List: 15 Years of Pixar

In a little bit over two months, Pixar will release their highly-anticipated 11th feature film, Toy Story 3, taking them back to the characters that started it all. I will celebrate the release of that movie (my most anticipated movie of the year, and easily the movie I’ve anticipated the most in my life) here in form of a trip down memory lane relating to the previous two movies. But for now, I thought it is the perfect time to rank the 10 films that Pixar has released so far.

As I said on my post about what Pixar should do about its future, I stated that the studio is the best animation studio currently working. Every release has been excellent, with one notable exception. What makes them stand appart from other studios like Dreamworks and Blue Sky is that the most important thing to them is the story and the vision of the director. Unless either one of those things is not good, they will not give the project the green light. And the greatness of this process of approval is shown in the final product. Every single movie from them (even the weaker one) has been critically acclaimed, has gotten at least one Oscar nomination, and have become box office hits. Plus, they capture my imagination every time I watch them. Now they are opening their doors to more filmmakers, and I can’t wait to see where Pixar goes from here.

So now, I present my ranked list of the 10 films Pixar has released so far.

P.S. I know Pixar has been around more than 15 years, but it is the 15th anniversary of Toy Story.

What Should Pixar Do About Its Future?

In 1995, a little-known animation studio called Pixar wowed audiences, made history, and changed the world of animation with the release of Toy Story, the first ever computer-animated movie. That movie has stood the test of time not only because it was the first of its kind, but because it is also a great achievement in story and story telling. After that, they released A Bug’s Life, which unfortunately came out the same year as Antz, Dreamworks’ first CG animate film and the movie most people think is superior to the other. However, it was not until 1999 with the release of Toy Story 2 came out that Pixar became a studio to watch out for because this was the first animated sequel to be critically and financially successful, plus it took on a deeper subject and had greater character development.

Since then, Pixar has released great movie after great movie (with the only stumble being Cars, but more on that soon). These movie were not just aimed at children, but at everyone.  Some of their stories are ambitious and well meaning, so they have never had a problem in the story department Plus, every Pixar movie has been nominated for at least one Academy Award, winning five of the ten awards awarded so far for best animated feature, and earning the second Best Picture nomination for an animated film. All of this can be credited with to their strong stories