This previously published list has been updated to include Incredibles 2.
Trying to rank all 20 Pixar films in order of quality is like trying to rank your children by how much you love them. None of these movies is bad, but when you’ve made 20 films, one of them has to be No. 20 and one of them has to be No. 1. We tried to keep context in mind — Toy Story had an ability to blow your mind in 1995 the way nothing could today — and also ambition: In the world of children’s entertainment, nothing has set Pixar apart more than its burning desire not to coast or mail it in. Some of these movies work better than others, but all of them were trying to do something special.
20. Cars 3 (2017)
Early reviews of Cars 3 have praised the latest installment in the Lightning McQueen saga for, essentially, not being Cars 2, the only Pixar film to receive a “rotten” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Not exactly a high bar … and we’re not even convinced the new film gets over it. Yes, the dopey Tow Mater is, blessedly, back on the periphery where he belongs while Lightning (Owen Wilson) squares off with two new foes: a sleek race car named Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer) and, more imposingly, the growing realization that he’s not the king of the track anymore. But where at least Cars 2 consciously tried to go in a radically different direction, Cars 3 feels like a tame holding pattern, providing the race sequences and heartwarming homilies that were rampant in the first film — except without the same level of inspiration. There isn’t one interesting new character, despite the effort from Hammer, Kerry Washington, Nathan Fillion, and Chris Cooper as Lightning’s cranky new trainer. And from Randy Newman’s by-the-numbers score to every single one of Mater’s tired quips, Cars 3 plays out like a rival studio’s lukewarm attempt to mimic Pixar’s magic. It’s not so much bad as it is deeply dispiriting.19. Cars 2 (2011)
Larry the Cable Guy was Cars’ secret weapon, lending his blue-collar earthiness to a character whose regular-folks demeanor had real pathos and sweetness. But that didn’t mean we wanted to see Tow Mater in a James Bond spoof. Give Cars 2 points for audacity: The follow-up shifts away from the original’s small-town, homespun charm to become a sleek, globetrotting action-thriller focusing on Lightning McQueen’s country-bumpkin sidekick. And then take away those points because Cars 2 proves that even the mighty Pixar can’t transcend the central problem with sequels: You can make everything bigger, but you can rarely replicate what was novel and charming about the original.18. Brave (2012)
Pixar finally set out to fix its lack-of-female-protagonists problem — but unfortunately, it did it with an undercooked story that feels more like a response to criticism than a well-thought-out Pixar adventure. This is a textbook Idiot Plot movie, in which the whole dreadful second half could have been eliminated if (spoilers here) Merida — who is beloved in the kingdom and would have little reason to be doubted — just said, “Hey, my mom was just transformed into this bear, everybody chill.” (Heck, her mom could have even written her name in the ground with her claw to prove it, were anyone to ask.) This is also the first Pixar movie whose comedic tone is entirely out of whack; it’s dumb slapstick that reminds you of some subpar early Dreamworks movies. (We wouldn’t have thought Pixar was capable of making irritating, un-cute children, but here they are.) They would finally come up with a terrific female lead three years later, but Brave was the first time you thought, Wait, have they really lost something?Ad
17. Monsters University (2013)
How many of us had been clamoring to see how Mike (Billy Crystal) and Sulley (John Goodman) became friends in college? Anyone? One of the sizable faults with Monsters University is that it’s a prequel that doesn’t have much need to exist — just do a short before one of the studio’s features and be done with it — but there’s enough heart and humor to make this cash-grab amusing enough. Still, Monsters University uncomfortably sums up Pixar’s post-Toy Story 3 era: It’s pleasantly entertaining just so long as you will yourself to forget the inspired storytelling and freewheeling imagination that used to be the studio’s trademarks.16. The Good Dinosaur (2015)
Pixar’s lowest-grossing film, The Good Dinosaur was beset with story problems, production delays, and reports of directors being replaced midstream. It was hardly the company’s first movie to have a difficult birth (No. 4 on this list is Pixar’s most famous example of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat), but it is the one film that felt most hamstrung in the public’s mind, never escaping the cloud of bad buzz and relative disinterest that greeted it over Thanksgiving 2015. All that said, this tale of an Earth on which dinosaurs weren’t wiped out by a meteor is visually stunning, imagining an unspoiled American Northwest in which the mighty reptiles rule. The Good Dinosaur is oddly conventional for Pixar from a narrative perspective — a young apatosaurus (voiced by Raymond Ochoa) gets lost and has to find his way home — but as a meditative, hero’s-journey travelogue, it’s a thoughtful addition to the company’s canon. This may be the one Pixar film most deserving of a reappraisal in ten years.15. A Bug’s Life (1998)
We might be in the minority preferring that year’s Antz — which was famously part of a race between Dreamworks and Pixar to make computer-animated insect movies — but this is still a charming, ultimately harmless little tale that basically has the same plot as Antz but is aimed more squarely at children. As the years went by, Pixar became unusually skilled at making movies as appealing to adults as they were to kids, but the scale is still being balanced here: This is not one adults will rewatch, like The Incredibles or Toy Story. It still wins big points for having the queen of an ant colony voiced by Phyllis Diller.14. Cars (2006)
By 2006, Pixar had been making features for more than a decade, and so a backlash was inevitable; perhaps overdue. Into that awaiting storm walked Cars, a sweet, modest family comedy. Essentially Doc Hollywood starring a cocky stock car, the film imagined a world ruled by living automobiles, wringing laughs from a hot-rod-out-of-water scenario in which ultracompetitive racer Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) gets stuck in a Podunk filled with ordinary folks like good-ol’-boy tow-truck Mater (Larry the Cable Guy). Cars is Pixar’s most nostalgic work, lamenting the sleepy communities and small-town values lost to the endless march of progress, which may explain why the movie feels so recycled, drawing from different genres without the studio’s usual freshness. Still, it’s consistently amusing — and for a whole generation of car-loving boys who grew up on it, Cars is as important as Star Wars or Batman.
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