Pixar Animation films have imprinted themselves on millions of childhoods for three decades, from its first movie, Toy Story, to its most recent, Inside Out 2. The company has made 28 feature films since its inception, all under the Walt Disney banner. Despite its age, Pixar still dominates the animation film scene, creating its very own style within the industry after raking in billions of dollars in box office sales worldwide. Many have argued online about what was considered the “golden age” of the studio. Some say it was from 1995 to 2004, When Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc., Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles were released. Others say it may have been 2004 to 2010, when Cars, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, and Toy Story 3 debuted. Despite the disagreements on their ‘peak’, almost everyone recognizes every single movie on this list. But interestingly enough, movie box office sales have seemingly not decided when it gets its critical acclaim.
Box Office Performance
Chart: Box office performance of Pixar films (1995-2024)
The Toy Story and The Incredibles franchises represent some of the studio's biggest commercial successes, and, unlike many other studios, their budgets have varied significantly throughout each film, instead of a steady increase as success was built.
Critical Reception
Chart: Critical reception of Pixar films (1995-2024)
If we are contemplating the golden age via awards, the time period of 2006-2010 received the most recognition.
Over time, Pixar has faced serious ups and downs when it came to box office sales. Their highest performers on the list, both surprisingly part of franchises, were Toy Story 4 in 2019 and most recently, Inside Out 2 in 2024. Many of their newer standalones, such as Onward, Soul, Turning Red and Luca, were the lowest box office sales in the studio’s history– however, all were released around the COVID-19 pandemic, which surely had a major impact. Soul, Luca and Turning Red all released directly onto Disney’s streaming service, Disney+, as well.
The Highest Rated Pixar Movies on Rotten Tomatoes
Chart: Rotten Tomatoes ratings for top Pixar films
The Toy Story franchise has always been a consistent success for the studio, but Pixar is known to have some of the highest-rated films for animation in general. Although film critics question if Pixar ‘still has it’, their Rotten Tomatoes success has continued to prove that the company knows how to make a film that audiences will love. Ed Catmull, the former president of Pixar, once said that creativity is where its specialty lies.
“People tend to think of creativity as a mysterious solo act, and they typically reduce products to a single idea: This is a movie about toys, or dinosaurs, or love, they’ll say,” he wrote in Harvard Business Review in 2008, two years after Disney’s merger with the studio. “However, in filmmaking and many other kinds of complex product development, creativity involves a large number of people from different disciplines working effectively together to solve a great many problems.”
Pixar has decided to take on more complex, diverse stories and topics, too. In many of their new films, emotions are talked through in a childlike manner as they move away from their typical scope of what a movie should look like (i.e., a male protagonist who saves the day.) The company, as it tries to tap into its new golden age, is constantly trying out new concepts. But as their latest film is their biggest box office hit yet, it’s safe to say that Pixar isn’t done with childhood favorites.
The github repository for this project can be found at: https://github.com/amethystmart/pixar_analysis