Ranking Pixar

I’m excited to see the third installment of Toy Story for my daughter’s birthday. My expectations are high, but I imagine that is where Pixar would want them. That way they can say, “Your expectations were pretty high and we still exceeded them.” I usually try not to expect too much out of movies, but these guys haven’t let me down yet. I figured I’d take a look back at their track record and line them up from ‘not really my favorite’ (#10) to ‘my favorite’ (#1). It’s hard to rank these things. Even though the movies seem to have gotten better every step of the way since the Toy Story beginning, I’d have to say that my personal favorites and the way I’d rank these films against one another has a lot to do with the circumstance in which I saw each movie.

10 – Bug’s Life

Got this one from the Library. Watched it in segments with the kids. I can’t even say that I’ve seen the entire thing. It’s fun, I’m just not that into bugs.

9 – Toy Story

Love this original show, and I love to watch it with my kids, but the sequel was so much better this one and I don’t have specific memory of seeing this one for the first time so it tends get forgotten.

8 - Nemo

I love this one as well, but by the time I’d seen it the movie had already come out to DVD and it seemed like it was yesterday’s news.

7 – Wall-E

Unbelievable how they made the story roll in Wall-E with no dialogue. I love the first 3/4 of the show. The resolution of the plot in this one didn’t seem up to par with the brilliance of the rest of the show though. I ended up seeing this one for the first time at my in-law’s place on DVD. Despite it being not the best place to enjoy a movie I still really liked it. I probably should watch it again; maybe replace my little boy’s daily viewing of cars with it once and a while.

6 – Ratatouille

I love this one because of the human characters and the rat characters. I love it because of Paris, I love it because I love food. I saw it for the first time with my little girl in the theater on her birthday.

5 – Toy Story 2

I can’t remember seeing this one for the first time, but my kids go bananas over it. I’ve watched it with them a couple times. Better than the first, which is so refreshing since that is seldom the case in movie sequels.

4 – Monster’s Inc.

I saw this while I was a student at WSU in a special outdoor movie night. I was enamored with the characters and the rich story telling that was just as much for me as it was for small children.

3 – Cars

While I can’t remember the first time I saw this movie I believe it was one of the first shows I watched after installing some surround sound in my basement living room. I love the movie for the same reason I loved Monsters Inc and also for the soundtrack.

2 – The Incredibles

I couldn’t wait to see this one. While I didn’t see it in the movie theater I bought it on DVD prior to seeing it for the first time. I love the layers of story telling in this one. The music is great and so is the family message.

1 – UP

I saw this film with a group of friends in Oklahoma City. I was away from my family traveling for those couple of weeks and I watched this thinking only of how much I missed and loved them. Love the characters, the music, the imagination behind the story, and the ending was perfect. First one that made me cry. It makes me want to cry each time during the early musical montage in the film.

There is my list. How would you rank them?