Every Pixar Movie, Ranked Worst To Best

With the release of Inside Out over the weekend, and the collective agreement that Pixar "is back," it's easy to begin wondering where the studio's newest animated flick sits amongst the rest of its pantheon of classics. And so, We Got This Covered tasked me with updating its ranking of the now-15-film-strong studio to see where the movies of the legendary Disney-owned animation warehouse sit next to one another. But first, a note: as it is with any "definitive" or such ranking list - and especially with the childhood treasures these movies are - this list is entirely subjective. It's also of note that, barring a few at the bottom of the barrel, the top-tier Pixar movies are so resoundingly exceptional, ranking one atop the other begins to feel humorously trivial. But, if you're like me and have had family holidays superseded with arguments over the veracity of Cars' vehicular macrocosm or which Toy Story movie is actually the best, then you know that the discussions that erupt from the rankings are the funnest part. With that in mind, let's start with the bottom... 15) Cars 2 (2011) As a follow-up to what was already considered Pixar's least narratively cogent endeavor, Cars 2 had a lot, ahem, riding on its shoulders. A bit too much, most agreed of the John Lassetter-directed sequel, which saw a head-scratching decision to shift malapropism-loving Mater to the lead role in an espionage-inspired quest around the globe to stop a nefarious oil company from world domination. The film is silly, loud and - what ultimately stings the most - entirely meaningless, with the story's biggest message amounting to the same heft and impact of a locally-produced Earth Day commercial. It's not entirely without its endearments, however, with a handful of nifty set-pieces and a full-fledged commitment to its own zany weirdness (Michael Caine plays a James Bond-esque car named Finn McMissile). It's bottom-of-the-barrel Pixar, but I'd still take it any day over the superficially inane Smurfs movies -- the first of which debuted the same summer. 14) Cars (2006) Ah, Cars. The first Pixar movie to not sit anywhere above a 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and which a lot of people in general weren't sure -- and still aren't sure -- how to interpret. Telling the story of race car Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) and his turbulent descent into a small town-loving southern gentleman (gentlecar?), the movie is sort of all over the place. It's a sports movie, a rom-com, a buddy adventure, an indictment of the American Interstate Highway System, and an easy way for Disney to make a hilariously large sum of money off of bed sheets and toy cars. It's easy to get lost in the negativity of that last thing and forget the small, simple pleasures Cars presents in fleeting bursts (Lightning and Sally's drive to the Wheel Well Motel, the implacably honest Ferrari-loving Luigi and Guido, the shiny tangibility of all the cars), but it's ultimately a movie whose endearing positives are ceaselessly outweighed by its shrill negatives. A negative mostly found in the casting of tow truck Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) and his subsequent good-ol-boy, dimwit-with-a-heart-of-gold tangential rants that, while harmless and occasionally endearing, lack any of the edge or refinement expected from the studio. The fact that all of this also resulted in the longest Pixar movie to date -- a somewhat butt-numbing 116 minutes -- doesn't exactly help matters. 13) Monsters University (2013) Comedy sequels decades in the making are almost always duds. Animated comedy sequels coming 12 years after a much-beloved original, doubly so. And that's the mountain Monsters University had to climb in 2013, but only really made half the trip. Reuniting fan-favorites James P. Sullivan (John Goodman) and Michael "Mike" Wazowski (Billy Crystal) for a coming-of-age story set in the hallways and dorm rooms of their Alma mater -- the titular university -- MU keeps the jokes flying and the gags belly-aching (frat mom Sherri Squibble's unexpectedly dark musical taste is arguably one of Pixar's all-time best sight gags) but it all feels disappointingly empty. Prequels live and die on devoting care to situations of which the audience already knows the outcome, and Monsters University never fully leaves the shadow of they're going to be best friends in the end anyway. Bonus points for a double-header of anti-kids movies messaging in arguing that perhaps college isn't for everybody and, most memorably: sometimes the dream you've been dreaming about your entire life just isn't for you, and that's okay. 12) Brave (2012) The studio's first fairy tale, first female-led film, and first female-directed and written story (well... it's complicated), Brave represented a lot of firsts for Pixar. In telling the story of Scottish princess Merida (Kelly Macdonald) and her drastic attempts to avoid an arranged marriage at all costs, the movie delves into some ceaselessly intriguing mother-daughter relationship squabbles and emotions almost unheard of in animated entertainment. While Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson) and Merida's Freaky Friday-esque switching of viewpoints can come off as expected, it's just rare and believable enough to work. Its middle sections -- including a big plot turn halfway through -- do result in a bit more slapstick goofiness than the seriously-presented and impactful opening scene originally decrees, but it ultimately succeeds as not only light fantasy fare but as a rare female-driven adventure flick with actual, feminine-empowering messages in mind. Also, Merida's hair is probably the best thing the studio has ever animated. 11) A Bug's Life (1998) Pixar's sophomore effort is somewhat forgotten amongst the films created by the studio after its release in the winter of 1998. Maybe ironic, given A Bug's Life and its focus on the trials and tribulations of a group of easily forgotten ants and their uprising against a deliciously evil grasshopper named Hopper (Kevin Spacey). It's cute and energetic and endlessly quotable (literally anything Hungarian twin pill bugs Tuck and Roll say) and backs one of the best all-time Pixar line-ups with actors like Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Hayden Panettiere and Phyllis Diller lending the small-scale bugs some human-level emotion. Thanks to Dave Foley's energetic and neurotic Flick, when things take a dark turn in the third act -- and boy, do they -- the stakes feel even higher as he leads a bold-faced rebellion against the oppressive grasshoppers. Spacey's Hopper is amongst the studios' best, brazenly over-the-top villains and the pic is fueled by nerve-wrangling set-pieces that make you care about a gaggle of inconsequential insects, but it's still a more straight-forward, by-the-books adventure with no real emotionally euphoric moment found in Pixar's top-tier works. 10) Inside Out (2015) In a possible pop-culture game-changing story idea, Pixar's newest feature film, Inside Out personifies the emotions of not only an 11-year-old girl suffering the trauma of moving across the country, but of all of us. Giving voices to Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), and Fear (Bill Hader), the studio not only figures out a way to build a logical, if narratively loose, world inside the brain of a child, but fill that world with as grand ideas and epic moments as any of its out-in-the-real-world adventures. And here's a sentence I never thought I'd say: Sadness may be one of Pixar's most unexpectedly funny and self-effacing creations to date. Downside: the middle section drags thanks to a repetitive quest structure and some fairly arbitrary plot rules, but Inside Out's ultimate goal, and message, is so inspirational and laudatory that only a person run by five tiny fire-for-hair Lewis Blacks could balk at it. Emotions aren't singular, aren't easily compartmentalized, beg to be felt, argues Pixar by Inside Out's final act that will have you tearing up behind your 3D glasses if caught unawares. Joy can cry and Sadness can be happy and Anger can be calm -- life is messy and our attempts at dealing with it can be doubly so. It's Pixar at its meta best, finally telling us after all these years: yes, it's okay to cry. 9) Monsters, Inc. (2001) An undeniable classic - and the one most of the current generation remember for making them feel something other than humor at a kid's movie - Monsters, Inc is easily the first of the Pixar movies on this list that makes ranking all 15 increasingly difficult. Taking maybe one of Pixar's highest concepts -- monsters from an alternate universe (or the future?!) steal away to children's rooms in our world every night to stock scream energy to power their civilization -- and drilling it down to a palatable level, Monsters, Inc set the tone for the decades-worth of heady concepts presented as easily, and eagerly, digestible entertainment for both kids and adults. Its look is odd, its characters are goofy, and its plot is scatterbrained, but leave it to one little girl -- and one uttered syllable that changed a three-lettered word for a generation -- to penetrate the hearts of even the curmudgeons watching. Not to mention, anyone over the age of twenty is still humming the title song to "Put That Thing Back Where It Came From Or So Help Me" to this day, guaranteed. 8) Toy Story 2 (1999) Listen, I don't want to leave any Toy Story flick at the bottom all alone as much as the next person, but it must be done for the sake of the list. There's an abundance to like about the second chapter of the Toy Story saga - new toys, new locations, new villain - but with neither the awe-struck surprise of the original or the catastrophic payoff to the third, Toy Story 2 remains the outlier, by a thread of Woody's arm. But forget about all that, the positives! Jessie the Cowgirl (Joan Cusack) and Bullseye! Stinky Pete's (Kelsey Grammar) dastardly plan! The airport terminal sequence! And, as it shall and always be remembered, the impeccable flashback scene to Jessie's former owner and her eventual neglect of the Cowgirl as she aged into a young adult, all played in silent shots overlaid with Sarah McLachlan's "When She Loved Me." Commence ugly crying in 3... 2... 1. 7) Up (2009) What initially sounds like Pixar's dumbest premise -- here's an old man, here he is tying a bunch of balloons from his day job to his chimney, here he is on an adventure in South America with a chubby boy scout and talking dog -- blossoms into its most tragic. And it takes just about ten minutes from the opening title card. Up is remembered most for that opening montage of Carl (Ed Asner) and Ellie's decades-spanning romance, and rightfully so -- it is buoyant and hilarious and soul-crushingly sad. But what Pete Docter's second directorial Pixar flick deserves a standing ovation for is managing to book-end such a universally powerful first act with goofball ideas like floating houses, bi-plane piloting talking dogs, and a nefarious octogenarian hunting for a mysterious six-foot tall bird creature, and making it all work. By the movie's hair-raising final battle, aloft in the clouds and living up to its title, Up transforms into a good old-fashioned adventure yarn with good guys and evil minions and stomach-churning high-altitude swashbuckling. Best of all? Like everyone watching, it never forgets its tear-stained opener. 6) Ratatouille (2007) Neither particularly emotionally powerful nor packing any deep messages, Ratatouille is simply one of Pixar's best out of sheer delight. Following the travails of French rat Remy (Patton Oswalt) and his dreams to work in a high-end Parisian kitchen as a cook himself, the movie is tripping over itself in charm (Remy's Paris is one of Pixar's most ogle-worthy creations, especially the visual representations of the little guy's taste buds) and effortlessly laid-back European humor. The movie's emotional high-point sees implacable food critic Anton Ego buckling at the knees for Remy's interpretation of the titular dish -- and it's a humorous and touching moment -- but won't exactly leave you as butter in your seat. And that's okay -- that's why Ratatouille is so high on this list: it manages to entertain with its fast-paced visuals and dialogue (director Brad Bird's hand showing there) without any true emotional vivisection. It is, essentially, one of the few great Pixar movies you can watch ad nauseam without any threat of doom-and-gloom. Ratatouille, like the dish itself, is comfort food, pure and simple. 5) Toy Story 3 (2010) Perhaps the most controversial move so far in the ranking, to list what many considered the last great Pixar flick (until this past weekend, that is) at such a middling mid-point. Thankfully, Toy Story 3 is anything but middling. Sure, it may share a largely similar plot to its predecessor (thrilling prison-break scene late-in-the-game not included), but it catapults the central gang into another series of exciting misadventures, facing not only the fear of Andy's impending adulthood and their place in it -- but their entire reason for existing in the first place. Pixar's decision to age Andy up along with the target audience, who were kids when the original two came out, threatens to be mawkish, but only drags the emotional knife in deeper by the time the final scene comes around. Like many, it was just the perfect movie, at the perfect time, about the perfect subject, and its message of growing up and leaving a certain part of your life behind is simultaneously overwhelming and triumphant. Many evoke the penultimate furnace set-piece as the trilogy's most emotionally intense sequence, but I dare anyone attached to a Barbie or set of LEGO growing up to make it through Andy's final playdate with Woody, Buzz, and the gang - and vibrant Bonnie - without getting misty-eyed. Go ahead, I'll wait. 4) Finding Nemo (2003) Overplayed and over-referenced in the subsequent decade following its mid-2003 premiere, many shrink in fear of applauding Finding Nemo for its strengths after watching it on ABC Family for the zillionth time. But, here's the simple truth: Andrew Stanton's classic is a game changer, and no amount of basic cable re-runs can alter that. The casting is maybe Pixar's best, seamlessly matching each cartoon to its ridiculously on-point celebrity personality: Ellen DeGeneres' quirky Dory and Albert Brooks' worry-wart Marlin, especially. The flick -- packed with shock-to-the-system messages for adults to trust their tykes and, in turn, for kids to learn to fend for themselves -- is also one of Pixar's best plotted, Marlin and Dory's hijinks ebbing and flowing hypnotically from one to the next with humorous interludes to Nemo's Dentist-office captivity balancing out the quest. Not to mention, to every child across the planet -- and some adults -- any orange fish with stripes is a "Nemo" and any vaguely blue-hued one a "Dory." Perhaps not the best support for the healthy understanding of sea creatures, Finding Nemo is so ingrained in our collective subconscious -- maybe more so than any of Pixar's works -- that it becomes easy to dispense with and overlook and forget how monumentally mind-blowing a continuous 100-or-so minutes were to each of us back in the Summer of 2003. 3) Toy Story (1995) The O.G. of the Pixar canon, Toy Story kicked off a computer animated movie revolution and did it with brazen style. As the head-of-the-class of the Pixar template, the toys-to-life story also introduced audiences to the idea that a kids movie could be about something more. Here, Woody (Tom Hanks) faces a personal -- and public -- schism in attempting to deal with newcomer Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), setting the unlikely duo off on an epic adventure across the sidewalk and back. It turns its hero into a villain, posits questions on true friendship and betrayal and the point of existence, and has a really great theme song. Toy Story 2 may get the credit for introducing fan-favorite characters and Toy Story 3 packs the biggest heart-beating wallop, but, as they say, you just can't beat the original. 2) The Incredibles (2004) The first, and notably only, Pixar movie to give its creator carte blanche over directing and writing -- you know, as carte blanche as the Mouse House will allow -- Brad Bird's freedom over his own creations oozes cool and confidence from every minuscule pixel. Charting the fall of "supers" thanks to the wayward public destruction caused by their heroics, The Incredibles picks up when "Mr. Incredible" aka Bob Parr (Craig T. Nelson), is called back to action to a mysterious island overrun by a rogue four-legged droid. The story is whiplash fast, the characters are unforgettable, and the set pieces -- all of which blossom naturally out of the story, a novel idea -- have still yet to be out-done by over ten years worth of Marvel Cinematic Universes and Dark Knights. On the metaphorical side, it's got brilliant bon-mots regarding the idea of being your own individual (Syndrome's "if everyone is special" monologue in particular will fray young minds in the best way possible) and the frustration with normality. And, sure, you could dive down the Nietzschean and Randian philosophical wormhole if it so pleases you, but what truly lives up to the name here is that is has a believable, frustrating, lovable family at its core that makes it all soar. 1) WALL·E (2008) Here it is: the game-changer of game-changers. A movie that doesn't speak a word for one-third of its run-time and has more to say than most do in two hours. Stocking Pixar's most unconventionally endearing character -- essentially a sentient trash compactor more obsessed with Hello, Dolly! than any human has ever been -- and detailing at first his friendship with a cockroach, then an angsty, gleaming interloper named EVE, and eventually with all of mankind, WALL·E doesn't just chug along from one scene to the next, it becomes meteoric. Pixar, at its heart, represents the marriage between kid and adult entertainment that can speak to a child one year -- and to that same child in twenty years, surprising them with different ideas each time they revisit the movie. In my opinion, WALL·E is the complete summation of that idea. Kids appreciate the titular robot's antics as he bounces from one trash skyscraper to the next, and as they grow up they see the bigger picture: the consumerism, the environmental disaster, the apocalyptic nightmare that had to occur to even set the story in motion. Some argue the final acts weaken the movie's ideas, but I'd say they only strengthen and add to them -- humanity's laziness and gluttony finally catching up with us in the end. It's got a typical villain and a rushed finale, but it spins and pirouettes into transcendence so many times that its occasional touches back to Earth are only understandable, and it's soon back off into the stars. Oh, and the tentative, and eventually tenderhearted, romance between WALL·E and EVE is Pixar's greatest love story, bar none. And neither speaks a full sentence.