Ever since making its groundbreaking debut with Toy Story, Pixar has been one of the most revered studios in Hollywood. Each one of their movies is expected to be a cerebral, beautifully crafted, heartstring-pulling masterpiece, thanks to the studio’s initial string of hits. They didn’t make a misstep until Cars, more than a decade into their run, by which point their reputation was set in stone.
Not every Pixar movie has ranked among the studio’s best, but this is rare. There’s only one movie in the entire Pixar library with a “rotten” score on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s a much better track record than most animation studios can boast.
23 Cars 2 (39%)
A lot of more beloved Pixar movies should’ve gotten a sequel before Cars got one, but since Cars was the brainchild of now-disgraced studio boss John Lasseter, a weird world full of living, breathing automobiles was dragged out into a trilogy.
The second movie, a spoof of the Bond franchise by way of a sequel to Cars (which doesn’t work at all), received the franchise’s worst reviews by far.
22 Cars 3 (69%)
The Cars threequel received much better reviews than its predecessor, mainly because it has a darker tone than the previous movies, which felt like a breath of fresh air. But it was still much more maligned by critics than the average Pixar offering.
21 Cars (74%)
The entire Cars trilogy makes up the three lowest-rated Pixar movies on Rotten Tomatoes. The first movie received the best reviews out of the three, but was still criticized for ripping off the plot of Doc Hollywood.
20 The Good Dinosaur (76%)
The first Pixar movie to underperform at the box office, The Good Dinosaur was sort of swept under the rug and forgotten about. But this movie has a novel premise – it’s a boy-and-his-dog story where the boy is an anthropomorphic dinosaur and the dog is a feral boy – and it’s filled with gorgeous animation.
19 Brave (78%)
When Pixar finally made a movie with a female protagonist after being around for almost two decades, the studio was criticized for going with the most obvious choice: a princess.
But Brave isn’t an average Disney princess story. It’s more concerned with the mother-daughter relationship between the princess and the queen than telling a problematic love story.
18 Monsters University (80%)
After making a couple of unnecessary sequels, Pixar moved into unnecessary prequel territory with Monsters University, a movie that takes fans back to Mike and Sulley’s college days. There’s a lot to enjoy in the movie, especially Billy Crystal and John Goodman’s reunion, but it didn’t need to exist.
Riffs on adult-oriented college comedies like Animal House didn’t work in a kids’ movie for the same reason references to The Godfather didn’t work in Shark Tale – kids don’t get the joke.
17 Onward (88%)
Marvel superstars Tom Holland and Chris Pratt paired up to play brothers in Onward, one of the last theatrical releases before the coronavirus shut down movie theaters indefinitely. With a strong emotional core and a captivating, quick-paced story that keeps audiences guessing, Onward is a delight.
16 A Bug’s Life (92%)
After breaking all kinds of new ground with Toy Story, the first-ever fully computer-animated feature film, Pixar told an underdog story about ants suffering under the rule of grasshoppers in A Bug’s Life. Not many animation studios would homage Kurosawa in their sophomore effort, but A Bug’s Life has been widely accepted as Pixar’s nod to Seven Samurai.
15 Incredibles 2 (93%)
When Marvel took over Hollywood and superheroes became the hottest new thing, it was only a matter of time before Pixar dragged their own superhero characters out of the woodwork for a sequel.
While Incredibles 2’s focus on Helen as opposed to Bob ensures it feels fresh, its story is too disjointed and predictable to match the near-perfection of the original.
14 Finding Dory (94%)
While the original Finding Nemo movie explored the vastness of the ocean, taking audiences on an epic adventure through various ecosystems of marine life, Finding Dory is mostly confined to an aquarium – it’s much smaller-scale, and thus feels like a step down.
13 WALL-E (95%)
As both a cautionary tale about the future of the environment and a thought-provoking spectacle that boldly goes where moviegoers have never gone before, WALL-E ranks alongside many of the sci-fi classics it homages, like Silent Running and 2001.
12 Monsters, Inc. (96%)
Billy Crystal and John Goodman were perfectly paired in Monsters, Inc., quickly making Mike and Sulley one of Pixar’s greatest duos. The movie itself is filled with hilarious moments, mostly courtesy of the two actors’ chemistry, but it also has plenty of heartbreaking scenes and even a couple of genuinely tense beats.
11 Ratatouille (96%)
Pixar’s movies tend to be about underdogs, like an old-fashioned cowboy doll in a high-tech world or an anxious ant who’s terrified of leaving his colony. The studio’s greatest underdog is the hero of Ratatouille, a rat who wants to be a chef. He feels like he belongs in a kitchen, but he’s the last thing kitchen staff want to see in their kitchen.
10 Soul (97%)
After Disney lost money on Onward’s theatrical release and it became apparent that the COVID-19 pandemic wouldn’t allow theaters to do business as usual for a while, the studio decided to move Pixar’s latest effort, Soul, to streaming. Early reviews have called the film a return to form for Pixar, while its exploration of the separation of body and soul is fascinating.
9 The Incredibles (97%)
Long before superheroes were in every other major tentpole release, Brad Bird deconstructed the myths surrounding comic book heroes with The Incredibles, a movie about a real family with relatable conflicts who happen to have superpowers.
With lovable characters, a tightly plotted script, and an abundance of fun riffs on the superhero mythos, The Incredibles is Pixar at its best.
8 Coco (97%)
Pixar has been helping parents broach difficult subjects with their kids for years. In 2017, they tackled the most difficult subject to explain to children: death. By bringing Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebrations to the screen, Coco embraces death as a natural part of life and tells audiences that no one’s ever really gone if they’re remembered.
7 Toy Story 4 (97%)
As a movie, Toy Story 4 is masterfully made. Its Rotten Tomatoes score is close to perfect, just like its predecessor (the previous two before that had perfect 100% scores), and its self-contained narrative is compelling.
The main criticism levied at the movie is that it failed to justify its existence after Toy Story 3 already provided the series with a perfect conclusion.
6 Up (98%)
Audiences thought Pixar had finally made a flop when the studio announced a movie about a balloon salesman flying his house to an exotic waterfall on thousands of helium balloons. But this isn’t a movie about whether or not balloons could lift a house; it’s about a grieving widower’s quest to fulfill his wife’s lifelong wishes, which is universally relatable.
5 Toy Story 3 (98%)
Threequels are tricky to pull off, especially when the previous two are beloved classics, but Toy Story 3 provided a massively satisfying conclusion to the saga that had audiences of all ages in tears. Unfortunately, that perfect ending was undermined by a fourth movie nine years later.
4 Inside Out (98%)
After toying with audiences’ emotions for decades, Pixar did so in a more literal sense in Inside Out, which personifies emotions like Joy, Sadness, Fear, and Anger to explore emotional theory, tell a coming-of-age story with a unique angle, and teach kids about the positive role of sadness.