My first quarantine movie challenge was to watch all of the films on the American Film Institute’s list of 25 essential musicals. I ranked those movies in a series of posts a month or so back.

For my next COVID-era cinematic trick, I have rewatched (or watched for the first time in a few cases) every Pixar movie in chronological order, ranking them as I went. I already had a Pixar ranking, so part of the fun of this exercise was seeing how these films moved up and down the list.

The movies don’t change, but we do, and sometimes we experience something differently years later based on any number of factors. As I offer up my list over the next three weeks, I will note how much each title shifted from my previous ranking.

In order to sap the fun out of what should be a delightful process of enjoying 22 animated movies, I applied some clinical criteria to my assessment. For each of these movies, I took into account these qualities: Ingenuity, Emotional Impact, Humor, Thematic Resonance, Animation/Visuals.

All of these elements are present, to varying degrees, in Pixar’s films, and it helped me to keep them in mind when weighing the movies against each other.

So from 22 to 1, here begins my personal ranking of the films of Pixar.

#22. The Good Dinosaur (2015)
(previously unseen)

The least Pixar film on this list is predictably the worst. This movie resembles any number of generic animated releases aimed squarely at children, lacking the sophistication that makes Pixar’s films appeal just as much to adults.

The Good Dinosaur went through a lot of turmoil during production, with producers switching directors, overhauling the cast and completely rewriting the story. It shows.

Apart from some gorgeous landscape animation, the film is completely forgettable. It has a rote story lacking any of Pixar’s wit and imagination — and worst of all, zero laughs.

#21. Cars 2 (2011)
(previously unseen)

Cars 2 is a weak movie, but it gets knocked down even further because of what it represents. After a run of nine films that had critics and audiences believing Pixar was incapable of failing, the studio face-planted with this one. It felt like a cash grab aimed at selling more Lightning McQueen and Mater merch, and it pushed Pixar firmly into sequel territory — five of the studio’s next 10 films would be follow-ups to previous releases.

The biggest failure of Cars 2 is its utter lack of awareness or respect for the charming first film. Doc Hudson’s death is given a 5-second passing mention, and Radiator Springs gets barely any screen time. Mater, a funny side character, proves unworthy of the starring role, and the over-the-top spy hijinks are completely out of character for the world the first film created.

Some clever action set pieces put this one slightly above The Good Dinosaur but clearly I didn’t miss much by skipping these two the first time around.