The Good Dinosaur

Amazon Disney+

Though arguably better than any of the Cars movies, The Good Dinosaur didn’t even have enough power to launch another one of Pixar’s franchises. Does anyone even remember The Good Dinosaur, let alone know that it’s a Pixar movie? Very rarely does Pixar create anything with such little lasting value. It didn’t help that this movie marked Pixar’s first real flop.

Cars 2

Amazon Disney+

After the box-office success of Cars, you can understand why Disney and Pixar were eager for a sequel. It’s a film that offered possibly the best merchandising opportunity of the Pixar catalog so far. How could they say no to the money? Unfortunately, they should have—because Cars 2 marked a step down for good ol' Lightning McQueen.

Cars 3

Amazon Disney+

There’s not much to say about Cars 3, even if the banter between Lightning McQueen and Mater is always a delight. Though it’s a rebound from the disappointing Cars 2, Cars 3 is proof that maybe it’s time to (permanently) get back to the original ideas that Pixar is known for.

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Monsters University

Amazon Disney+

After the critical and box-office success of Toy Story 3, much of the 2010s at Pixar focused on the reboot trend in greater Hollywood. More than half of the Pixar movies released in that decade were sequels or spinoffs of Pixar movies from the 2000s. And they arrived at varying degrees of success. The magic of Pixar has always lived in the studio’s original ideas. And though it’s nice to revisit old friends from Monsters, Inc., it comes at the cost of what feels like an imitation of the original.

Elemental

Disney+

I have a soft spot for unlikely characters who find common ground, so naturally Elemental tugged on my heartstrings. The movie takes place in a world where the four elements live among one another as separate entities. While Pixar earns bonus points for its original idea, the execution isn’t quite there.

Lightyear

Disney+

Lightyear is a mix between a prequel and a spinoff. (Spinquel? No.) Lightyear explains how the real Buzz Lightyear became a legend worth cloning into tiny little toys. Lightyear occasionally shines with brilliant visuals, Chris Evans’s sturdy vocals, and some Buzz Lightyear-esque antics. But unlike the Toy Story films—which reinvent the franchise’s formula from entry to entry—it never totally justifies its existence.

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Finding Dory

Amazon Disney+

It’s in some of these sequels where it feels like Pixar is trapped in a comfortable rhythm. It’s easy to get a sense of déjà vu from Finding Dory, since predictability has never been an attribute associated with the imaginative world of Pixar. While Finding Dory works as its own movie—as opposed to a reboot or spin-off—it’s hard to watch Finding Dory without comparing the story with that of its groundbreaking and beautiful predecessor.

Brave

Amazon Disney+

Though Pixar has always written strong female characters, Brave marks the first film in the catalog starring a human heroine. Brave is far more than an excuse for Pixar to show off its incredible ability to animate hair—which is always a difficult thing to pull off. It brings those classic themes of individuality and strength to a fantasy fairy tale about female empowerment.

Onward

Disney+

Maybe I didn’t pay attention to the trailers closely enough, but I had no idea that Pixar’s Onward would have a whole Weekend at Bernie’s vibe to it. Two elf brothers attempt to bring their dead father back to life for one day—but they screw it up and end up going on an adventure with his dismembered legs. It’s weird! But it’s also fun in an ’80s throwback way, even if it doesn’t have some of the emotional or thematic depth of other Pixar films.

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Cars

Amazon Disney+

Even more than a decade later, I’m still mostly enthralled with the mechanics and possibly the biology of this world inhabited mostly by vehicles. If you believe in the Pixar shared-universe theories, these cars are actually the evolution of machines after the corporate takeover of BnL resulted in the apocalyptic destruction of Earth. While this entire theory is vastly interesting, you have to acknowledge Lightning McQueen’s enduring place in Pixar history—the kids love him for a reason.

A Bug’s Life

Amazon Disney+

The follow-up to Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, was a Pixar film before a Pixar film was a Pixar film. The brand was only beginning to establish itself, and in the three years between Toy Story and A Bug’s Life, animators at Pixar made masterful strides in creating the tiny world beneath our feet. You can find footage of the tiny cameras they developed to look at the world the way bugs see it. In hindsight, it’s hard to remember it was ever a thing, because Pixar was the clear winner in the public feud against DreamWorks and its other insect-centric movie, Antz.

Incredibles 2

Amazon Disney+

Much like Toy Story 4, Incredibles 2 delivered us a sequel to a series that we didn’t expect to continue. Rumors of a follow-up floated around for years, but many fans of the brilliant team-up film were surprised to see Pixar’s superpowered family ride once again. While the sequel provided some welcome introspection into the personal lives of the children in the family and gave us some memorable moments with baby Jack-Jack, it didn’t quite achieve the towering heights of ensemble comedy that the first film pulled off so well. Still, it’s a delightful adventure that’s much better than the bulk of the superhero films in theaters today.

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Soul

Disney+

Have you ever wondered what happens when you die? In Soul, a middle school music teacher named Joe finds out. When he unexpectedly dies, his soul is taken into the “Great Before.” With its frank, daring exploration of mortality, Soul might just go down as one of the most underrated films in Pixar’s filmography—and its straight-to-streaming pandemic debut certainly didn’t help that.

Turning Red

Disney+

Being 13 is, well, the worst, but Pixar manages to make hormonal outbursts cute in Turning Red. In this film, a tween girl named Mei Lei goes through some major life changes. There’s the usual gripes—school crushes, overbearing parents, and friendship drama, but one day, Mei Lee discovers that she turns into a giant red panda whenever her emotions get the better of her. Turns out, her metamorphosis is part of a long-standing tradition for the women in her family. It’s a brilliant twist that shows family dynamics, generational trauma, and motherhood in a way few Pixar films have pulled off.

Monsters, Inc.

Amazon Disney+

An early masterclass in Pixar world-building, Monsters, Inc. is the animation giant’s first foray into an entirely new world. It’s downright incredible how easily it introduces an entire complex society built around scares in a way that’s accessible to kids and adults. Here’s an example of how Pixar can take something like a child’s fear of the dark and turn it into something inventive, transformative, and not so scary or confusing. For adults, it reminds us what it’s like to be a kid; for kids, it reminds them to be as brave as adults.

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Up

Amazon Disney+

Not since Bambi have the first ten minutes of an animated children’s movie been this heartbreaking. Told mostly without words in a series of vignettes, this is the entire life of Ellie and Carl—their love, their loss. If it doesn’t mess you up, I don’t know what will. And that’s what Up reminds us: No matter who we are or what we’ve been through, we still have the capacity for good and love. That is, if you’re able to watch the rest of the movie after being reduced to a puddle of tears in ten minutes. But to wring that much emotion out of the audience in that short amount of time with little to no dialogue is a feat that only Pixar can pull off.

Ratatouille

Amazon Disney+

Kids see food as nothing more than the green stuff their parents force down their throats. If it’s not pizza or candy or other junk, it’s more like a chore. But Ratatouille introduces the transcendent power of food—that it can incorporate art, identity, and passion. In re-creating the warmth and flavors of Paris, Ratatouille shows that what we eat is so intimately tied to who we are, who we’ve been, and where we’re going. Like so many great Pixar films, it champions individuality and the importance of following your dreams. And if anything, maybe it made a generation of kids a little bit more adventurous with what they tasted.

Toy Story 4

Disney+

While the film feels more like an epilogue to the series than another sequel, Toy Story 4 is an emotional gut punch like no other and has earned its place among the best of the studio’s nearly 25 years. The fourth installment to the franchise is moodier, darker, and more introspective than the others, putting Woody front and center once again. Though it’s not as exciting as some of the other adventures in the franchise, it compensates by being superiorly affecting in all the right ways.

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The Incredibles

Amazon Disney+

Long before the explosion of Marvel superhero movies, The Incredibles took a refreshing new approach to the genre. With no big names to anchor the film, Pixar created its own superhero franchise with a family at the heart of the story. Much like Alan Moore’s iconic Watchmen, this is a world where superheroes live in hiding following harsh national legislation. But unlike the dark and gritty Watchmen comic, The Incredibles turned the subject matter into a simple, yet also deep, mix of humor and adventure that worked as a marital drama and an analysis of the growth of the family unit.

Toy Story 3

Amazon Disney +

Toy Story 3 is a stunning outlier in Hollywood sequels. Where most franchises dip in quality over time, Toy Story had the incredible ability to deliver with every new film. Some might argue that each Toy Story outshines its predecessor, but it’s always hard to compete with nostalgia. Toy Story 3 does well to balance the growth of its characters with the introduction of a new set of toys without sacrificing what made the others great. More importantly, though, it directly addressed an inescapable fact of life—that adults have to leave their childhoods behind. Naturally, anyone touched by Toy Story and Toy Story 2 left the movie with the crushing guilt of abandoning their childhood toys. With Andy prepared to go to college, we finally get to experience that transition with these characters in the film.

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