Ratatouille, hands down.

Incredibles! Family of super-heroes, bond-esque soundtrack and settings, hilarious jokes = Gold (gold, jerry, gold!)

The original Toy Story for me.

Wall-E.

Pixar makes the best modern films, period.

I love them all pretty much equally, except for Cars (their worst) and Ratatouille (second worst).

Still, their worst is Academy Award-worthy.

Except for cars, which felt over-indulgent, I'm a big fan of all of them. Wouldn't it be great to see some of those early reels and compare that to the finished product. I think that would provide some real insight into the brains trust.

How does one find a pixar screenplay and not a transcript?

@zivelli: Go to mypdfscripts.com. For example, go here to download "Up."

@Scott: Thanks so much, I also managed to find the Wall-E & Ratatouille scripts. Can't find Nemo though...maybe he went back to the tank gang.

@zivelli: Download the GITS Recommended Script List here (it's free) and you'll find a link to download Finding Nemo under Character Writing.

Pixar is legit all the way around, but Up is my favorite (as in movie of all time, not just Pixar). Every time I watch that thing I find some little parallel or metaphor that I didn't catch before. It's truly ridiculous.

God that was great! Thanks for posting that Scott. I think in each of your prior Pixar posts you'll find me in the comments section, shooting my mouth off and raving like a lunatic about my adoration for all that follows the hopping little desklamp (Luxo, Jr., right?)

A favorite? Boy, that's nearly impossible. Even CARS, which unanimously seems to get derided, grew on me later. (It helped that I watched it with my 2 year old son recently and he went BERSERK for it... and I had an "a-ha!" moment where I totally understood what they were doing.... making the ultimate CAR movie for 2 to 5 year old boys who are traditionally enamored with all things motorized!)

Still... it's gotta' be UP for me. I've said this before, and probably somewhere on these pages, but UP seems like a not-so-distant cousin to a Studio Ghibli film... the preoccupation with flight, the admittedly preposterous plot conceit made totally believable by such rich and fully drawn characters... look at something like PORCO ROSSO, LAPUTA, and KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE... the stories are utterly outrageous on paper and yet the worlds these films build and the rich characters who populate them make instant believers out of the viewer.

And THAT, friends, is movie magic at its best.

Have you seen The Pixar Story, a great documentary by Leslie Iwerks? It's available through Netflix. My wife and I saw it on HBO a year ago or so. We turned it on as background noise and before we knew it, we were glued to the story.

That was a great article. An even better one (in the same issue!) is Karl Iglesias's column some 20 pages later where he talk's about Pixar's Emotional Core as their secret to success. Worth the read if you're a Pixar fan like me. Favorite Trust: Ratatouille, Incredibles, Wall-E, Nemo, and Toy Story 2.

It would have to be either UP or Toy Story 2

If you'd asked me last week I'd probably have said Toy Story 1, which hit theaters when I was just old enough to get the emotional significance of the story, but still young enough to demand a Woody doll of my own for Christmas.

Now that I've finally seen UP, though, I know nothing else compares. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. And emotionally honest in a way that's incredibly rare for "family" cinema.

NEMO!!! To this day when my family (boys now 12 & 13) sit down to fish and chips on the beach and seagulls descend, we all squeal similtaneously - Mine mine mine mine. Pixar have coloquially permeated our language and we're Aussies!

NEMO!!! To this day when my family (boys now 12 & 13) sit down to fish and chips on the beach and seagulls descend, we all squeal similtaneously - Mine mine mine mine. Pixar have coloquially permeated our language and we're Aussies!