I’ve been professionally writing about the game, film, and tech industries for seven years. With a degree in 3D graphics for game art and design, I have seen, studied, and experienced every aspect of the 2D and 3D video game industry, and am currently working on my first Droid and iPhone game, Jurojin. For this list I assembled what I feel are the twenty most memorable scenes Pixar has created in its short films and full-length feature films, with the only restriction being that a film is limited to just one spot on the list.
Keep reading to take a trip back over several decades of wonderful memories, and if there are any other scenes you think were worthy of making the list then please share your favorite Pixar memories with us and our community on our Facebook page and our ACR Twitter. If you want to read more about Pixar, or about 99 other influential animation studios, then I urge you to scroll through my Top 100 Most Influential Animation Studios of All Time list. Or, if you’d like to make animated films of your own, then you should read my previous list: Top 20 Most Essential Software for Artists and Designers! Enjoy!
20. Knick Knack (1989).
This disgruntled snowman’s quest to exit his snowglobe prison and join the other knick knacks on the shelf had fun color themes, a fun soundtrack, fun animations everywhere you looked, and a jump in physics from Pixar’s past projects. With Tin Toy (look for it later in this list!), Pixar started getting more of the staff involved with 3D modeling, and with Knick Knack more of the staff started to add animations to side characters in the background, and the visual improvement is very noticeable. At this point Pixar shorts stopped looking like experiments with technology that focused on just a specific animation or two, and instead were enjoyed as entire elaborate scenes playing out before your eyes. The Pixar documentary was unclear which early project this statistic applied to, but at one time in their early years, “each frame was computed in 8 to 10 minutes.” Wow!
19. Ratatouille (2007).
There are so many memorable scenes in this movie ranging from the definitive one where Remy learns he can control Linguini’s movements by tugging different strands of his hair, to not just one incredibly complex mouse chase scene, but several. Ratatouille truly is one of the best storyboarded films Pixar has ever assembled, and is a great testament to what Pixar is all about, but at the end of the day the trophy for the most memorable scene goes to the one that’s so vividly un-Pixar-like in nature and jarringly crazy: Shotgun Granny popping caps left and right while trying to vindictively kill the main Pixar character to no end. Just when you think the scene is over, Shotgun Granny jumps back into the frame and starts trying to kill Remy again! One of the most underrated Pixar villains ever!
18. For the Birds (2000).
How many films or cartoons have depicted a story about the life of fish under the sea? Countless. How many have done it better than Finding Nemo? Possibly none. Similarly, how many times have you seen scenes depicting the social nature of birds gathering on power lines? More than you can remember. How many have done it better than Pixar? Probably none. This short film by them perfectly expresses the golden years of Pixar where they completely explore every enjoyable aspect of a scene and nothing more, to ensure maximum quality in a minimum amount of minutes. That’s a big part of why Pixar’s work in its early years were, for the most part, hit or hit or hit or hit or hit or hit or miss. That’s really impressive, and so is this animated short film.
17. The Incredibles (2004).
Each superhero of the family got their own scene to shine, and while the most memorable one mainly goes to the superhero son, Dash, the big victor was the setting itself. Despite the previous Pixar film, Finding Nemo, traversing the entire ocean, the lengthy chase scene with Dash across an entire tropical island is easily the farthest stretching single scene Pixar has ever done. Miles of jungle floors and treetop canopies – days of CGI work to make – whip past the viewer in just seconds of screen time that makes Cars 2 look slow, but the animation scene doesn’t end there. The cameras continue across the side of a volcanic mountain, over a cliff, on an aircraft fight, through another jungle, and the scene still doesn’t end. More explosions and several more miles of jungle later and we’re taken on a water chase that circles around part of the island, into a cave, and finally ends with another explosion. A minute later and Dash catches up with his superhero sister, and, yep, another chase scene ensues. Phew, I’m tired just writing about it; imagine animating it!
16. The Adventures of André and Wally B. (1984).
Despite being mind-blowing for its time, and using stationary particle effects for the thousands of trees in the forest on a level never before seen at the time, this short film is instead memorable for a different reason: how bad it looks. Show it to anyone today and it’s laughable how primitive it is, but that’s what makes it memorable. It’s a reminder that every artist has to start somewhere, and that you have to crawl before you can run in any artistic medium. It’s also memorable for breaking the trend of using simple 3D shapes stapled together and exploring the concept of using spherical teardrop shapes that could bend to make characters come to life. It boldly showed that sometimes you shouldn’t be doing what everyone else is doing, and to not be afraid to explore other paths in your industry. Maybe someone will come along and do the same in today’s industry that Pixar still dominates?
15. Lifted (2006).
The concept of an alien abducting a human from their home with a beam of light in the middle of the night is something Americans have seen on television and in movies for decades, but never has it been turned into a comedy where an alien adolescent is being tested much like a teenager is during their driver’s license test. The student and instructor scene plays out with the Pixar prowess you’d expect of the studio, with unique comical animations that use perfect timing and spectacular alien facial animations to get more laughs per minute than any other studio while telling an entire charming story without a single spoken word.
14. One Man Band (2005).
It’s sad that some of Pixar’s earlier animated shorts were essentially precursor inspirations for entire films they made later on in their career’s timeline, and that this isn’t really true anymore. With One Man Band we were given two street musicians dueling over a tip from a little girl, and the animations, atmosphere, and emotion of them and the surrounding town made a world that’s so memorable it’d be worth exploring as an entire Pixar film. One Man Band is not only memorable but also deserves several rewatches to discover what you never even noticed, let alone remembered. Given its inclusion of unique musical instruments it’s filled with smaller animation details all over the screen that you won’t even notice until your third or fourth viewing. I’d love to see a sequel to these three characters and the mystery tipper, even if it’s just another short film.
13. Monsters, Inc. (2001).
Any pet owner knows the feeling of a baby animal running around the room with glee, contrasted with the image of stressful owners trying to clean up after the pet’s mess, or endlessly protecting it from unknowingly harming itself. The scene in Monsters, Inc where Mike and Sulley bring home Boo and franticly follow her around the apartment room perfectly encapsulates that feeling, and in a nutshell also defines the entire movie in just a single scene. Add to this the misguided myth that a kid is toxic to monsters and should never be touched, and watching the scene change as the monsters get chased around by one of Pixar’s most adorable children ever is the perfect recipe for laughs. Too cute and too funny!
12. Geri’s Game (1997).
This elderly man’s chess game helped place Pixar in our minds as the late 1990s movie powerhouse that it was. Not only did a film ticket get you one of the most enjoyable experiences you would ever have in theaters, but Pixar also had enough spare time on their hands to – seemingly effortlessly – make a delightful animation appetizer in the form of a short film that aired before the main course. Back in the day this short film was talked about in classrooms and offices more than most top titles in the movie industry of its era, and all these years later this chess cinematic certainly stands the test of time. Bonus: rewatch Toy Story 2 and you’ll see him make a cameo as the methodical toy repairman who fixes Woody!
11. A Bug’s Life (1998).
Toy Story won over our hearts, but did Pixar just get lucky? Could it deliver another major success that was not only fun and memorable, but was able to once again make us forget that imaginative 3D scenes weren’t actually real because we were too busy enjoying them so much that we were entirely immersed in their reality? And could it also overshadow its heavy competition from DreamWorks Animation’s Antz that debuted in theaters one month before Pixar’s similar movie? (Sidenote: more information on the gruesome backstory to that feud here)With Pixar’s follow up full-length film, A Bug’s Life, those questions were all convincingly answered with a resounding “Yes!” It solidified Pixar as the trustworthy studio name that we’d blindly flock to see every few years because we knew Pixar’s next project was complete, and it demanded our time and attention without any further questions being asked. The scene in A Bug’s Life that fully clinched Pixar as a top tier studio was the impressive “flea” circus show a third of the way into the film. Even after all of these years there might not have been a better introduction scene to SO MANY Pixar characters at once. A minute before this scene, not a single one of these side characters existed in the film, and as soon as the scene ends they feel like main characters that are longtime friends.
10. La Luna (2011).
Nearly every frame of this short film could be printed out, framed, and marveled at, which makes picking a single scene difficult. However, the moment they raise the ladder and you realize they’re about to truly “reach for the sky” and anchor the entire moon makes your eyes widen with wonder. Moments like that are so thrilling; when you slowly realize what’s about to happen in a scene and the anticipation grows rapidly and everything else in life fades away as you eagerly wait to see what happens next. Years later, La Luna still remains more memorable than most entire animated films that have come and gone since then.
9. Finding Nemo (2003).
Mine? Mine? Miiiine? Mine mine mine? Mine?! Mineminemine?! MIIIIINE?! With Nemo’s story spanning the full spectrum of emotions, there are plenty of scenes from this massive movie that deserve spots on this list. Its beginning was the definitive depressing Pixar opening until Up came along and blew it out of the water, and its Dory solo scene added plenty of salty tears to the ocean. From hippie turtles to eccentric aquarium fish – “Shark bait hoo ha ha!” – to an aquatic intervention for a shark with an addiction for blood, Finding Nemo definitely filled its waters with plenty of memorable scenes, but none quite like the annoying seagulls whose scene was so dang memorable that it created an audible monopoly on the word “mine”. Many of us can’t even hear the word “mine” in our lives without instantly thinking of this scene and mentally or even verbally partaking in a few kneejerk recitals of “Mine? Mine? Mine?!”
8. Brave (2012).
In the middle of this movie, just when most people made up their minds if the controversial Pixar film, Brave, exceeded their low expectations, or if it was just as abysmal as was feared of Pixar’s brave decision to do something different and unexpected, Brave did something even more different and more unexpected than most viewers ever anticipated or predicted based on earlier scenes in the film. It, with almost no warning or foreshadowing, changed the mother of the main character princess into a bear. Unless you heard of the movie’s original working title, The Bear and a Bow, it was certainly one of the most surprising moments in Pixar film history, and completely wiped your preconceived judgments of the film off the table and reset everything while you watched how it would all play out.
7. Tin Toy (1988).
John Lasseter got the idea for this animated short film by watching his nephew, where in the eyes of a toy, a baby is a monster that slobbers on everything in sight. It features their first CGI human character along with early “soft shadow” technology and facial animations that were groundbreaking for its day. In the words of John Lasseter in The Pixar Shorts: A Short History: “It was the first 3D computer animation ever to win an Academy Award, but the most important thing that Tin Toy did was plant in our heads the idea of toys being alive, and out of that grew Toy Story.” Given how many people have seen the Toy Story trilogy, and how much record breaking money and praise it’s earned, you could even argue this is the most influential short film of all time, though I’m personally reserving that trophy spot for another Pixar film that you’ll see later in this list.
6. Toy Story 2 (1999).
So many scenes in the sequel made it worth exploring beyond the reach of the first Toy Story film, with awesome inclusions of Emperor Zurg from the Buzz Lightyear storyline and the maniacal Seinfeld (Newman!) and Jurassic Park (Nedry!) villain, Wayne Knight, playing the voice of an evil toy collector from Al’s Toy Barn, who steals Woody from Andy. Out of the many to choose from, the most memorable scene would have to be the flashback that made many fans terrified of how a third film with an older Andy might end. Watching Jessie’s owner, Emily, grow up and take her toy out to their favorite childhood pasture play spot where they shared their warmest memories together, and then brutally ignore their entire history together and abandon Jessie to a donation truck and drive away into the sunset without even saying goodbye. Truly one of the most poignant Pixar moments of all time, and all of these years later it still makes me cry.
5. WALL-E (2008).
Some of the most memorable animations are the ones with the least amount of animation. Wall-E is a testament to this, with so much detail and emotion put into all the animations over the course of the entire film, using far more 3D models and movement than we’re accustomed to seeing in a Pixar film, yet at the end all that’s needed to bring the most emotional experience is simply Eve finally holding Wall-E’s hand. His hard drive is wiped, all of his memories from the movie are gone, and she despairingly leans in to rest heads against one another. If you’re not crying out of sadness yet during your first or fifteenth viewing, then when the robotic kiss results in a spark that brings back all of his memories, and awakens him to the sight of his true love finally holding his hand, then you’re less of a human than these robotic characters are if you don’t stream tears of relief and joy, making this one of the most memorable moments of any film, animated or not, that I’ve ever seen. Barely any animation at all is involved, and yet it’s one of the most emotional and memorable moments Pixar has ever created over its decades of advanced animations and powerful storyline scenes.
4. Luxo Jr. (1986).
In 1986, nine long years before Pixar’s first full-length feature film, everything changed. John Lasseter and the rest of Pixar showed this short film about two desk lamps at SIGGRAPH and received a standing ovation that was so loud the Pixar staff felt bad for the sound guy on their crew, whose hard work was mostly unheard. Shortly after, it became the first CGI film to ever be nominated for an Academy Award . . . and then it lost. Nine years later, Pixar would release Toy Story and change the movie industry forever. So that’s why when you see Pixar films begin with the hopping desk lamp logo screen, you should always remember that sometimes you have to endure a decade of hard work and rejection and relentless dedication in the dark before your efforts finally pay off. Never ever quit!
3. Up (2009).
I’m one of maybe five people in existence that thinks Up is one of Pixar’s worst films overall, but even I have to admit that Up’s opening is probably the best opening montage of any 3D animated film we’ll ever see. The relationship between Carl and his childhood sweetheart, Ellie, as they fall in love and grow old together perfectly encapsulates true love and true pain as the two of them experience happiness and heartbreak alike, but endure. Then, as the montage continues past the points we wished it ended at, Carl devastatingly must endure alone. Experiencing an entire lifetime’s bundle of emotions in just a few short minutes is enough to bring anyone to tears, but thankfully the rest of the movie helps him, and us, learn there’s always more of life worth living if you’re willing to move on.
2. Toy Story 3 (2010).
Everyone talks about the scene where the toys are about to die in the incinerator, but the most memorable one – and truly the single scene that made the entire third movie worth making – was when Andy gave his old toys away to a young kid to enjoy for a new generation of childhood happiness. The kid-at-heart sadness of Andy’s last time playing with his toys was overshadowed by his vicarious happiness from watching another kid make new memories with his old toys, and that’s the final step that Toy Story fans needed for closure. The list of 3D animations that make us cry will surely expand as the decades pass, but very few are likely to ever be more emotional than this one. For the young viewers watching, it’s a movie that will continue to evolve over decades of rewatching. But for many of us watching it in theaters when it released, it wasn’t just the end of a movie, or of a trilogy, or even of an era of animation. It paired perfectly with the ending of our childhood, and Pixar gave us the best gift we could ever ask for as a parting gift. It helped us realize that the happiness will go on in the smaller hands of friends or family of a new generation that’s not far from home.
1. Toy Story (1995).
Peter Schneider tried three times, unsuccessfully, to get John Lasseter to leave Pixar to come work for Disney. The third rejection started the discussion of creating a partnership, which Pixar used to discuss the idea of doing a 30 minute TV special that expanded on the characters in Tin Toy. Schneider then famously told them that if they could do 30 minutes, they could do a 90 minute full length feature film, and Pixar’s timeline was forever altered down the path that ultimately gave the world Toy Story in 1995.
As for the most memorable scene, there are plenty of groundbreaking ones to choose from, but none deserved to be on this list more than the opening of Andy’s birthday gifts. Woody uses the full arsenal of a child’s toy box to spy on the event like a covert army operation that ultimately ends in Buzz’s entrance, which sets up the rest of the film, and with it the success that would solidify Pixar’s entire career. The spy sequences were so exciting and immersive that audiences stopped physically looking around the screen and thinking about every new 3D object they were witnessing, and judging every frame of this new art form while trying to form an opinion on the emerging art industry. Instead, during this scene viewers finally sat back in their theater chairs and let themselves actually experience these 3D shapes moving around in front of them as if they were actually real.
Your age and thoughts melt away and it’s not a child’s movie, or a family film, or an animated film, it was real. It was so exciting and enjoyable that you forgot it wasn’t. It’s this scene that broke through the audience’s suspension of disbelief for the first time in 3D animated movie history, and every animated film since then has Toy Story to thank for letting them stand on its 3D toy shoulders. It certainly made the industry’s foundation and paved the way for countless polygon projects to follow in its film footsteps. Many amazing and memorable moments have happened since then, but every year I go back and watch just one Pixar film, because I know I can always get immersed and lost in this scene no matter how many times I rewatch it, and in doing so, I get the most valuable gift in the world: I feel like a kid again.
Thank you, Pixar.