pixar

Is Inside Out the Most Pixar-y Pixar Movie Since Toy Story 2?

Mmm, Pixar-y. Photo: Pixar

What makes a Pixar movie a Pixar movie? Besides sharing some general rules of storytelling, the studio’s 15 films often share similar themes of maturity, acceptance, and community, and now Vox has come up with a chart illustrating just how much each film adheres to Pixar’s thematic template. (The Good Dinosaur, which comes out Wednesday, is not included.) As you might expect, recent cry-fest Inside Out hits the majority of Pixar’s favorite notes — it’s the most Pixar-y movie since 1999’s Toy Story 2. (By this count, A Bug’s Life, Ratatouille, and Brave are the least Pixar-y Pixar movies, though of course it would be possible to come up with a different set of standard that puts those movies near the top.) The only Pixar thing Inside Out and Toy Story are missing? We’ll give you one hint: It rhymes with “Walking Tars.”

See the full-size chart here.

Photo: Javier Zarracina/Vox
What Makes Inside Out So Pixar-y?