Top 10 Times Pixar Got Serious

Pixar found a new and innovative approach to social issues like racism and xenophobia in this 2023 sleeper hit. The characters of “Elemental” are embodiments of the elements. Ember is a fire element and the daughter of a convenience store owner. She struggles against her parents’ expectations that she follow in their footsteps, instead wanting to follow her own path. This fills her with shame. It’s only after things have gone wrong and she’s lost everything that she can be honest with her father. Being open and honest allows her to let go of the expectations she’s placed on herself and reconnect with her parents.

Despite the whimsical conceit that toys have a life of their own when their owners aren’t looking, the “Toy Story” franchise has always managed to slip in some truly depressing stuff. Jessie the Cowgirl’s backstory is a perfect example. Voiced by Joan Cusack, Jessie’s story of how her former owner grew up, forgot about her, and abandoned her on the side of the road delivers a gut punch that you aren’t expecting. It’s not typical kid movie trauma. It’s profoundly sad in a way that also illustrates what the movies are about. If it weren’t sad enough, the Sarah McLachlan song that underscores it is an all-time tearjerker.

Art and fate collide in this story of Joe, a teacher who aspires to be a professional jazz pianist. However, he suffers a nasty accident, and his soul is separated from his body. It already starts from a serious place. Joe believes he is destined for fame and his purpose is tied up in the career he wants. But when he comes across another lost soul, they find out together that life isn’t always what we want it to be, but it’s worth it just to live. It’s some pretty existential stuff for the studio, but if the rest of this list tells us anything, it’s Pixar is always looking to find new ways to impart ageless wisdom.

Pixar characters have been in peril before, but not like this. In “Toy Story 3,” the toys make their big escape from a daycare and end up in a landfill. Woody, Buzz, Jessie, and the rest are caught on a conveyor belt leading right into a blazing hot incinerator. Soon, the toys realize they can’t climb out of the trash heap. How are our favorite anthropomorphic toys going to get out of this? The music swells, the toys hold hands, seemingly accepting that they’re about to die… and it actually seems like the movie is about to just let them. In hindsight, we should’ve known they’d be saved, but it was an effective fakeout.

Mei is a middle schooler who finds out the hard way that the women in her family have a curse where extreme emotions turn them into huge red pandas. The entire narrative is a thinly-veiled allegory for puberty, but like most of Pixar’s offerings, its most hard-hitting, mature stuff is more emotional than anything else. During a ritual to gain control of her panda self, Mei finds a younger version of her mother, Ming, in the spiritual world and helps her heal. The panda is a stand-in for familial trauma and it’s a curse that can be broken.

The emotions inside Riley’s head return for the sequel. This time, she’s a teenager fighting off a whole new set of uncomfortable feelings. As she grows up, Riley is confronted by anxiety, shame, depression, and jealousy. Anyone who’s ever been a teenager recognizes those emotions. A pivotal scene where Riley has a panic attack during a hockey tryout is a tough watch. As she beats herself up over her poor performance, the emotions in her head are going haywire. A lot of viewers felt particularly seen by how accurate the attack seemed despite it being an animated film.

Like some of their best movies, Pixar’s “Inside Out” finds a way to make cartoon stand-ins for abstract concepts. Making characters out of the emotions inside a little girl’s head, the movie follows Joy as she races to save young Riley from essentially falling into a pit of despair. When she’s stuck at the bottom of a pile of lost memories with Bing Bong, the girl’s nearly forgotten imaginary friend, it takes both of them to get Joy back to the surface. Bing Bong realizes he’s weighing them down, sacrificing himself to save Joy and his old pal, Riley. We’re forced to watch Bing Bong fade away, just like many of our own childhood memories do as we age.

At the start of this classic Pixar story, a clownfish named Marlin and his mate, Coral, are about to become proud parents. Everything changes when they come face to face with a barracuda. After Marlin wakes up, he discovers the barracuda has eaten his mate and all but one of their eggs. And that’s just how the movie opens. It’s heartbreaking, but it also makes a young viewer more sympathetic to Marlin and his overbearing approach to parenting. He has a reason to be nervous. The worst has already happened to him when he wasn’t able to protect his family.

Between all the madcap adventures Woody and Buzz Lightyear had over the first three movies, they always came home to their owner, Andy. That changed at the end of the third movie. Andy, now grown up and on his way to college, says goodbye to his toys as he steps into adulthood. He plays with them one last time before passing them off to Bonnie, a girl the toys encountered at a daycare. Where their other playtimes together were full of joy and whimsy, this one becomes a sad goodbye. Finally left behind, the movie finds the hope and pain of growing up.

The first ten minutes of “Up” could be a movie all its own. Carl and Ellie meet as children, bonding over their shared love of adventure. We then see how they grew old together. They enjoy themselves, despite some tragedies, including the loss of their unborn child. They love each other regardless, living a full, long, and happy life together while that big South American trip they always wanted continues to escape them. Ellie’s death ensures that they’ll never fulfill that dream together… at least not as they envisioned. This is all conveyed without an ounce of dialogue, by the way. It’s just images, music, and a deft balancing of emotions.

Did your favorite Pixar movie make the list? Tell us in the comments.