15 cool Pixar cartoons for adults and kids

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

From Toy Story, which launched computer animation, to the fresh Soul.

1. Toy story

• USA, 1995.
• Fantasy, adventure, comedy.
• Duration: 81 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 3.

Young Andy Davis loves his toys, and especially the cowboy Woody. But one day the boy is presented with a new fashionable astronaut Buzz Lightyear. Andy has no idea that all the toys come to life as soon as he leaves the room. And Woody is very worried that the owner will stop loving him.

This project began the history of Pixar as a studio that creates cartoons. Moreover, Toy Story is the first full-length work entirely created using 3D computer animation. The cartoon proved to be incredibly successful, and director John Lasseter even received a special Oscar for it.

The studio returned to the heroes of "Toy Story" three more times. Moreover, with each film, the plots became more serious and already talked about the growing up of children and the ability to let go of their loved ones.

2. The Adventures of Flick

• USA, 1998.
• Fantasy, adventure.
• Duration: 95 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 2.

The dreamy ant Flick lives in a colony that is constantly annoyed by a gang of locusts who take food from them. The hero invites his relatives to find brave warriors to protect supplies, but in the end he meets only a troupe of circus beetles. However, wit and invention can save even in such a grim situation.

Pixar executives conceived this cartoon based on Aesop's classic fable "The Ant and the Cicada" and an old Disney short with a similar storyline. Only the authors decided to turn the story into something like an epic.

The release of the cartoon was overshadowed by a scandal with the new animation studio DreamWorks Animation. Its leader Jeffrey Katzenberg was on the board of directors of Disney, but fell out with colleagues and left to found his own company. And surprisingly, the first animation project of DreamWorks was "Ant Antz" with an almost identical plot to "Flick".

3. Monsters, Inc

• USA, 2001.
• Fantasy, adventure, comedy.
• Duration: 92 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 1.

Employees of the main corporation in the city of Monstropolis scare children from the human world every night. After all, they use screams as a source of electricity. But one day the best employee of the company Sally and his friend Mike Wazowski make a fatal mistake: because of them, a little girl gets into Monstropolis. Now the whole world of monsters seems to be in danger.

In the year of its release, "Monsters, Inc." was partially overshadowed by the success of "Shrek", which also took away the "Oscar". However, this cartoon pleases not only with the cute story of the world, on the contrary, in which monsters are afraid of children. It was in "Monsters, Inc." that the creators first tried to convey the realistic hair of the characters. Which required a lot of investment.

In 2013, the prequel to the story "Monsters University" was released, in which they talked about the acquaintance of Sally and Mike.

4. Finding Nemo

• USA, Australia, 2003.
• Adventure, comedy.
• Duration: 101 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 1.

The son of the clown fish Marlin, who lives near the Great Barrier Reef, as a child, suffered from a barracuda attack. And during an excursion to the open ocean, a curious child accidentally ended up in the hands of a diver. Marlin goes in search of Nemo, taking to help the cheerful fish-surgeon Dory, suffering from memory problems.

The idea of the cartoon originated from childhood memories of director Andrew Stanton: once he saw tropical fish in an aquarium, he thought that they probably would like to escape from there back to their native waters. For maximum believability in the depiction of the underwater world, Pixar animators took courses in ichthyology and studied the physiology of fish and even weaned themselves as divers to dive near the Great Barrier Reef.

It was from the days of Finding Nemo that most of Pixar's feature films began to win Oscars. This is partly due to the dominance of Disney, which owns the company. But still, the elaboration of each cartoon plays a role.

13 years later, the film has a sequel "Finding Dory", in which the heroine goes in search of her family.

5. The Incredibles

• USA, 2004.
• Action, adventure.
• Duration: 115 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 0.

The superhero Mister Exceptional regularly saves ordinary people from the intrigues of villains and other dangers. But in response, they too often file claims for destruction. Tired of constant litigation, the hero marries, has children and retires. But 15 years later, Mister Exceptional still misses a bright past. And one day he has a chance to return to duty.

It is easy to see that in all previous cartoons, the main characters were toys or animals, but not people. It wasn't until The Incredibles that Pixar turned to human characters. And from that moment it became even more noticeable that the company is shooting stories far from only for children: this cartoon seriously examines the problems of family relationships.

Even the PG rating (recommended to watch with parents) did not prevent The Incredibles from becoming one of the highest-grossing projects of the year, losing in animation only to the sequel to Shrek, and winning the coveted Oscar. But the fans had to wait until 2018 for the continuation.

6. Cars

• USA, 2006.
• Adventure, comedy.
• Duration: 112 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 1.

Ambitious yet highly selfish race car, Lightning McQueen nearly wins the championship. But, refusing to change tires, he comes to the finish line on a par with the other two contenders, so a rematch should take place soon. However, on the way to the track, McQueen falls out of the trailer and finds himself in a forgotten town, where he meets rustic but kind locals.

The protagonist's model is fictional and is a mixture of production racing cars and more unusual cars that are made for the Le Mans competition. But most of the minor characters are copied from real-life brands.

Gradually "Cars" grew into a whole franchise. Two full-length sequels were released, as well as several spin-offs and animated series about various minor characters.

7. Ratatouille

• USA, 2007.
• Adventure, comedy.
• Duration: 111 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 0.

Unlike congeners, who do not care what they eat, the rat Remy loves to cook and is constantly looking for interesting spices. Accidentally hitting a prestigious restaurant, the hero meets the young man Linguini, who works there, but does not understand the art of cooking at all. It turns out that this strange couple can help each other.

As in previous cases, the authors tried to completely immerse the viewer in the atmosphere of the story. While working, they visited Paris and even studied its sewers. In addition, the creators of Ratatouille worked with the chef of the French Laundry restaurant, Thomas Keller, and gleaned many subtleties from real cuisine - for example, the chefs' sleeves rolled up and even cuts on the fingers. At the same time, the animators deliberately left the food to rot in order to realistically draw the trash heap.

And during the preparation, we consulted a lot with rat specialists, filmed the movements of real rodents and made their casts so that Remi looked as believable as possible.

8. WALL · I

• USA, 2008.
• Science fiction, adventure.
• Duration: 98 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 4.

Not keeping an eye on the environment, mankind by the beginning of the XXII century made the Earth uninhabitable. Then people built WALL-I cleaning robots, which had to deal with the waste, and they themselves flew into space. After 700 years, only one of the WALL-I remained operational. He became as emotional as a human and, upon meeting the research robot EVA, immediately fell in love with her.

The idea of the cartoon was discussed by the future authors back in the mid-90s. But over the years, the topic of littering the Earth with non-recyclable waste has only become more relevant. And then the Pixar animators began to study garbage dumps in order to convey the most realistic look of the post-apocalyptic planet.

WALL · E has become one of the studio's most famous cartoons. The thing is that the creators in simple language talked about one of the most serious and even frightening topics. For this, their work was even nominated for an Oscar in the Best Original Screenplay category.

9. Up

• USA, 2009.
• Adventure, comedy.
• Duration: 96 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 2.

Karl Fredriksen lived a happy life with his wife. But they dreamed of going on a trip for many years, but they never got together. And then his wife died, and Karl, who had already become a grumpy old man, tied thousands of balloons to his house and set off on a flight. But he accidentally took Russell's chatty scout with him.

Initially, screenwriter and director Pete Docter wanted to make a cartoon about a castle that flies on balloons. Two princes fall out of it and are looking for an opportunity to return home. But gradually the idea changed a lot, leading to another bold decision: the creators of "Up" made the main character of an elderly man who is so similar to the grandfathers and grandmothers of little viewers.

The risk was justified. The cartoon became a box office hit, captivating viewers of all ages. After all, it shows that older people can dream and move towards adventure. The Oscar nomination for Best Picture along with Avatar and Inglourious Basterds confirms the success.

10. Brave at heart

• USA, 2012.
• Fantasy, adventure.
• Duration: 93 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 1.

Princess Merida dreams of horseback riding and archery. However, she is forced to obey the accepted rules and wait for a worthy groom. Desperate to break out of her daily routine, Merida goes to the witch and asks to cast a spell on the queen, not knowing what it will lead to.

In Brave, the animators decided to move away from the classic principles of characters wearing the same outfit almost all the time. The main character of the cartoon has five different dresses, her father changes clothes nine times. Moreover, for different heroes and tribes, the authors tried to come up with their own types of fabrics and patterns.

Plus, Brave is the first Pixar cartoon to feature a female character, and the studio's first work in the classic fairy tale genre.

11. Puzzle

• USA, 2015.
• Comedy, drama.
• Duration: 95 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 1.

11-year-old Riley is moving with her parents to a large metropolis, which is experiencing severe stress. All the basic emotions that live in her head have to face problems: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust.

Puzzle is another bold move from Pixar. Indeed, in this cartoon, the authors decided to literally look into a person's head and tried to understand teenage depression. Visualization of emotions helps to understand that you cannot suppress some types of feelings, since even sadness is an integral part of a person.

Emotions are also added to their visual appearance. Joy, as expected, appears as an asterisk, and Sadness is like a tear. Ironically, Disgust was drawn in the likeness of broccoli, which many children do not like very much.

12. Good dinosaur

• USA, 2015.
• Animation, adventure.
• Duration: 93 minutes.
• IMDb: 6, 7.

In an alternative world, dinosaurs did not become extinct millions of years ago, but gradually evolved into intelligent beings. The main character, the timid Apatosaurus Arlo, cannot find his place in life. After falling into the river, he finds himself very far from home and can only return with the support of a caveman nicknamed Druzhok.

Every studio has setbacks. Alas, "The Good Dinosaur" is considered a failure of Pixar: its rental could not recoup the expensive production. Too many details coincided: director-debutant, too much competition on the day of release.

However, all this does not negate the quality of the cartoon itself."The Good Dinosaur" pleases with a naive but kind story and very realistic animation.

13. Coco's Secret

• USA, 2017.
• Fantasy, drama, adventure.
• Duration: 105 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 4.

Young Miguel's family considers his dream of becoming a great musician to be a shame. But one day the boy discovers a mysterious connection with the deceased famous singer and goes to the land of the dead to communicate with him. The spirits of deceased ancestors are taken to help Miguel.

The Secret of Coco combines the literal incompatible. On the one hand, it is a positive, energetic cartoon with many songs. On the other hand, it is an attempt to tell children about the inevitability of death and teach them to say goodbye to their loved ones. As a result, the picture can make young viewers laugh and at the same time bring adults to tears.

We've also done a lot of work on the animation. Wanting to show the world of the dead as vividly as possible, the animators even tried to figure out how clothes would hang and move on the skeletons.

14. Forward

• USA, 2019.
• Fantasy, adventure, drama.
• Duration: 102 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 4.

The world inhabited by all sorts of magical creatures has long forgotten about magic, plunged into everyday worries. But one day, two brothers-elves from the most ordinary suburb receive a legacy of a staff that will allow them to meet with their father for one day. But the magical process is not going according to plan, and the heroes have to go on a dangerous journey in order to still communicate with dad.

Two completely different genres are intertwined in the cartoon. On the one hand, the variety of characters is typical of fantasy. On the other hand, with a magical basis, the plot is similar to a traditional road movie about close characters, but different in character.

But more importantly, director Dan Scanlon put his own memories of his father's death into the story. And therefore, Vperyod is saturated with a touching atmosphere, reminding us to appreciate those who stayed close.

15. Soul

• USA, 2020.
• Fantasy, musical, drama.
• Duration: 100 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 4.

Music teacher Joe Gardner has long wanted to perform on the big stage. Finally, he gets a chance to realize his dream. But due to an accident, his soul is separated from the body and enters the world of others like her.

Director Peter Docter's new work Up and Puzzle has been hailed as a return to classic Pixar style. The cartoon combines a light childish presentation with very adult themes. And all this is spiced with great music.