On June 15th theaters in the US hosted a movie that was awaited for almost 14 years: “Incredibles 2.”
So it’s right refreshing the Pixar filmography with our Top 10 Pixar Movies!
Only in 2004 Pixar entered in the superheroes’ universe presenting the Parrs, showing us what is like to have superpowers in a way that only Pixar can do.
In fact, this is the real superpower of the studios of Lassater & Co.: taking ideas which often can seem unoriginal and then always find the right way to make them magical, as if it was a baby in charge of every single movie filtering everything through fantasy.
After all, who has ever imagined as a kid whose own toys could come alive, or that animals in their little world could live and talk to each other?
This is Pixar, making animation masterpieces out of child dreams.
Not for nothing, in fact, Pixar is considered one of the pillars of high-quality animation movies with Studio Gibli of Hayao Miyazaki: computer animation or sketched, dreams are the thing that takes an animation movie to a whole new level.
Moreover, Pixar, besides visual magic, has always focused on the music side, flanked by composers who are now a point of reference in defining the “American-style” score. For example, Michael Giacchino, who had signed with Pixar some of the most beautiful and evocative soundtracks, like “The Incredibles,” “Ratatouille” or “Up,” becoming one of the best composers for colossal movies (“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” “Doctor Strange”) and seems to be the heir of John Williams (“Rogue One,” “Jurassic World”).
Since 1995, year in which the first-ever computer-animated feature film was released, until today, Pixar had created a lot of stories, and all of them have been loved and praised all over the world, each one playing an important general role (9 Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature out of 11 nominations), but most importantly a personal role for each of us.
So, you can understand how difficult it was to establish a ranking of the 10 best Pixar movies, and you can understand that obviously it’s a very subjective Top 10 list because we could also try to argue with the big baby inside me, but in front of the jumping lamp he loses every objective point of view!
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10. “Coco,” by Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina (2017)
Latest addition, “Coco” represents the Pixar’s essence: from an unoriginal idea (partially developed in Jorge Gutierrez’s animated movie “The Book of Life” in 2014), with also fairly predictable plot twists, “Coco” still succeeds in getting us attached to Miguel’s family, making us cry sincere tears because of the tenderness used in displaying feelings that everyone had experience of in their lives.
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9. “Ratatouille,” by Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava (2007)
Its social value is an additional trait of Pixar, the way of including a moral inside its stories becoming assort of modern Aesop. And “Ratatouille” is a clear example of it.
Creating a story full of dreams and wishes and funny jokes, like the classic “puppet chef,” “Ratatouille” is able to give pride and power to the social outcast showing that it’s not important what you are, but who you are.
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8. “The Incredibles,” by Brad Bird (2004)
I had to rank one after the other the two movies that brought the two Academy Awards to Brad Bird, one of the geniuses of the Pixar team.
Director and screenwriter also of the masterpiece “The Iron Giant” and old collaborator of Matt Groening for “The Simpsons,” Brad Bird gives always had a special touch in his works, succeeding in creating a unique level of epic and emotion.
And these are the two aspects that make me appreciate every time “The Incredibles,” which storytelling make something like a family of superheroes a series of almost normal events. Let’s hope they didn’t lose the touch and are still explosive like 14 years ago (or at least, explosive as Jack-Jack is).
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7. “Up,” Pete Docter and Bob Peterson (2009)
There’s people who say: “love is an adventure,” and “Up” is the celebration of it.
With a first part that breaks everyone emotionally, a series of terrific gags and jokes and a great adventure, “Up” is like the Carl Fredricksen’s house that brings you up beyond all the trouble and makes you happy and mindless. It’s a movie that speaks straight to the heart.
…it’s a talking movie!
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6. “Finding Nemo,” by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich (2003)
There are two aspects that amaze me every time I watch a Pixar movie: the water and the sky. For the sky “Up” is the proof, while obviously for the water it’s “Finding Nemo.”
The coral reef where Marlin, Nemo and Dory swim is one of the most incredible settings I’ve ever seen in an animated movie, and the details in presenting the world in and outside the water take your breath away in the scene out of the ocean.
In addition, obviously, to the iconic characters, which make us feel bad every time we see a fish tank. And remember, fish are friends, not food.
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5. “Monsters, Inc.,” by Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich and David Silverman (2001)
And speaking of iconic characters, how can we not think of Sulley and Mike, with the voices of two iconic real characters: John Goodman and Billy Crystal.
“Monsters, Inc.” is the third original Pixar story and the first really brilliant one. We can also find in it an important social side, ecological (the screams of human children are to nuclear energy and similar as the laugh is to renewable one) and about the different.
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4. “Inside Out,” by Pete Docter, Ronnie del Carmen (2015)
Fourth in the ranking there is one of the latest Pixar works, but already part of its great masterpieces.
An exceptional graphical technique (the most important part of the production, and of the budget, has been the creation of the Emotions’ skin and hairs) and the director Pete Docter (“Monsters Inc.,” “Up,” as well as author of the subject of “Toy Story” and “Wall•E”), together with Michael Giacchino’s score, have succeeded to give life to a child’s thoughts, changing the way we think about ours (like with “Once Upon a Time… Life” that is why we imagine our red blood cells walking in our veins load of air bubbles).
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3. “WALL•E,” by Andrew Stanton (2008)
Third on the podium we find probably one of the most romantic love stories of the 2000s, on the same level of the great classics of the same genre, that, in comparison, “Call Me by Your Name” seems a simple teen movie.
With “Wall•E”, Pixar teaches once again that love is universal, either if you’re Robert Redford and Jane Fonda or if you’re a programmed robot that compacts garbage with a probe in search of forms of life.
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2. “A Bug’s Life,” by John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton (1998)
Silver medal to the movie that marked the childhood of many (mine especially). Strength in numbers, revenge of outcasts, reacting to submission, these are only some of the values we find in “A Bug’s Life”, that makes us see the world from the insects’ point of view, giving us lines and scenes that went down in history…I’m a beautiful butterfly!
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1. “Toy Story,” by John Lasseter (1995) with a very special mention for “Toy Story 3,” by Lee Unkrich (2010)
And at the top of the ranking, the movie that started everything, the first great dream that gave birth to the story that still makes us go to infinity and beyond!
But it’s not only the original “Toy Story” to get on the winner’s podium, because Pixar has had the merit of creating, 15 years later, a third chapter, so strong and powerful that moved a whole generation without any disappointment and actually, nourishing the flame that light up that “All right everyone! This is a stickup!” reminding all the Pixar lovers that they’ve got a friend in it.
