At NYIT, the researchers pioneered many of the CG foundation techniques—in particular the invention of the “alpha channel” (by Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith); years later, the CGL produced an experimental film called The Works. Pixar was founded as The Graphics Group, one third of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm which was launched in 1979 with the hiring of Dr. Ed Catmull from the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), where he was in charge of the Computer Graphics Lab (CGL). A Zootopian version of the studio was parodized as “Pigsar” in Zootopia 2. In Ralph Breaks the Internet, Anna referred to Pixar as “the other studio”.
Short films (“Shorts”)
With the death of Los Angeles–based animators – including Joe Ranft – willing to move their families so far north, give up traditional animation, and try computer animation, Pixar’s new-hires at this time either came directly from the college or had worked outside feature animation. Although Toy Story was a successful film, it was Pixar’s only feature film at the time. More importantly, as part of any distribution agreement with Disney, Pixar demanded control over films already in production under their old agreement, including The Incredibles and Cars. The company also wanted to finance their films on their own and collect 100 percent of the profits, paying Disney only the 10 to 15 percent distribution fee. The new deal would be only for distribution, as Pixar intended to control production and own the resulting film properties themselves.
A factor contributing to Lucas’ sale was an increase in cash flow problems following his 1983 divorce, which coincided with the sudden drop-off in revenues from Star Wars licenses following the release of Return of the Jedi. Jobs paid $5 million to George Lucas and put $5 million as capital into the company. The team began working on film sequences with Industrial Light & Magic on special effects in 1982.
COVID-19, Disney+ releases, and some financial struggles (2020–present)
- On September 6, 2009, executives John Lasseter, Brad Bird, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, and Lee Unkrich were presented with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement by the Biennale Venice Film Festival.
- On February 3, 1986, he paid $5 million of his own money to George Lucas for technology rights and invested $5 million cash as capital into the company, joining the board of directors as chairman.
- On June 8, 2018, it was announced that Lasseter would leave Disney Animation and Pixar at the end of the year, but would take on a consulting role until then.
- Also, traditional 2-D animation was still the dominant medium for feature animated films.
The success of Toy Story (1995) made Pixar the first major computer-animation studio to successfully produce theatrical feature films. A few months later Pixar made a historic $26 million deal with Disney to produce three computer-animated feature films, the first of which was Toy Story (1995), the product of the technological limitations that challenged CGI. A film, of course, is only as good as its ending, and the studio’s vegas casino download best outings fittingly have some of the most memorable endings in animation’s history. Its filmography is beyond iconic, as it has made some of history’s best animated features. Pixar celebrated 25 years of animation in 2011 with the release of its twelfth feature film Cars 2.
A Century of Cinema — The 20 Greatest Movies of the Last 100 Years, Ranked
All Pixar films to date have been computer-animated features (WALL-E has so far been the only Pixar film not to be completely animated, featuring a small live-action element). Cars 2, the studio’s third theatrical sequel, was released on June 24, 2011. A large number of animators that make up the animation department at Pixar were hired around the time Pixar released A Bug’s Life and Toy Story 2. The roughly 2,000 square meters studio is primarily responsible for producing shorts and TV specials based on characters from Pixar’s feature films. Pending the Disney acquisition of Pixar, the two companies created a distribution deal for the intended 2007 release of Ratatouille, in case the acquisition fell through, to ensure that this one film would still be released through Disney’s distribution channels.
John Ratzenberger, most widely known as the postman Cliff Clavin from the television sitcom Cheers, is always a character voice, referred to by the studio as their “good luck charm”. The setting of the film is always a world in which people/creatures/objects that are not commonly thought to have normal everyday lives live in societies resembling modern American society. Another highlight is the Zoetrope, where visitors of the exhibition are shown figurines of Toy Story characters “animated” in real-life through the zoetrope. The exhibition highlights consist of work-in-progress sketches from various Pixar productions, clay sculptures of their characters, and an auto-stereoscopic short showcasing a 3D version of the exhibition pieces which is projected through 4 projectors.
‘The Incredibles’ (
Despite the total income of these products, the company was still losing money, and Jobs often considered selling it. At that point, the software programmers, who were doing RenderMan and CAPS, and Lasseter’s animation department, who made television commercials and a few shorts for Sesame Street, was all that was left of Pixar. During this period, Pixar continued its relationship with Walt Disney Feature Animation, a studio whose corporate parent would ultimately become its most important partner. One of the buyers of Pixar Image Computers was Disney Studios, which was using the device as part of their secretive CAPS project, using the machine and custom software to migrate the laborious ink and paint part of the 2-D animation process to a more automated and thus efficient method. Initially, Pixar was a high-end computer hardware company whose core product was the Pixar Image Computer, a system primarily sold to government agencies and the medical community. The newly independent company was headed by Jobs, who served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pixar.
The roughly 2,000 square meters studio produced seven short films based on Toy Story and Cars characters. In preparation for potential fallout between Pixar and Disney, Jobs announced in late 2004 that Pixar would no longer release movies at the Disney-dictated November time frame, but during the more lucrative early summer months. In addition, as part of any distribution agreement with Disney, Pixar demanded control over films already in production under the old agreement, including The Incredibles (2004) and Cars (2006). Profits and production costs were split equally, but Disney exclusively owned all story, character, and sequel rights and also collected a 10%-15% distribution fee.
Though similar scenes and situations may appear, these sequences are not in the films being advertised, but instead are original creations. Some of these boxes made appearances in several Pixar films (in A Bug’s Life for example, the box was used as “The Chinese Cabinet of Metamorphosis”). Although it hasn’t been as consistent as some of their other Easter eggs, in recent years it has become a tradition for Pixar to put in each of their films a cameo of or an allusion to a character from their following film. Joe Ranft holds the second-long Pixar vocal performance tenure, but the person who has appeared in the second most Pixar films is Bonnie Hunt. The Science Behind Pixar is a traveling exhibition, developed by the Museum of Science in Boston, Massachusetts in collaboration with Pixar, that teaches about the production pipeline at Pixar in the form of the filmmaking process. Lasseter —a two-time Academy Award-winning director and animator— oversaw all the company’s projects as Executive Vice President of the Creative Department until 2018, when he left Pixar and Pete Docter became the new Executive Vice President of the Creative Department.
References to upcoming films
In 2021, several Pixar employees anonymously criticized Disney’s decision to release their films direct to Disney+. Pixar’s next two features, Luca and Turning Red, were also released free on Disney+ in June 2021 and March 2022, respectively. However, due to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the film underperformed at the box office and was released onto rental digital services on March 20, and later on Disney+ on April 3. During the 2019 D23 Expo, Pixar announced that their next film, Soul, would release in 2020.
Unforgettable Animated Shows Everyone Needs to Watch at Least Once
Pixar has produced 29 feature films, with its first film being Toy Story (1995), which is also the first fully computer-animated feature film, and its most recent film was Elio (2025). It’s one of 2007’s most essential films, as well as one of Pixar’s crowning jewels, a love letter to art itself, and it leads all the way up to an emotional payoff almost unparalleled in the realm of animation. Pixar films dealing with parenthood abound, but none put that theme front and center quite like Finding Nemo does. Even today, after the many missteps they’ve experienced throughout the 2020s, many would still call Pixar the world’s best producer of animated films. This a list of Pixar movies that became franchises after getting 1 or more sequel and/or prequel films, short films, or TV specials based on the films.
Some of Pixar’s first animators were former cel animators including John Lasseter, and others came from computer animation or were fresh college graduates. The digital revolution in filmmaking was driven by applied mathematics, including computational physics and geometry. It became the fastest animated movie to reach $1 billion at the global box office, reaching the milestone in 17 days. However, the layoffs were then delayed and did not occur, reportedly because of production schedules. In January 2024, it was reported that Pixar’s staff would face imminent layoffs by 20 percent, reducing the studio’s workforce to less than 1,000 employees.
Profits and production costs were split 50-50, but Disney exclusively owned all story and sequel rights and also collected a distribution fee. Pixar’s first five feature films have collectively grossed more than $2.5 billion, equivalent to the highest per-film average gross in the industry. As poor sales of Pixar’s computers threatened to put the company out of business, Lasseter’s animation department began producing computer-animated commercials for outside companies.
Television specials
However, the Image Computer had inadequate sales which threatened to end the company as financial losses grew. Pixar employee John Lasseter, who had long been working on not-for-profit short demonstration animations, such as Luxo Jr. (1986) to show off the device’s capabilities, premiered his creations to great fanfare at SIGGRAPH, the computer graphics industry’s largest convention. In a bid to drive sales of the system and increase the company’s capital, Jobs suggested releasing the product to the mainstream market. In May 1986 Pixar signed a contract with Disney, who eventually bought and used the Pixar Image Computer and custom software written by Pixar as part of its Computer Animation Production System (CAPS) project, to migrate the laborious ink and paint part of the 2D animation process to a more automated method. Because of the Graphics Group’s deeper understanding of animation, and Smith’s experience with paint programs at NYIT, it convinced Disney they were the right choice. On February 3, 1986, he paid $5 million of his own money to George Lucas for technology rights and invested $5 million cash as capital into the company, joining the board of directors as chairman.
Released in June 2019, Toy Story 4 ranks among the 40 top-grossing films in American cinema. Monsters University, a prequel to Monsters, Inc. (2001), was announced in April 2010 and initially set for release in November 2012; the release date was pushed to June 21, 2013, due to Pixar’s past success with summer releases, according to a Disney executive. In May 2006, it was announced that Toy Story 3 was back in pre-production with a new plot and under Pixar’s control. However, when Lasseter was placed in charge of all Disney and Pixar animation following Disney’s acquisition of Pixar in 2006, he put all sequels on hold and Toy Story 3 was canceled. Following the release of Toy Story 2 in 1999, Pixar and Disney had a gentlemen’s agreement that Disney would not make any sequels without Pixar’s involvement though retaining a right to do so. These films are Toy Story, Cars, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Inside Out, and Coco.citation needed
John Ratzenberger
- Released in June 2019, Toy Story 4 ranks among the 40 top-grossing films in American cinema.
- In fact, additional conditions were laid out as part of the deal to ensure that Pixar remained a separate entity, a concern that analysts had expressed about the Disney deal.
- In Ralph Breaks the Internet, Anna referred to Pixar as “the other studio”.
- Although Toy Story was a successful film, it was Pixar’s only feature film at the time.
- Also, the Pixar name was guaranteed to continue, and the studio would remain in its current Emeryville, California location with the “Pixar” sign.
After one of the most exciting Pixar climaxes ever, the film’s third act concludes with a tranquil day in the Parrs’ family, everyone watching Dash run a race. Seeing as it’s largely a tribute to old Hollywood rom-coms, which of course includes many silent movies, it’s quite fitting that a big portion of WALL•E’s runtime is mostly devoid of dialogue. In one of the studio’s most emotional reveals, Mike shows Sulley that he’s been rebuilding Boo’s door, and with Sulley opening the door and being greeted by Boo’s “Kitty!” offscreen, we fade to black. Mike becomes the company’s top comedian, and Sulley becomes the new CEO. Some time after Boo is sent home and her door is destroyed, Monsters, Inc. begins to collect energy by making children laugh instead of scream.
Sequels and prequels
Pixar demanded that the film then be counted toward the three-picture agreement, but Disney refused. As a result of the success of Toy Story, Pixar built a new studio at the Emeryville campus which was designed by PWP Landscape Architecture and opened in November 2000.citation needed Despite the income from these projects, the company still continued to lose money and Steve Jobs, as chairman of the board and now owner, often considered selling it. By then the software programmers working on RenderMan and IceMan, and Lasseter’s animation department, which made television commercials (and four Luxo Jr. shorts for Sesame Street the same year), were all that remained of Pixar. On March 6, 1991, Steve Jobs bought the company from its employees and became the full owner. Jobs increased investment in exchange for an increased stake, reducing the proportion of management and employee ownership until eventually, his total investment of $50 million gave him control of the entire company.
The film had the lowest box office opening for a Pixar film to date, earning $21 million, and an all-time low global opening of $35 million. It had the highest second weekend gross for an animated film with $100 million, being the first to reach the six-digit second opening weekend. The film had a domestic opening of $154 million, the third highest for an animated film, and the biggest global opening for an animated movie with $294 million. On June 14 of the same year, Inside Out 2 was released and became financially successful. During the film’s opening weekend, Docter stated that Pixar “trained audiences that these films will be available for you on Disney+”. In September 2022, Jonas Rivera was promoted to Executive VP of Film Production at Pixar overseeing all film and streaming production.
As 1991 began, however, the layoff of 30 employees in the company’s computer hardware department (including the company’s president, Chuck Kolstad), reduced the total number of employees to just 42, approximately its original number. During this period of time, Pixar continued its successful relationship with Walt Disney Feature Animation, a studio whose corporate parent would ultimately become its most important partner. Pixar released some of its software tools on the open market for Macintosh and Windows systems. In 1989, Lasseter’s growing animation department which was originally composed of just four people (Lasseter, Bill Reeves, Eben Ostby, and Sam Leffler), was turned into a division that produced computer-animated commercials for outside companies. At the time, Walt Disney Studios made the decision to develop more efficient ways of producing animation. As a result, they focused on the computer hardware business for years until a computer-animated feature became feasible according to Moore’s law.
As of August 2025update, Inside Out 2 was the second highest-grossing animated film of all time. Toy Story 3 (2010), Finding Dory (2016), Incredibles 2 (2018), Toy Story 4 (2019) and Inside Out 2 (2024) all grossed over $1 billion and are among the 50 highest-grossing films of all time. As of July 2023update, its feature films have earned over $15 billion at the worldwide box office with an average gross of $589 million per film. Pixar is best known for its feature films, technologically powered by its RenderMan software. Praised by some as Pixar’s single greatest film, Ratatouille takes the concept of a cooking rat and turns it into a beautiful story about passion, talent, and how everyone is worthy of doing what they love.
