Pixar Animation Studios is an American CGI film production company based in Emeryville, California, United States. Pixar has released 23 feature films, which were all released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures through the Walt Disney Pictures banner, with their first being Toy Story (which was also the first feature-length CGI film ever released) in 1995, and their latest being Soul in 2020. Their upcoming slate of films includes Luca (2021), Turning Red (2022), Lightyear (2022), and an untitled film in 2023.
Films
| # | Film | Release date | Directed by | Screenplay by | Story by | Produced by | Music by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Released films | |||||||
| 1 | Toy Story | November 22, 1995 | John Lasseter | Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow, Andrew Stanton & Joss Whedon | Pete Docter, Lasseter, Joe Ranft & Stanton | Bonnie Arnold & Ralph Guggenheim | Randy Newman |
| 2 | A Bug’s Life | November 25, 1998 | John Lasseter | Donald McEnery, Bob Shaw & Andrew Stanton | Lasseter, Joe Ranft & Stanton | Darla K. Anderson & Kevin Reher | |
| 3 | Toy Story 2 | November 24, 1999 | John Lasseter | Doug Chamberlin, Rita Hsiao, Andrew Stanton & Chris Webb | Ash Brannon, Pete Docter, Lasseter & Stanton | Karen Robert Jackson & Helene Plotkin | |
| 4 | Monsters, Inc. | November 2, 2001 | Pete Docter | Dan Gerson & Andrew Stanton | Jill Culton, Docter, Ralph Eggleston & Jeff Pidgeon | Darla K. Anderson | |
| 5 | Finding Nemo | May 30, 2003 | Andrew Stanton | Bob Peterson, David Reynolds & Stanton | Stanton | Graham Walters | Thomas Newman |
| 6 | The Incredibles | November 5, 2004 | Brad Bird | John Walker | Michael Giacchino | ||
| 7 | Cars | June 9, 2006 | John Lasseter | Dan Fogelman, Jorgen Klubien, Lasseter, Phil Lorin, Kiel Murray & Joe Ranft | Lasseter, Klubien & Ranft | Darla K. Anderson | Randy Newman |
| 8 | Ratatouille | June 29, 2007 | Brad Bird | Bird, Jim Capobianco & Jan Pinkava | Brad Lewis | Michael Giacchino | |
| 9 | WALL-E | June 27, 2008 | Andrew Stanton | Jim Reardon & Stanton | Pete Docter & Stanton | Jim Morris | Thomas Newman |
| 10 | Up | May 29, 2009 | Pete Docter | Docter & Bob Peterson | Docter, Tom McCarthy & Peterson | Jonas Rivera | Michael Giacchino |
| 11 | Toy Story 3 | June 18, 2010 | Lee Unkrich | Michael Arndt | John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton & Unkrich | Darla K. Anderson | Randy Newman |
| 12 | Cars 2 | June 24, 2011 | John Lasseter | Ben Queen | Dan Fogelman, Lasseter & Brad Lewis | Denise Ream | Michael Giacchino |
| 13 | Brave | June 22, 2012 | Mark Andrews & Brenda Chapman | Andrews, Chapman, Irene Mecchi & Steve Purcell | Chapman | Katherine Sarafian | Patrick Doyle |
| 14 | Monsters University | June 21, 2013 | Dan Scanlon | Robert L. Baird, Dan Gerson & Scanlon | Kori Rae | Randy Newman | |
| 15 | Inside Out | June 19, 2015 | Pete Docter | Josh Cooley, Docter & Meg LeFauve | Docter & Ronnie del Carmen | Jonas Rivera | Michael Giacchino |
| 16 | The Good Dinosaur | November 25, 2015 | Peter Sohn | Meg LeFauve | Sohn, Erik Benson, LeFauve, Kelsey Mann & Bob Peterson | Denise Ream | Jeff & Mychael Danna |
| 17 | Finding Dory | June 17, 2016 | Andrew Stanton | Stanton & Victoria Strouse | Stanton | Lindsey Collins | Thomas Newman |
| 18 | Cars 3 | June 16, 2017 | Brian Fee | Kiel Murray, Bob Peterson & Mike Rich | Fee, Eyal Podell, Ben Queen & Jonathon E. Stewart | Kevin Reher | Randy Newman |
| 19 | Coco | November 22, 2017 | Lee Unkrich | Matthew Aldrich & Adrian Molina | Aldrich, Jason Katz, Molina & Unkrich | Darla K. Anderson | Michael Giacchino |
| 20 | Incredibles 2 | June 15, 2018 | Brad Bird | Nicole Paradis Grindle & John Walker | |||
| 21 | Toy Story 4 | June 21, 2019 | Josh Cooley | Stephany Folsom & Andrew Stanton | Cooley, Folsom, Martin Hynes, Rashida Jones, Valerie LaPointe, John Lasseter, Will McCormack & Stanton | Mark Nielsen & Jonas Rivera | Randy Newman |
| 22 | Onward | March 6, 2020 | Dan Scanlon | Keith Bunin, Jason Headley & Scanlon | Kori Rae | Jeff & Mychael Danna | |
| 23 | Soul | December 25, 2020 | Pete Docter | Docter, Mike Jones & Kemp Powers | Dana Murray | Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross | |
| Upcoming films | |||||||
| 24 | Luca | June 18, 2021 | Enrico Casarosa | Jesse Andrews & Mike Jones | TBA | Andrea Warren | Dan Romer |
| 25 | Turning Red | March 11, 2022 | Domee Shi | TBA | TBA | Lindsey Collins | TBA |
| 26 | Lightyear | June 17, 2022 | Angus MacLane | TBA | TBA | Galyn Susman | TBA |
| 27 | TBA | June 16, 2023 | TBA | TBA | TBA | TBA | TBA |
- ^ Co-directed by Andrew Stanton.
- ^ Co-directed by Lee Unkrich & Ash Brannon.
- ^ Co-directed by Lee Unkrich & David Silverman.
- ^ Co-directed by Lee Unkrich.
- ^ Co-directed by Joe Ranft.
- ^ Co-directed by Jan Pinkava.
- ^ Co-directed by Bob Peterson.
- ^ Co-directed by Brad Lewis.
- ^ Co-directed by Steve Purcell.
- ^ Co-directed by Ronnie del Carmen.
- ^ Co-directed by Angus MacLane.
- ^ Co-directed by Adrian Molina.
- ^ Co-directed by Kemp Powers.
- ^ Jazz compositions and arrangements by Jon Batiste.
In-development projects
Brian Fee, Kristen Lester, Aphton Corbin and Rosana Sullivan have been working on their untitled feature films. In 2018, FC Barcelona entered talks with Pixar to create a film.
Production cycle
In July 2013, Pixar Studios President Edwin Catmull said that the studio planned to release one original film each year, and a sequel every other year, as part of a strategy to release “one and a half movies a year.” On July 3, 2016, Pixar president Jim Morris announced that the studio would be moving away from sequels after Toy Story 4 and Pixar was only developing original ideas with five films in development at the time of the announcement.
Cancelled projects
Back when they were still a part of Lucasfilm in 1985, they started pre-production of a movie called Monkey. After they spun off as a new company in 1986, they were still working on it. In the end they realized they had to abandon it because of technical limitations.
In 2005, Pixar began collaborating with Disney and Warner Bros. on a live-action film adaptation of James Dalessandro’s novel 1906, with Brad Bird announced as the director. It would have marked Pixar’s first involvement in a live-action production and their first collaboration with a major production company other than Disney. Disney and Pixar left the project due to script problems and an estimated budget of $200 million, and it is in limbo at Warner Bros., However in June 2018, Bird mentioned the possibility of adapting the novel as a TV series, and the earthquake sequence as a live-action feature film.
A Pixar film titled Newt (which was set to be directed by Gary Rydstrom) was announced in April 2008, with Pixar planning to release it in 2011, which was later delayed to 2012, but it had finally been canceled by early 2010. John Lasseter noted that the film’s proposed plot line was similar to another film, Blue Sky Studios’ Rio, which was released in 2011. In a March 2014 interview, Pixar president Edwin Catmull stated that Newt was an idea that was not working in pre-production. When the project was passed to Pete Docter, the director of Monsters, Inc. and Up, he pitched an idea that Pixar thought was better, and that concept became Inside Out.
In 2010, Henry Selick formed a joint venture with Pixar called Cinderbiter Productions, which was to exclusively produce stop-motion films. Its first project under the deal, a film titled ShadeMaker was set to be released on October 4, 2013, but was canceled in August 2012 due to creative differences. An adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel The Graveyard Book was also planned. Selick was given the option to shop ShadeMaker (now titled The Shadow King) to other studios. In January 2013, Ron Howard was hired to direct The Graveyard Book.
In addition, when the now-defunct Circle 7 Animation was open, there were plans for sequels to Finding Nemo (for which Pixar made their own sequel, Finding Dory) and Monsters, Inc. (for which Pixar made a prequel, Monsters University), as well as a different version of Toy Story 3. Pixar’s later sequels had no basis in Circle 7’s projects, and were created completely separately.
Co-production
Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins is a traditionally animated direct-to-video film produced by Walt Disney Television Animation with an opening sequence created by Pixar. The film was released on August 8, 2000, and led to a television series, with Pixar creating the CGI portion of the opening theme.
Collaboration
Pixar assisted in the English localization of several Studio Ghibli films, mainly those from Hayao Miyazaki.
Pixar was brought on board to fine tune the script of The Muppets. The film was released on November 23, 2011.
Pixar assisted with the story development for The Jungle Book, as well as providing suggestions for the film’s end credits sequence. The film was released on April 15, 2016. Additional special thanks credit was given to Mark Andrews.
Mary Poppins Returns includes a sequence combining live-action and traditional hand-drawn animation. The animation was supervised by Ken Duncan and James Baxter. Over 70 animators specializing in hand-drawn 2D animation from Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios were recruited for the sequence. The film was released on December 19, 2018.
Related productions
Planes is a spin-off of the Cars franchise, produced by the now-defunct DisneyToon Studios and co-written and executive produced by John Lasseter. The film was conceived from the short film Air Mater, which introduces aspects of Planes and ends with a hint of the film. It was released on August 9, 2013. A sequel, Planes: Fire & Rescue, was released on July 18, 2014. A Planes spin-off film was announced in July 2017, with a release date of April 12, 2019, but was removed from the release schedule on March 1, 2018. The film was eventually canceled when DisneyToon Studios was shut down on June 28, 2018.
Ralph Breaks the Internet, produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and co-executive produced by Lasseter, features Kelly Macdonald reprising her role as Merida from Brave, as well as a cameo from Tim Allen reprising his role as Buzz Lightyear from the Toy Story franchise, and a sample of Patrick Doyle’s score from Brave. The film, released on November 21, 2018, also features many visual references to Pixar and its films. Additionally, Andrew Stanton received a “Narrative Guru” credit.
Reception
Box office
| Film | Budget | Box office gross | Ref(s) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. and Canada | Other territories | Worldwide | |||
| Toy Story | $30 million | $191,796,233 | $181,757,800 | $373,554,033 | |
| A Bug’s Life | $120 million | $162,798,565 | $200,460,294 | $363,258,859 | |
| Toy Story 2 | $90 million | $245,852,179 | $251,522,597 | $497,374,776 | |
| Monsters, Inc. | $115 million | $289,916,256 | $342,400,393 | $632,316,649 | |
| Finding Nemo | $94 million | $339,714,978 | $531,300,000 | $871,014,978 | |
| The Incredibles | $92 million | $261,441,092 | $370,165,621 | $631,606,713 | |
| Cars | $120 million | $244,082,982 | $217,900,167 | $461,983,149 | |
| Ratatouille | $150 million | $206,445,654 | $417,280,431 | $623,726,085 | |
| WALL-E | $180 million | $223,808,164 | $297,503,696 | $521,311,860 | |
| Up | $175 million | $293,004,164 | $442,094,918 | $735,099,082 | |
| Toy Story 3 | $200 million | $415,004,880 | $651,964,823 | $1,066,969,703 | |
| Cars 2 | $200 million | $191,452,396 | $368,400,000 | $559,852,396 | |
| Brave | $185 million | $237,283,207 | $301,700,000 | $538,983,207 | |
| Monsters University | $200 million | $268,492,764 | $475,066,843 | $743,559,607 | |
| Inside Out | $175 million | $356,461,711 | $501,149,463 | $857,611,174 | |
| The Good Dinosaur | $175 million | $123,087,120 | $209,120,551 | $332,207,671 | |
| Finding Dory | $200 million | $486,295,561 | $542,275,328 | $1,028,570,889 | |
| Cars 3 | $175 million | $152,901,115 | $231,029,541 | $383,930,656 | |
| Coco | $175 million | $209,726,015 | $597,356,181 | $807,082,196 | |
| Incredibles 2 | $200 million | $608,581,744 | $634,223,615 | $1,242,805,359 | |
| Toy Story 4 | $200 million | $434,038,008 | $639,356,585 | $1,073,394,593 | |
| Onward | $200 million | $61,555,145 | $80,394,976 | $141,950,121 | |
| Soul | $150 million | N/A | $117,325,753 | $117,325,753 | |
Critical and public response
| Film | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic | CinemaScore | Critics’ Choice |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toy Story | 100% | 95/100 | A | N/A |
| A Bug’s Life | 92% | 77/100 | ||
| Toy Story 2 | 100% | 88/100 | A+ | 100/100 |
| Monsters, Inc. | 96% | 79/100 | 92/100 | |
| Finding Nemo | 99% | 90/100 | 97/100 | |
| The Incredibles | 97% | 88/100 | ||
| Cars | 74% | 73/100 | A | 89/100 |
| Ratatouille | 96% | 96/100 | 91/100 | |
| WALL-E | 95% | 95/100 | 90/100 | |
| Up | 98% | 88/100 | A+ | 95/100 |
| Toy Story 3 | 92/100 | A | 97/100 | |
| Cars 2 | 40% | 57/100 | A− | 67/100 |
| Brave | 78% | 69/100 | A | 81/100 |
| Monsters University | 80% | 65/100 | 79/100 | |
| Inside Out | 98% | 94/100 | 93/100 | |
| The Good Dinosaur | 76% | 66/100 | 75/100 | |
| Finding Dory | 94% | 77/100 | 89/100 | |
| Cars 3 | 69% | 59/100 | 66/100 | |
| Coco | 97% | 81/100 | A+ | 89/100 |
| Incredibles 2 | 93% | 80/100 | 86/100 | |
| Toy Story 4 | 97% | 84/100 | A | 94/100 |
| Onward | 88% | 61/100 | A− | 79/100 |
| Soul | 95% | 83/100 | N/A | 93/100 |
Academy Awards
| Film | Best Picture | Animated Feature | Original Screenplay | Adapted Screenplay | Original Score | Original Song | Sound | Other | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sound Editing | Sound Mixing | ||||||||
| Toy Story | Award not yet introduced | Nominated | Ineligible | Nominated | Nominated | Won Special Achievement | |||
| A Bug’s Life | |||||||||
| Toy Story 2 | Ineligible | Nominated | |||||||
| Monsters, Inc. | Nominated | Ineligible | Nominated | Won | Nominated | ||||
| Finding Nemo | Won | Nominated | |||||||
| The Incredibles | Won | Nominated | |||||||
| Cars | Nominated | Nominated | |||||||
| Ratatouille | Won | Nominated | Nominated | Nominated | Nominated | ||||
| WALL-E | Nominated | ||||||||
| Up | Nominated | Won | |||||||
| Toy Story 3 | Ineligible | Nominated | Won | ||||||
| Cars 2 | |||||||||
| Brave | Won | Ineligible | |||||||
| Monsters University | Ineligible | ||||||||
| Inside Out | Won | Nominated | Ineligible | ||||||
| The Good Dinosaur | |||||||||
| Finding Dory | Ineligible | ||||||||
| Cars 3 | |||||||||
| Coco | Won | Ineligible | Won | ||||||
| Incredibles 2 | Nominated | Ineligible | |||||||
| Toy Story 4 | Won | Nominated | |||||||
| Onward | Pending | Ineligible | |||||||
| Soul | Pending | Pending | Pending | ||||||
- ^ Starting with the 93rd Academy Awards, Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing categories were consolidated into a single Best Sound category.