read on for our complete ranking of all 28 films, including the latest addition.
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I was going to start by saying Onward, Luca, and Turning Red were all too low. Soul was a bit too high.But the real travesty is Ratatouille at eleven!! For me, it’s clearly Pixar’s best.
Yeah! Ratatouille is a great film deserving a top ten slot and its message has aged well. Also agree that Onward, Luca, and Turning Red deserve to be higher (slip some of them above A Bug’s Life at the very least! Luca especially really connected with me in to a surprisingly degree. Feels like one of those movies that will be better regarded as the years pass.)
I mean the problem with Luca is italians are some the racist europeans out there and no way this fishing village would just accept these sea creatures without killing them. Also they don’t really establish Ercole’s minions betraying him.
I’d knock Inside Out and (blasphemy!) even The Incredibles out of the top ten.
Agree with all of this. I think Onward will always be underrated because of it being released right at the beginning of the COVID lockdowns. We saw it in the theater right before everything shutdown and the whole family loved it.Ratatouille will always be my favorite Pixar film. I can’t even explain why I love it more than WALL-E, Up and some other top tear Pixar movies. Perhaps it just speaks to me as a cook.
I think all of the Pixar movies are “top tear” because most of them make me cry at some point. 🙂
My take is Toy Story shouldn’t be number 1. It’s great but I feel like Pixar just got better from there. I think Toy Story 2 is better.
Absolutely. Toy Story was groundbreaking, but Pixar got better at telling, well, stories from there.
I did a rewatch a couple of years ago, and I agree completely. Toy Story is still great, but 2 is better in pretty much every way.
My whole house is home sick with Covid right now so we just rewatched all four yesterday to keep my youngest entertained. My ranking is after that is 2, 1, 3, then 4. 2 is the best. One still does a lot right. Three feels like it’s emotional beats are more artificial to me. Four was just a trip back to the well for more money and completely unneeded
Toy Story at 1 is probably a recognition of how groundbreaking it was as a film, basically setting the tone for animation ever since. In terms of overall quality I think 3 is the best, followed closely by the other two. As the parent of three kids who have all aged out of their toys, the end of 3 completely and utterly wrecked me. Fortunately we were watching at home so I could leave the room. I’m tearing up just thinking about it now. I have to think movie theaters were a blubbering mess.
It’s a lot like having Citizen Kane at the top of movie lists. You see it, you basically say “Yeah yeah, super groundbreaking, dazzlingly important, but I don’t especially want to watch it all the time.”
Saw TS3 in a theater, can confirm blubbering mess. My wife and I also saw Up together very early in our relationship. Its the only time I was glad for 3D glasses.
Ok, if you follow sports you know that there’s always a bit of controversy about MVP (Most Valuable Player) awards: should it go to the best player, or the player that contributes the most to their team winning? Lists have the same problem. Does “best” mean highest quality writing and performances, most entertaining, or most important?Toy Story is the most important because its greatness opened the door on a new generation of animated entertainment. But if I had a choice of Pixar movies to watch again for the first time, it doesn’t crack the top 5.
I have always loved Ratatouille, but I love it even more after this past weekend. There was a mouse in our garage that my wife discovered, and she was pretty upset. My youngest son, who inherited her wonderfully mischievous sense of humor, cracked up and immediately went inside. When we came back in, he had the scene in Ratatouille with all the mice in the house playing on the TV as loud as it could go. It was a perfect “Mom was expertly trolled” moment.
Having ‘Ratatouille’ outside of the top 10 is insane as far as I’m concerned. Personally, it’s my favourite Pixar, and though I’m not saying it has to be number one on a list like this, it should be close.
Brave should be a lot lower. Even Pixar admitted it was a dud. Wall-E had a cool setup, but the second half isn’t great. Up I also find overrated – great beginning, but again once they get to the island, i.e. the second half, it slows way down and gets awfully weird to boot. And I know a lot of people loved Inside Out, but for me it wasn’t quite there. I think it was pointed toward a very specific demographic.Underrated: Finding Nemo (IMO top 3, the complete package), Toy Story 3 (should be #1 or #2, it’s the best movie they’ve done), and I’ll share the love for Ratatouille. It isn’t their greatest, but it should be higher than #11.I’m a bit surprised by how many duds are on this list. I’m aware as are we all that the last decade or so hasn’t been kind to them, but there’s a pretty severe drop-off around 10.
Yeah, Soul was a big whiff for me.
Luca is too low! That is an adorable fucking movie.
But we all know Ratatouille isn’t quite as good as Raccacoonie.
Great order.The kid in me agrees with Toy Story at number 1 because I used to think my toys came alive when I wasn’t home or asleep.
The adult in me would put WALL-E at number 1, and Toy Story at 2 because WALL-E is such a great love story at it’s core.How about of rank of Pixar movies that made us cry from least to most?
28-3) Every other Pixar movie2) Toy Story 31) UP
Great list, my favorite moment from UP is thisEven though I’ve seen Toy Story 3 several times, I still tear up at this
i cant argue with toy story at 1, but damn if wall-e aint 2001 for kids. film stunned me when i saw it.
I agree with you. Toy Story is obvious. Wall-E hit me hard and I was 24 years old when I saw it.
WALL-E has a stunning opening sequence, but for me it nosedives the second they get off of Earth. It’s the same with Up: the opening is a masterpiece, but I just don’t care about any of what follows.
Great closing credits scenes as well, implying that humans return to earth and begin the work of reclaiming it.
just to necro post I love this , and the Peter Gabriel song is great.
I fucking hate Wall-E. The first part was cute where it was just him but the lazy Americans allegory was so obnoxious it ruined the entire experience for me.
First half = 5 stars; Second half = 1 star
I don’t really see where it is specifically about Americans. Obesity/lack of exercise is becoming a global problem with the spread of fast food and children more interested in devices than playing outside.It’s even beginning to be a problem in China.
Arguing that it’s not about lazy Americans but fat people in general is not the resounding argument you think it is. Wall-E sucks. Kids internalize those kinds of messages.
They should internalize them! All this “body positivity” stuff has a real health cost. As a biomedical scientist I can tell you there are two things that overwhelmingly increase your health and lifespan, more than anything else you can do. And they are very simple. Don’t smoke and don’t be obese. Obesity makes you far more likely to die of not only heart disease but cancer as well. And the best time to stop being obese is when you are young (although like quitting smoking, it’s worth doing it even later in life) In the West, we’ve made great strides on the smoking front (not so much in Asia, unfortunately), but we’ve been terrible on the obesity issue. Yes, quitting smoking and keeping off weight are not easy. Both cigarettes and junk food are designed to be addictive. But it’s important to do so and not make it out to be a personality trait or something.
Good health is very important. Destroying someone’s self-esteem over their health isn’t the way to go about encouraging healthy habits. For many it does the opposite of motivation. And while obesity isn’t healthy, pressuring people to be thin (read thin, not healthy) has driven many people to the opposite end of the eating spectrum disorder (I nearly lost a cousin to anorexia, and spent time on a hospital ward with teens with eating disorders). That’s why I’m not as harsh on body positivity.
good health extends to one’s relationship with their self esteem, too.
It does, I’m just against people treating people cruelly because of their weight. People also need to keep in mind that weight issues don’t just come with eating and exercise habits. Hirsutism, glandular issues that are genetic, being put on certain medications like antidepressants, a lot of factors play in. I gained 30 pounds after being put on antipsychotics at thirteen years of age, and living two months on a hospital ward in a city with little exercise opportunities, all that combined with puberty did a number on my health. Yes, afterwards I was able to eat better and had opportunities to exercise, but some people would just have written my weight issues off without knowing what I went through.
Onward is way better than that. The dragon may be my favorite Pixar villain.
It’s a damn good movie. It’s hard to know where to put it on a list that includes so many masterpieces, but it’s damn good.
It’s pretty hard to come up with an absolute ranking of Pixar films. I would rather just put them in ranked tiers, rather than trying to decide how Up, Toy Story 1-3, WALL*E, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc. and Cocco hold up against each other. I might be one of the few who actually liked The Good Dinosaur. I wouldn’t rank it particularly high, but I found it a quieter, more low key entry that was a pleasant change. Plus, the main character’s personality reminded me of my dog at the time.
The Good Dinosaur deserves to be higher than all of the Cars films at least. All three of those films should be at the bottom.
Disagree on the first Cars. It’s clearly the Pixar film directed at the youngest audience, and succeeds greatly on that level. It’s beautiful to look at, the action is a blast, and it has a lot of solid Life Lesson messages to deliver. Some of the little touches were fun (e.g. the insects being tiny VW Bugs) even if it was those very touches that gave rise to a whole lot of the questions about how the hell that world actually works.
I agree, I’d put the original cars probably near the top of mid-tier Pixar. Cars 2 is definitely the very bottom of the list, though. Not sure where to put Cars 3 exactly. Top of the bottom tier, or bottom of the mid tier?
I haven’t see the sequels, and so will only quote Michael Caine that “by all accounts (they’re) terrible.” Based on what I’ve heard your placement sounds right.
I’d say bottom of middle tier. bottom tier are Cars 2, Planes, Lightyear, and depending on the person Cars/Good Dinosaur. Cars is an okay story with a premise that isn’t utilized in a meaningful way (is there a single point in the films where the characters being cars actually matters? not really. you could just have people driving the cars and the story does not change.)
The story might not change, but then Disney would miss out on all that sweet, sweet toy licensing money.
pretty much.
To be fair Planes wasn’t Pixar, it’s Disneytoons Studio (though did have some Pixar people on staff.)
I would watch the original Lightning McQueen over that bizarre uncanny valley dog child movie ever again.
Totally agree with this. For example, I would not argue against Toy Story, but personally, I prefer both The Incredibles and Ratatouille. Really don’t think there is an objective way to consider any to be “the best. . .” even if it is fun to debate.
I’m with you on the Good Dinosaur. One thing I like about it is the parents actually believe in the kid and push him to overcome his fear instead of all the other movies that seem to be full of parents doubting and/or fearing their kids. Granted, the dad dies because of pushing his son to get through his fear, but the son does end up overcoming his fear and believing in himself.
WALL*E, Up, Ratatouille are my top 3. I will die on this hill.
Controversial I’m sure, but I preferred Lightyear to Toy Story 4. People say Lightyear was unnecessary, and I can’t really argue with that, but Toy Story 4 was not only unnecessary but watered down a perfectly good and bittersweet ending to Toy Story 3.
If Lightyear was made by any other animation company it would have been much better received. Honestly if it hadn’t been called Lightyear it would have been better received. The whole trying to say it’s the movie Andy watched is what I then people latched onto and hated.
I always just assumed Buzz Lightyear was like one of those toy lines that had a cheap cartoon tie-in, like so many in the 1980s. The imagery surrounding him is so cartoonish that it makes no sense that it was based on a somewhat serious Sci-fi flick.
My thought exactly. Like he was a Thundercat or something. I never felt Andy was deeply in love with the character, Buzz was just the shiny new thing that all the kids liked. Ultimately he clearly felt a greater emotional connection to Woody.
I’d agree with that. I think I would have enjoyed it more without that absurd intro card looming over the whole thing. I didn’t hate the film, but having to watch it with the context of trying to figure out why THIS was the movie Andy loved…I just couldn’t shake it.
In this case the director is wrong about his own movie. Lightyear is not the thing Andy was obsessed with, it was Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. Within the Toy Story-verse, Lightyear is a modern big-budget gritty reboot of the cartoon that Andy loved. That’s why Tim Allen’s Buzz sounds more like Patrick Warburton’s Buzz than Chris Evan’s. Tim Allen is the Jim Hanks-level voice actor who does all the soundalike recordings for merchandise that Patrick Warburton couldn’t be bothered with.
Lightyear is in the same category as Cars. It’s a movie aimed solely – not primarily, but solely – at kids. Cars is aimed at 6-year-olds. Lightyear at 10-year-olds. And they’re successful in that regard: they’re both good movies for their target demo. But in either case, there’s no crossover appeal. And that’s okay. It’s not bad. It’s just not for you, me, or people writing these lists.
This is a good point. I think since I have kids in those age categories (5 and 9), I can appreciate those movies through them. Would I choose to watch them on my own? Probably not. But I don’t see Lightyear as bottom-tier because I can see how my kids engage with it, and how they engage with it more than with something like Toy Story 4 (which was about what exactly? Mid-life crisis?).
it is very much ‘baby’s first interstellar’, for better or worse. if you’re an adult and you’ve seen what it’s aping it’s pretty boring, if this is like the 2nd sci-fi movie you’ve ever seen it’d probably rock your world.
Pixar needs to be done as a tier list because it’s hard to say the best when there are so many good ones. It’s also a pretty big tie in the middle for mid grade but watchable family movies.
It’s a shame, though, that whereas previously their stellar movies were far more numerous than their mid-grade, that mid-grade collection is now much larger than the top tier.
I think people expect too much. The studio had like fifteen years of amazing films, most of them flat out masterpieces. And no matter where you cut off their “golden age” (probably either Cars or Cars 2, let’s be honest), there’s still multiple films after that which any other studio would kill to have made.
I hated Finding Dory, disliked Monster’s University, and was impartial to Incredibles 2.
For Finding Dory, the underlying story is good – Dory has to remember her past, which is a cool twist on the first film. But the execution just feels so, so, so gimmicky. The entire damn movie was spent out of the water. And, not only that, but it just felt like a series of unfortunate events that make for cheap entertainment. If only part of the movie was spent at the aquarium I’d be a little more forgiving.For Monster’s University, it just felt completely unnecessary. It should’ve just been a TV show. The stakes were non-existent and the lack of Boo is unfortunate. A Monster’s Inc. sequel where Boo is a little older would be cool.
Incredibles 2 was just lackluster in my opinion. Average script. Meh.
UpToy Story 2Toy StoryWALL-EWe can quibble over the sequence of the rest, but Up hits me like no film or piece of art for that matter, ever has before or probably ever since…
My friends and myself were going to see Don’t be a mence while drinking your juice” in 1995. It was at a mall in New Jersey…. a fight was about to break out in that theater and my friends who grew up in a bad part of brookyln said we shouldn’t go in that theater because there is a chance someone who start shooting….So I said lets duck into this other theater instead, we are all 20+ years old (i’m 22) and we end up seeing Toy Story. There wasn’t a shooting but a fight did break out in that other theater and a bunch of grown 20 year old guys saw the best movie they possibly could see that night.
I found myself as an unpopular college freshman, nearly alone on campus over Thanksgiving weekend when virtually everyone else either went home or was invited to a friend’s house if they lived too far away. With the campus virtually deserted by Wednesday afternoon, I decided to take the shuttle bus over to the nearby mall to watch a movie at the theater.After seeing Toy Story, I realized that I had just seen something ground-breaking.
Yeah, seeing it that 1st time it was such a game changer. Like there are few movies you see and during the movie you know this is something so special!
Brave (which sucks) and Toy Story 4 (which is great) should switch places. Turning Red is amongst their best as well as Luca imho
I’m a Pixar hipster (I think “When She Loved Me” is a bigger tearjerker than the Up montage) but I think this list is alright, as lists go. No real controversy bait to speak of. My quibbles:Toy Story is too high. I get that it is iconic and the most important of the Pixar movies because it was groundbreaking in many ways, but as entertainment I would rank it in the 5-10 range.Ratatouille is much too low. This is the closest to an actual snub as the list gets.The Good Dinosaur is properly rated, but I felt like Jeffrey Wright’s performance deserved a shout out. It’s the only thing I remember from the movie!Good notes on A Bug’s Life and Inside Out.And one last thing… BING BOOOONNNNNNGGGGGGGG
They should flip-flop 1 and 3.To this day, “When She Loved Me” absolutely guts me and leaves me a quivering heap on the floor.
That’s probably the song Randy Newman should have won his Oscar for.(….if I may end my sentence with a preposition…)
I find the whole “When She Loved Me” sequence so heart-wrenching it actually makes me angry, which I realize says more about me than the film.
I actually prefer Toy Story 2 to 1. Maybe because Woody doesn’t act like a jealous asshole throughout the majority of it lol. And I absolutely agree with “When She Loved Me”. I’m tearing up now just thinking about it.
My ranking, high to low
wire season 4
wall-e
wire season 3
wire season 2
coco
wire season 1
show me a hero
ratatouille
monsters inc
luca
inside out
treme season 3
toy story 2
toy story 3
up
finding nemo
treme season 2
toy story
deuce season 2
homicide season 1 + 2
the incredibles
soul
wire season 5
deuce season 3
toy story 4
finding dory
homicide season 3
we own this city
treme season 4
treme season 1
turning red
a bug’s life
deuce season 1
homicide season 4
monsters at work season 1
incredibles 2
homicide season 5
brave
monster’s university
homicide season 6
homicide season 7
cars
the good dinosaur
I’m not sure the list agrees with viewership, at least for Cars 2. While debating if it was true to the franchise, audiences didn’t seem to have a problem as it is the 3rd highest grossing film for the company.Planes should get a (dis)honorable mention. While it wasn’t released under the Pixar flag, they were co-EP on it.
Box office has never and will never equate to quality. It’s correlation, at best.
In this case, the issue is with how they are saying “Moviegoers agreed it was weaker” when you factor in that more people went to it/more tickets were sold for the movie. If it were truly worse to viewers the numbers would have presumably been lower.
There’s a lot of factors that go into judging the quality of a movie. Reviews, both critical and popular, are one. Cars 2 is dead last in terms of aggregated reviews of Pixar films, and the only one that has a “rotten” ranking: https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/all-pixar-movies-ranked/The problem with box office as a judge of quality is that audiences pay the same amount if they like a movie as the do if they hated it. And generally, unless it’s a movie directed by James Cameron, there isn’t a lot of repeat viewing of movies anymore, and hasn’t been for quite some time. There’s just too many other options, and it’s too hard to get people out to the movies in the first place. So box office is a rough gauge of word of mouth, but not really a direct measure.The only other useful way of looking at box office return I can see is in comparison with other movies, especially those within the same series. In the case of this series, Cars 2 is a significant drop off (almost 20%) from its predecessor, and Cars 3, whose performance presumably would reflect audience goodwill from the last entry, drops another 20% in return, even with much better reviews. https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/production-company/Pixar#production_company_movies_overview=od4
Those are domestic numbers, btw. It’s true that Cars 2 did better internationally than the original, but Cars 3 cratered internationally- making barely as much as it did domestically. So I think the overall argument (that audiences mostly didn’t care for Cars 2) still stands.
Of course, the point of contention with the article here though is saying the viewers didn’t necessarily enjoy it. While it’s true (mostly) that you go to a theater, view a film and like it or hate it you spent the money (the mostly is tied to how if a movie sucks or simply wasn’t what you expected you can actually go and get a refund). The catch is that the discussion of the films doesn’t end there so of someone is saying the film is trash to their friends, there is a decent chance people will hold off on seeing it. Would be great if we could see total volume of sales not just raw money.
I’m not sure numbers of tickets would help you that much. You could adjust the numbers for inflation to put them roughly on parity, but you’re only talking about ten years or so from the first film to the last, so it’s not going to be THAT big a deal. You’re still stuck with the idea that you’re only roughly gauging word-of-mouth and repeat business.
So you’re still looking at drops from first movie to second and second movie to third, and combining that with general reviews and opinions that you can gather. Anecdotally, I’ve never seen anyone push back on the idea that Cars 2 is pretty crappy, either.
The La Marseillaise scene in Casablanca, the “So be it, Jedi” lightsaber duel in Return of the Jedi, and the childhood memory scene in Ratatouille.
I don’t agree with this list. At all. Wall-E not being number 1 is an absolute crime and Onward is way too low. Coco deserves a little higher praise as well. The list feels almost disrespectful. Incredibles 2 felt like a rehash. Cars 1 is ranked too high and serious disrespect for Good Dinosaur.
Coco was overrated. I liked it but the fact that no one else in the family wanted to help him was bull. Also disney tried to trade mark the holiday they based the movie on WTF was that scumbag move. Book of life I would say was better because it was a movie that had more fun with it’s premise and I think it did the heartfelt song better because they only did once. Coco used the same song 3 times and 2 of them were soulful but by the time we get to the third rendition there isn’t anything new to it so it lessens it’s impact.
Incredibles 2 was a rehash in the way that Bond films are a rehash. ie in a good way.
Was about to throw hands until I got to the end of the list and realized y’all forgot to put Planes on the list. if you had that over onward I was going to unplug the TV right at the good part.
Personally, I’d say no sequels deserve to be inside the top 5. My 1 to 5 whould be:Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Wall E, Finding Nemo and Incredibles. Then 6 to 10 would be:Toy Story 2, Up, Toy Story 3, Ratatouille and Bugs Life. Maybe I’m showing my age but Pixar were on a run like no other during those first ten years.
I remember Toy Story looking bad when it came out and it still looks bad. Toy Story 2 was very forgettable. 3 was pretty good tho. I wouldn’t rank any of them above the rat movie, dory or coco. Up is always way too high because people only think about the first 10 minutes, the other 80% of the movie is a slog. The new Carl’s Date reminded me of that because it was inane. Elemental was better than half of the movies on the list because it was better than Brave. Such wasted potential on that one with a witch that went NOWHERE. You nailed The Good Dinosaur which I thought was a prank at the time.
Lists are gonna list. That’s whatever. Personally, the one major thing I agree with is Toy Story at the top. Finding Nemo is about where I’d put it. Cars 2 and Lightyear are about where I’d put them. The rest is a little bit confounding to me.
Up and og ts should be tied for #1
That is a wild read on Toy Story 4’s plot. Andy doesn’t bring Forky into the family, Bonnie makes him. It’s why Forky is alive at all.
You really need to put release years on this list, to provide some technological perspective…
“It’s a welcome feminist sentiment, though somewhat undercut when you
realize that it took a dozen films before Pixar finally produced one
with a female protagonist, and that Brave’s original female writer-director Brenda Chapman was replaced by a man during production.”
The firing of Brenda Chapman was a bit of a mess, but does having a strong female led story really get undercut simply because it was the first time they did it? This almost implies they just shouldn’t have bothered if they were gonna wait that long…
Coco should be way higher.
I get that there’s an emotional and nostalgic connection to the original TS but it’s not even the best in the franchise, let alone all of Pixar. Primitive animation aside, they were still figuring out world building, character design, and storytelling. I guess these lists are all bullshit anyway but that really stood out to me as weird.
The Cars franchise really did irreparable damage to the Pixar brand. Once they released their first mediocre film and it became a hit anyway, their standards were never quite the same after.
For me Wall-E was always: First half = 5 stars; Second half = 1 star
I feel like Ratatouille is actually ranked fairly. The concept is interesting and it’s a fantastic movie to watch when you can’t think of anything else to put on, but the characters are kind of a drag. Remy is a douchebag the whole movie, Linguini is such a massive idiot that I found it impossible to root for him at all, and the best character in the movie, Collette, really got a raw deal. She’s an actually accomplished professional chef with years of experience who tries to help someone who does not deserve it or appreciate it, but none of that ends up mattering. Remy just casually dismisses her advice, her boyfriend lied to her the whole movie, and all of the time and effort she spent climbing the ranks at her old job ended up being for nothing. I also don’t know why the movie needed two villains, essentially.
Hot taek – Inside Out always seemed to me like a movie for adults disguised as a movie for kids. Other good Pixar movies can have broad appeal to all ages, but Inside Out seemed like it was pandering a bit to adults but wanted to consider itself a kids movie. It’s still good, I still got bummed for Bing Bong, but it always came off as a little too targeted.
I’ve always felt the same. Usually when Pixar targets a specific audience it’s about movies for kids (the Cars sequels, The Good Dinosaur, etc.). Inside Out stands out because it seems like they were going after a very specific demographic.
I was mostly agreeing with this list until I hit Finding Dory down at #20, you monsters.
TRUTH – there’s a whole lil’ tranche right around there that really ought to be higher.
…there simply is no just world where Toy Story 2 belongs in the #3 spot, especially above so many other jewels in the catalog. Personally I thought 2 was the weakest TS entry, even considering 4.
There are two of us!
Coco was overrated. I liked it but the fact that no one else in the family wanted to help him was bull. Also disney tried to trade mark the holiday they based the movie on WTF was that scumbag move. Book of life I would say was better because it was a movie that had more fun with it’s premise and I think it did the heartfelt song better because they only did once. Coco used the same song 3 times and 2 of them were soulful but by the time we get to the third rendition there isn’t anything new to it so it lessens it’s impact.
“Cars 2 makes Cars 3 look like Cars 1.” – Griffin Newman.
Good ranking. I doubt anything will ever top Up for me at #1 – it’s still far and away their best and most emotionally resonant film for me – but I can’t quibble with much of this otherwise (though I’d put Coco in the Top 5).
Soul ranked above so many better movies…I can’t figure it. Now, it’s a good idea to remake bad movies instead of good ones, but someone ought to have drawn the line at Monkeybone.
Fan fiction list. None of this “ranking” is backed by profit or how much it pulled in at the box office. Nothing quantifiable. It’s just your opinion. Toy story 1 pales to 2 and 3 in every conceivable way. From the morals and lessons to the animation. Toy story 4 is also garbage fan fiction. Elemental, lightyear, cars 2, and the good dinosaur were all massive flops. Toy story 3 is bar none the biggest success Pixar has ever had.
For all its many faults, Cars 2 is still somewhat entertaining to watch and the world is vibrant and full of interesting details. The Good Dinosaur is a boring movie with a slow, barebones plot and set in a world with only three colours: stone grey, mud brown, and dull leaf green. I’m not even sure I managed to stay awake the whole way through the one time I watched it.
If Toy Story was actually Pixar’s best movie, do you really think we’d even be talking about the studio all these years later? Come on. Great creators don’t peak with their first work.
Also, any Pixar best-of list that doesn’t have Ratatouille in the top 5 is not worth taking seriously.
The Incredibles and Inside Out have always been overrated and Up isn’t fairly average once you get past that extraordinary opening sequence. Toy Story, despite being groundbreaking, isn’t even the best movie in its franchise.And Pixar has had a LOT of misses lately.But, looking at that Top 10 list (despite my misgivings about some of the ratings)…..when Pixar is good, there’s virtually nothing better.
The Incredibles is incredible.
As a complete whole film, Toy Story 3 isn’t great. What happens in the first 2/3 of the movie? No one remembers because the the last 20 minutes are emotional mindblowers that blank everything that came before. Reminder: It’s mostly about Ken and Barbie; unctuous, occasionally boring, and occasionally funny. Then there’s an escape-sequence that’s a rehash of the first film. I don’t know man, if I were to do a TS 1 – 3 marathon… I’d skip hour 5.
Sometimes you see lists and think “Ok, I don’t agree but I can see the argument” and then there’s lists like this. No.
The notion that Toy Story deserves the number 1 spot based on its supposed influence collapses when you remove the American exceptionalism from the picture and acknowledge that France and Canada got there first. Portions of Pixar’s staff were poached from Mainframe and Studio Canal (who made the first all CGI movie).So if we take that away from Toy Story, we have frankly little else to recommend it. Plus the idea that their debut work surpasses their subsequent 30 works is just denying Pixar’s growth as artists. The true #1 is WALL-E, which made it to the top of the list on the strength of its art and not its reputation.
Brave , Wall-E , Toy Story 2 …and then the other ones I guess…
You said in your Inside Out 2 review that it was the best Pixar movie in years but now you write an article (literally the day after) where you’ve put several very recent Pixar movies above it.How do you reconcile this? Did you just change your mind, or what?
I cannot understand how a film critic can put Ratatoille so low. It is one of the best films about understanding art and why art critics are important and how they live the art, and moreover, it is done in the boundaries of a film that can be watched by children.
Luca is a really good movie, should be higher. I also have a soft spot for The Good Dinosaur. It is slow moving, but that’s good for children (and adults who want time to reflect during a movie. Movies don’t need to be all quick cuts and flashing colors, especially children’s movies. My kids loved it, and the story is so sweet.
Y’all remember when slideshows as “journalism” were beneath this site?
What methodology was used to determine the ranking? If it’s worst to best “in the opinion of one staff writer who maybe chatted with a few more and put it together to meet a deadline” or even “based on what some AI text generator said” that’s all well and good, but just say that.