Best Pixar Movies, Ranked
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It's been nearly 30 years since Toy Story kicked off a historic run of animated films, so now seemed like a good time to discuss the best of the best, your picks for the greatest Pixar films of all time. I'm Stephen Thompson, and today we are ranking the best Pixar movies on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. Here to reveal the list is my co-host, Aisha Harris. Hey, Aisha. Mike Wazowski. I mean, hey, Stephen. You

You will forever be Sully to my Mike Wazowski. I love it. Thank you, Stephen. So for those of you who didn't vote in our Pixar poll, a quick bit of background. We gave listeners a list of Pixar features, 28 of them in all prior to the release of Elio, and the chance to pick no more than three of them.

which, given the number of classic films, was a tough task. I personally counted seven films I wanted to put in my top three. So with that in mind, let's get to your top five, which, thanks to a well-placed tie, is actually a top six. Aisha, hit us with the first of our two fifth-place finisher.

Woohoo! I was very happy to see, especially one of these, eek their way in in this tie here. The first is Toy Story, of course, the original version, which came out in 1995, the movie that started it all. You! You weren't the real Buzz Lightyear! You're an accent figure! You are a child's plaything! You are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity. And then tied with Toy Story, we have...

My personal favorite, the movie I think is actually the best Pixar, which is Coco. One of those seven films in my top three for sure. I am so happy to see Coco in here, especially. I was not surprised to see Toy Story. I figured one of them at least was going to make it in here. Look, this is the original. It's the one that a lot of people have a lot of nostalgia for.

But Coco, I think it might be the best Pixar personally. You know, this is a movie that came out in 2017. So it's later era Pixar. But to me, it kind of has all the ingredients that we, or at least I've come to love about Pixar movies. It's about family, of course, but it's a little bit more complicated than that. You've got Miguel voiced by Anthony Gonzalez, who finds himself in the land of the dead.

and uncovers secrets and hidden meaning about his family. And it's about sort of the stories we tell ourselves and the ways that those things reverberate throughout generations. And it's beautiful. The music's great. And that last scene. One of the last scenes with Mama Coco. Oh my goodness. Oh,

That scene, especially where Miguel is singing Remember Me to her and her recognizing it and being lucid for that brief amount of time. I rewatched it recently. Still a gut punch. I was bawling. I was bawling. Yeah, these are two very different films and they are two, I think, masterpieces. Toy Story gets a ton of credit for being kind of the movie that started it all.

And rightfully so. I don't think it gets enough credit for being the bedrock on which some of the best sequels ever made were built. Yeah. You know, when we talk about this poll, you know, this is not a super scientific poll. We gave everybody three votes.

The Toy Story series is at a significant disadvantage compared to other sequelized Pixar movies because it has multiple films that could credibly be considered among the best animated films of all time. And so Toy Story 1 is splitting the vote with Toy Story 2, which is actually my favorite Toy Story movie. Same. Me too. Oh, yeah.

I was raised by collectors, so that film really resonated with me. Toy Story 3 is a deep sentimental favorite for a lot of people. Where these movies come out in the span of your life ends up being very significant to whether they're your favorite. I think Toy Story is a masterful film. It is funny. It is warm. Excuse me. I think the word you're searching for is space ranger. The word I'm searching for...

I can't say because there's preschool toys present. It is laying all this groundwork for a bunch of magnificent sequels. In the case of Coco, and Coco is getting a sequel. I don't know if it really needs a sequel. It does not. But talk about an emotional gut punch. And we're going to talk about a few other major emotionally heavyweight Pixar films. Coco is talking about

death and family and remembrance and the power of music and the way memory gets distorted and the way memory can form myth. There are so many big ideas in this film, but also, Aisha, I don't think you've even mentioned how

Oh, my goodness. Coco is to look at. The Land of the Dead is just such a visual feast. The fact that it's like this urban metropolis that is very vibrant and electric and the neon colors and just the way that everything looks like.

It is beautiful. And even the skeletons that are taken from, you know, the classic Day of the Dead imagery, they have so much personality and warmth. They're dead characters, but they're alive. I think it's wonderful.

one of the most gorgeous, gorgeous Pixar movies ever. It's just, it's top tier. It really is. And it also really felt lived in. It felt like it took this world seriously and made something that honored that tradition instead of just like using it for storytelling beats.

I absolutely agree. And this is one of the movies that I always hold up when I'm talking about, you know, Disney slash Pixar remaking their films or reimagining their films and trying to like shoehorn in diversity or try to correct for their past sins. And I'm just like,

Coco was able to do that by creating a new, completely original story while also being very respectful and very thoughtful about the way it employed all of that. So, yeah, I'm just so happy to see both Toy Story and Coco make their way into this top five or top six. They are both correct answers. Yes. Hey, speaking of emotional gut punches, what do you got for number four? Yeah.

I feel as though listeners probably will not be at all surprised that this is in the top five. Often called one of the greatest opening sequences of a movie, especially an animated movie of all time. I think rightfully so. And that is up. Of course, that is the 2009 film starring Ed Asner as Carl, the...

old crotchety man who is harboring a lot of just grief for the loss of his wife. I always come back to that opening sequence. But I also think the rest of the movie is fun. Like it's hard. It's really hard. And we're going to talk about another movie. I think people will be able to guess. That also has an opening sequence that's very hard to live up to. I think this movie does a really good job of keeping the story interesting, even if it can't quite live up to the heights of the opening.

But man, that opening sequence, it's, I don't know, I don't have any words for it. It's just, it still moves me. Aisha, I rewatched the sequence the other day and of course just bawled all over the place the way you did watching Coco. And what struck me rewatching it, the way it lays out, you get this kind of newsreel with like a bunch of exposition. And then you have eight and a half minutes of

Eight and a half perfectly scored minutes. You know, it starts out with dialogue and eventually goes wordless. And you are just seeing the playing out of these two intertwined lives. But amid all of that emotion, it is really important to note, this is a fun movie. This is a funny movie. Squirrel! Squirrel!

My master made me this collar. He is a good and smart master and he made me this collar so that I may talk. Squirrel! The character of Doug, the sweet comic relief talking dog that understands dogs in a way that I think

Yeah.

And think about how novel and what a huge risk it was to make inherently a kid-friendly type animated movie about an old person. Yes. And an old person as an action hero, an old person with an interior life, an old person with life ahead of him, an old person paying tribute to a loved one who has died, who is also a deeply fleshed out, warm character.

that you care about who has a presence throughout this film. This movie is such an object lesson in the fact that you can make a kids movie about almost anything if you have enough of an appreciation for the characters that you're talking about. Ayesha, Up is not my number one favorite Pixar movie, but it is one that I feel really, really passionately about, and I'm so glad it made this list.

Part of that sequence is we see that Carl and his wife were unable to conceive and it was, you know, it was devastating for them. But they still found ways to find happiness together. And I love that aspect of it. And then it connects to, you know, the present day when he meets Russell, who, you know, and in a way adopts a child. Russell, for assisting the elderly and for performing above and beyond the call of duty.

I would like to award you the highest honor I can bestow.

I concur. It's not necessarily my go-to Pixar movie, but every once in a while it is nice to revisit it and nice to be surprised again at how masterful this movie is. So I can't be mad about being in this top five. No. Not the Pixar movie with the best grasp of physics, but I'll allow it. It's okay.

All right, Aisha, hit us with number three. All right. Well, number three is actually a movie that I realized I had not seen in like well over a decade at least. In part because when it originally came out, I probably watched it so, so many times and

It was just imprinted in my brain. That is Finding Nemo from 2003. Albert Brooks voices Marlon, a clownfish who, again, talking about death and losing family members. He loses his wife. I guess, are they married? I don't know. He loses his partner. They're fish. I don't know. I don't know that there was a legal ceremony. Maybe not. Maybe not. But he loses her, but also all of them.

of their eggs that have not yet hatched, except for one, and that is Nemo, voiced by Alexander Gould. It's a story about overprotective parenting, fear of your child's safety. Okay, I was right. You know what? We'll start school in a year or two. No, Dad! Just because you're scared

scared of you clearly you're not ready and you're not coming back until you are you think you could do these things but you just can't nemo that i think is sort of a cross-generational appeal that like you can kind of see in the earlier movies monsters inc also has a little bit of that as well but i feel like this is the first movie where people like were like yes pixar has tapped into this like this is for the parents just as much as it is for the kids if not more to be honest more so i

I'm happy to see it here. It holds up. It really does. It's got a great cast. And once again, Aisha, you haven't yet acknowledged one of the things that really jumps out at this film, which is how it looks. It's beautiful. Yes, it is beautiful. Gather around grandpa's knee and he'll tell you about what it was like to walk into a Costco or any store that sold TVs.

For about five years after Finding Nemo came out, this was what you would see. Because if you wanted to show how beautiful a TV was capable of being, you would look at Finding Nemo to get that sense. This deep blue color palette, but then these exquisite colors on top of it.

It's worth noting, Ellen DeGeneres got Oscar buzz. Yes, I remember this. For her performance as Dory. And it was real Oscar buzz. She didn't get nominated, but it was talked about as, why not? Why wouldn't you? I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine. And he shall be my Squishy. Come here, Squishy. Come here, little Squishy. Squishy, squishy, squishy, squishy, squishy.

Ow! Dory, that's a jellyfish! Bad squishy. Bad squishy. Albert Brooks is so good in this and bringing so much pathos. I'm going to come back to this point at least one more time in this conversation. Where you are in your life

Yes.

And it hit hard at the same time that it has this goofy surfer stoner turtle character and the emotional support group for sharks who don't want to feed. I am a nice shark, not a mindless eating machine. If

If I am to change this image, I must first change myself. Fish are friends, not food. So many sweet, funny characters. There's just a little fish where they're describing their different maladies and one of them just says, I'm obnoxious.

I'm obnoxious should have been a greater catchphrase than it was. This film gave and gave. I don't think it's aged today. I love it. Yeah. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Oh, my God. It was part of my vocabulary for a very long time. When life gets you down, you know what you got to do? I don't want to know what you got to do. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? That's actually really good advice. Yeah.

Oh, yes. Finding Nemo. So good. I was 15 when this movie came out. So, you know, I was not a child, but I was also not, I don't know, too cool. If you're too cool for Pixar, don't hang out with me. Yeah, that's true. Aisha, I think you and I are of one mind on this one. I'm very intrigued to discuss it with you. Number two is... All right. Well, we might have to rain on some parades. Number two is...

No surprise, I think. No, I'm not surprised by it. WALL-E. Yes, it's WALL-E. Let's just get right to it. This is the other movie, I think, when people think of Pixar and think of great opening sequences, this is the movie everyone thinks of. Of course, you've got WALL-E voiced by Ben Burtt. He is the last remaining robot on Earth after everyone, all the humans have left because Clarkson...

Climate change. They ruin the Earth. It's very poignant. And then, of course, you have this amazing sequence of just being with this robot. And he has sentience. And it's just beautiful. And then you get the rest of the movie when we go to see the humans. Oh, yeah.

It's such a precipitous drop, in my opinion. To be fair to this film, unlike Up, what people talk about when they talk about Up is often a sequence of about eight and a half minutes. Sure. In the case of WALL-E, it is a much longer sequence. Yes. It basically plays out as a masterful silent film. Mostly wordless. Largely wordless. Yes.

in which this little robot kind of moves through the world and is like still kind of is very dutiful. It's still like doing the tasks it was assigned to do, but it has such life and such personality. Wally. Wally. Wally.

It's a short film. It's an excellent short film. If it were just a short film, it would be like one of the best short films I've ever seen. I do not want to rain on the parade of how brilliant that movie is until the moment the rocket takes off with the little robot attached to it. And as soon as it goes into space, it becomes not only a fairly rote Pixar quest epic, but

But it is also, Aisha, it is so deeply cynical

humanity in ways that I found shocking. It's not just like I can't handle the fact that it's this scathing indictment of humanity's worst excesses. It's a more cynical than accurate view of what humanity is capable of. Well, also so much of that, the criticism coming from within the movie hinges on this idea that like being fat is

is like the worst thing in the world. It's very kind of queasy to watch, to be honest. Yeah, and it's played for laughs, but it's also just like, it's also, you know, I mentioned the physics in Up. The ending is also a complete cop-out. Like, the world is not suddenly inhabitable. It's just, to me, it's like they made a perfect short film, but then grafted a best kind of C-plus film

Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. Obviously, a lot of people disagree with us because it's at number two. I know, we're going to get so much. It's at number two, and it is the first Pixar movie to be entered into the Criterion Collection. Oh, my God.

It has its fans and it has its defenders. In some ways, it's the artiest Pixar movie, right? It is the artiest in the criterion fanboy film bro way. And I say this as someone who can absolutely play into all of those stereotypes. You can out film bro a lot of people. Sure. And yes. And look, I...

I can hear them, our listeners typing now and being like, how dare you? But I also I understand why people gravitate toward it. I think there are other movies that they may not come to the highest height of WALL-E, but as a full picture execution of a story, you're not going to convince me that WALL-E is one of the top tier Pixar's outside of that opening sequence. Sorry, not sorry. Sure.

All right. Well, that's WALL-E at number two. After the break, we will reveal the number one pick, which, by the way, is my favorite Pixar movie. So stick around. Woo-hoo!

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Welcome back, Aisha. I am so happy with our listeners right now because they picked my favorite Pixar movie at number one. The Good Dinosaur. The Good Dinosaur. Give us the pick. It is, of course, Inside Out. Do you ever look at someone and wonder what is going on inside their head? Well, I know.

I know Riley's head. I mean, duh, right? Even if it's not my personal favorite, it's definitely in my top three and it is definitely...

I remember when this movie came out in 2015, it made so many critics top 10 lists, but it wasn't just a critical hit. It was every audience person I talked to connected with it. And I think back to watching that movie and feeling as though I had been seen. I could remember being that age, the same ages as Riley and feeling all those feelings and, and,

talk about execution and big swing. Like, you know, this is, this is not, it's not necessarily a wholly original concept when it came out of a lot of people talked about Herman's head and how this sort of concept has been explored before, but to do so in a movie directed at children and,

And this idea of what happens when you're no longer an innocent child who may be shielded from the world in that first encounter with all these other feelings and Amy Poehler as Joy and trying to protect that. She's kind of the Woody of this movie. She is the one who's trying to keep the gang together. I get it. You guys have concerns, but we've been through worse. Tell you what.

Let's make a list of all the things Riley should be happy about. She's trying to hold everything together. But she can't. And learning to accept that in the same way that Woody has to learn to accept that Andy cannot always be his person. Oh, man. And then, of course, I will say it looks beautiful. It's gorgeous. Amazing. But also bing bong.

Yeah. We have not said the words Richard Kind in the Richard Kindiest performance ever committed to screen. Shape-wise, I'm part cat, part elephant, part dolphin. Dolphin? You got it right.

You gotta remember, when Riley was three, animals were all the rage. The cow goes moo, the horse goes neigh. That's all people talked about back then. Yeah, yeah. Oh, Bing Bong. Just the idea of losing that creative spark, that imagination, the imaginary front, like...

Oh, my goodness.

Part of what is so great about Inside Out is it's not just about finding balance among our different emotions. It's about finding strength from our different emotions. It's finding strength from darkness. It's finding strength from sadness. It's understanding that all of these things have to work together and they're all there to regulate something. They're all there to make our brains work in the best possible way. I just think

Like, what an incredibly valuable lesson this film put out there. Kind of like Finding Nemo, not only for kids, but also for their parents. You need me to be happy, but I want my old friends and my hockey team. I want to go home.

Please don't be mad. I took my 11-year-old daughter to the screening in 2015 and was an absolute wreck. And I really felt like we were sitting there understanding each other a little bit. And so this movie came out at a perfect time in my life, a perfect time in her life, and

I think it is an absolute masterpiece. There is one scene in this film I hate. I know we all know. We've talked about it many times, but please remind listeners who may not know where this is going. At one point, we get the parents' emotions. The mom's emotions are like a panel on The View, and dad's emotions are just trying to watch the hockey game. Uh-oh, she's looking at us.

What did she say? What? Oh, sorry, sir. No one was listening. Is it garbage night? We left the toilet seat up. What? What is it, woman? What?

He's making that scene. So irritating. Steven tapping into his disgust. Yes, it did. My disgust, my little disgust goblin got very, very, very sick during that scene. But look, it delighted a lot of people. I'm not here to yuck anybody's yum. That scene just made me very mad. It's like two minutes I would have excised from what was otherwise, to me, a perfect film. Yes. So those are the six top things

vote getters. I'm guessing just in terms of sheer odds that there is a very strong possibility that we did not get to your favorite Pixar movie today. I mean, The Incredibles and Monsters, Inc. were in the top 10, but not the top five. Ratatouille didn't quite make the cut. There are some other

truly great Pixar movies that did not make the cut. I was sad not to see Turning Red, which is one of my favorite Pixar movies. Same, same. We have the full list over on our Letterboxd page. You can find that at letterboxd.com slash NPR Pop Culture. We'll have a link to that in our episode description so you can kind of pour over what our listeners did and didn't get right.

And next month, just for our Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus supporters, Aisha, you and I are going to be talking about the movies that ranked at the bottom of the list, including the movie that got zero votes. We have more Pixar hot takes for real. You don't want to miss that. Sign up now at plus.npr.org slash happy hour or visit the link in our show notes.

That brings us to the end of our show. Aisha Harris, thanks so much for being here. You have saved our lives. We are eternally grateful. Thank you, Stephen. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger, Hafsah Fathima, and Mike Katziff, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all next time.

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