The Worst Pixar Movies

When Pixar burst onto the American movie scene in 1995 with Toy Story, audiences could hardly believe their eyes. A fully computer animated movie? That looked incredible? (It was 1995, remember.) That was filled with hilarious gags? That was shockingly smart and clever and even moving?

Toy Story was more than a hit; it was a pop culture moment, not to mention the second biggest blockbuster of the year. (Only Die Hard With a Vengeance grossed more money in theaters that year.) But it’s not enough to have one hit in Hollywood; you need to keep cranking out hits. And for a few years there, Pixar did at an unprecedented rate. These movies were not only successful, they were fully beloved by audiences. A Bug’s Life. Toy Story 2. Monsters, Inc. Finding Nemo. The Incredibles. It was a decade of uninterrupted classics with basically no precedent in the history of animation.

It had to end eventually, and it did. But now 30 years old, Pixar maintains an impressive level of consistency. I would rate two of their releases of the 2020s — Soul and Turning Red — right up there with that original run of masterpieces, and they’ve had plenty of other solidly entertaining recent movies. But it is also true that they’ve also had more flops lately, both creatively and commercially, than they did in the past.

Today we’re ranking the worst of Pixar. It’s worth noting right at the top, though, that while the bottom couple of titles are out-and-out bad (at least in this writer’s eyes), several of the movies on the list would be among the better titles released by many other, lesser animation studios. That’s just the way it works when your track record is that good.