You can’t argue with a billion dollars.
asserted
You → argue → dollars
Such is the likely reasoning behind Pixar’s decision to balance its fresh-idea features with sequels that keep the lights on (and Disney shareholders happy).
asserted
shareholders → balance → lights
Charting the trajectory of the movie biz’s most innovative animation studio in recent years is simple.
asserted
Charting → chart → years
2018’s Incredibles 2 and 2019’s Toy Story 4 each crossed the b-word box office threshold.
asserted
Incredibles → cross → threshold
Then the pandemic and a run of hit (Turning Red, Soul) and miss (Elemental, Elio) features signaled the conclusion of Pixar’s creative peak.
asserted
pandemic → turn → peak
So righting the ship means the studio went with what got them there.
asserted
what → right → them
Inside Out 2 hoovered up $1.7 billion at the box office in 2024, and 2026’s Toy Story 5 — now streaming hot and fresh on Disney+ — proved to be a $1.1 billion slam dunk.
asserted
Story → hoover → Disney+
And the future strategy seems to be carefully balancing sequels like Incredibles 3 and Coco 2 with new stories Gatto and Ghost Market, the former movies keeping the company in the black and the latter maintaining its integrity as artists that aren’t afraid to try new things (and potentially launch a new franchise worthy of its own sequels).
asserted
that → seem → sequels
But here’s where the rubber meets the road: Do the sequels always maintain Pixar’s reputation as quality storytellers?
asserted
sequels → ’ → storytellers
And that’s why we’ve decided to rank those sequels from worst to best.
asserted
we → ’ → best
So where does Toy Story 5, now on Disney+, rank amongst its Pixar sequel siblings?
asserted
Story → rank → siblings
-
The Cars franchise is indefatigable proof that Pixar isn’t above making decisions with its pocketbook — or that it’s always conceptually on-point, since the anthropomorphization of vehicles brings up any number of troubling questions (e.g., why do school buses exist if there are no people to ride in them, and does that mean the cars gained sentience and committed genocide against humans?
asserted
cars → make → humans
THE MIND BOGGLES).
asserted
MIND → boggle → ?
Anyway, Cars 2 proved to be a series of bad decisions ranging from hey let’s spoof spy movies like a zillion other movies have already done to let’s lean REALLY HARD into the Larry the Cable Guy-ness of it all!
asserted
’s → prove → it
and because parents want their kids to shut up and sit still for 102 minutes even if it costs them $47 for 47 cents worth of popcorn, the movie earned a very-impressive-for-2011 $560 million.
asserted
movie → want → million
Do not watch this deeply annoying film if you are older than nine.
asserted
you → watch → nine
Or, preferably, if you’re breathing.
asserted
you → breathe → ?
Watch Cars 2 on Disney+ -
And YOU thought this spot was reserved for Cars 3.
asserted
spot → watch → Cars
Truth is, Cars 2 is the only objectively bad movie on this list, which means Monsters U — technically a prequel that could be titled When Sully Met Mike — dwells in the mediocrity realm, where unmemorable Pixar features roam around, helping us better appreciate the narrative depth and dexterity of the more memorable ones.
uncertain
us → mean → ones
Well, this movie doesn’t have anything remotely comparable.
asserted
movie → have → anything
-
Turns out that Lightning McQueen’s struggle with pending obsolescence is more compelling than we thought.
asserted
we → turn → obsolescence
Which means Cars 3 is the only movie in the franchise with the existential subtext that characterizes the best Pixar flicks.
asserted
that → mean → flicks
At least we temporarily set aside the sad truth that the sentient cars in Cars exist wholly to sell toys, happy meals, and NASCAR loyalty to children.
asserted
cars → set → children
Read more about Cars 3 Stream Cars 3 -
Rendering this one essentially Jessie’s Story was a welcome shift away from the at-risk-of-going-stale Buzz-’n’-Woody dynamic.
asserted
Story → read → dynamic
Endearing as that can be, it also invokes the most gut-wrenchingly sad abandoned-toy character arc in the series, which claws at the scars of our healing hearts.
asserted
which → invoke → hearts
It’s also the most rickety screenplay of all the Toy Stories despite the modern-relevancy factor of a narrative that addresses the zombiefication of human youth via the dreaded Screen Time.
asserted
that → ’ → Time
A few big, hearty laughs keep us afloat here.
asserted
laughs → keep → us
Now it’s her turn to get lost!
asserted
it → ’ → ?
Pixar decided to test the tensile strength of a wildly popular supporting character — the endearingly absentminded blue tang Dory, voiced by Ellen DeGeneres — by making her the focus of her own adventure.
asserted
her → decide → adventure
Dory’s quest to find her parents is touching, and the movie’s final shot — Dory contemplating the possibilities of her life in a big, vast, scary, inspiring, beautiful world — is movingly poetic.
asserted
Dory → find → world
But the movie doesn’t quite tap into the same magic that makes Finding Nemo a beloved classic.
asserted
Nemo → tap → magic
Some of you heathens out there don’t like Forky, and I’ll have none of your blithering nonsense.
asserted
I → like → nonsense
No other character in the Toy Story universe more accurately symbolizes the profound strangeness of the plaything beings in this world than an anthropomorphic spork crudely rendered out of wastebin fodder and brought to self-aware existence via the magic of a child playing with it.
asserted
character → symbolize → it
When Forky awakes, he believes he’s garbage, but eventually learns the value of self-worth from the ever-wise Woody.
asserted
he → awake → Woody
That and the heartbreaking arc of complex villain character Gabby Gabby reflect Toy Story 4’s robust thematic ambition.
asserted
That → reflect → ambition
Read more about Toy Story 4 Stream Toy Story 4 -
Contrasting the eternal optimism of Joy with frazzle-haired would-be antagonist Anxiety is the type of thing that inspires one to refer to Pixar creatives as Those Geniuses.
asserted
one → read → Geniuses
It’s a step beyond the struggle she had with Sadness in the first film, marking the puberty-driven development of Riley, the young character in whose head these manifestations of emotions dwell.
asserted
manifestations → ’ → emotions
Significant portions of this sequel mirror the first Inside Out a little too closely, but consider it a variation on a theme that nevertheless delivers vigorous comedy layered with profound observations about adolescent development.
asserted
that → mirror → development
But we cried anyway, didn’t we, goddammit.
asserted
we → cry → ?
Toy Story 3 may be Pixar’s most emotionally manipulative film, the studio reaching the Summit of Conflicted Feelings by making us feel bad for submitting to the unrelenting processes of age and time.
uncertain
us → reach → age
…and 10 more, not listed.
The Aporia
