Continuing my countdown of every Pixar movie…
#5. Ratatouille (2007)
(down two spots from previous ranking)
Brad Bird’s Ratatouille is a triumph of both concept and execution.
The premise — a rat with a gift for cooking — is both comically simple and curiously profound. Imagine if your very existence was uniquely horrifying in the very setting you felt most at home.
The visuals of this movie are breathtaking, with Bird taking full advantage of his Paris setting, and Michael Giacchino’s score is among my very favorites in a Pixar movie.
I think the real measure of a movie’s effectiveness is how it makes you feel months or years later when you think about it. I have films on my top ten lists — like Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s A Very Long Engagement (2004), to pick one at random — that impressed me at the time but fail to move me at all as I think back on them.
Meet Me In Montauk 