Ranking Pixar

With Toy Story 3 now out, I figured I'd rank all 11 pixar films. To me, this list represents the best of pixar down to the worst. And by worst, I mean simply not the best, because so far, all of pixar's films have been of a quality that puts many other movies to shame.

1.) WALL-E

I feel WALL-E ranks first because of the amount of emotion and character conveyed through simple body language. It's place as number one is arguably based on personal preference, but it should at least crack the top 3 on most people's lists, I'd think.

2.) Toy Story 3

The one film by pixar that made me truly want to be a child again. It took characters we knew as kids, and put them in situations we can understand better as adults. Part adventure, part drama, it was a rather emotional ride that I'd love to take again for the first time.

3.) Monsters, Inc.

While I'm partial to superheroes, this movie has to rank higher based on sheer creativity. A world where monsters make a living out of scaring people? Fascinating. Billy Crystal as Mike? Fantastic! A sequel scheduled for 2012? Can't wait!

4.) Toy Story

Once again, I enjoyed The Incredibles a whole lot, but Toy Story was the classic that started it all. It remains just as fun to watch today as it did fifteen years ago, and introduced us to a crew of toys I now wish I had when I was growing up. Fifteen years later, and I still remember seeing this movie in theaters. Considering my bad memory, that's saying something.

5.) The Incredibles

I love superheroes, and pixar's take on them did not disappoint. I felt the only weak point here, when compared to pixar's other works, is that the creativity wasn't as prevalent. Which, of course, is expected in a movie dealing completely with humans, albeit ones with special talents. Still, a very enjoyable movie, and if I ever don a costume, I'll have to keep Edna's warning on capes in mind.

6.) Up

This is where the ranking gets hard for me. The rest of these films are all so good, that ranking them seems wrong. Up takes its spot here for me because of its very, very sad opening. I don't think any pixar movie has captured that much sadness in that short amount of time. The rest of the movie was fine, but it's the beginning that really makes it stand out.

7.) Finding Nemo

While not my favorite pixar by any means, I felt like this movie was very creative, and really told a good tale of how life would work under the sea. The story itself was decent, but it's really the creativity that helped it land at number seven.

8.) Toy Story 2

This movie is lower on the list mostly because the other two in the series are a bit more memorable, in my opinion. Perhaps it's because I don't care much for cowboys, or because certain parts of the movie felt similar to the first. However, I enjoyed this movie just as much as the other two, and I hope it holds its classic spot in cinema history for years to come.

9.) A Bug's Life

Another movie that I'd rank lower on my favorites list, but is ranked a bit higher because of the creative perspective pixar took at the life of bugs. I love how pixar takes a world that exists in our everyday lives, and completely organizes the life and times of that world around that. It did that with Finding Nemo, with toys, and again here.

10.) Ratatouille

Who knew rats can cook? This was a wonderfully entertaining movie. So well done, and so hard for me to rank as ten. My favorite scene is at the end, when the strict critic finally tastes the ratatouille, and later sees who really was under the chef's hat. Good stuff.

11.) Cars

Something about talking cars seems very inhuman and unrelatable to me. Unlike talking rats, bugs, and toys, cars just feel like they should remain more machine than man. That being said, the way they organized the entire world run by cars was fun to watch, and I'd take this over a lot of other animated movies any day.