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.
