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Many people talk about the greatest cartoon movies of the last five years, ten years, thirty years, or whatever. I believe that modern cartoons can be broken down into two distinct eras; BTS and ATS.

BTS (Before Toy Story) feature-length cartoons were two dimensional and usually hand drawn. Computer animation began seeing widespread use in the 1980s as a way to produce cartoons quicker and easier, but the drawings were not as detailed as traditional animation.

In 1995, Pixar changed everything.

The Pixar company was founded in 1984 by John Lasseter. Lasseter had previously worked at Disney, but decided to join Lucasfilm’s computer graphics division. In 1986, the division was purchased by Steve Jobs for $10 million dollars and established as an independent company. That same year, Luxo Jr. was released.

Luxo Jr. was the short film that initially put Pixar Studios on the map. The 2-minute movie was nominated for an Oscar and won several less prestigious awards. The star of Luxo was a lamp that is now incorporated into Pixar’s logo.

Pixar had major critical success with their short films and commercials, but little commercial success due to the high cost of producing their award-winning content. This was until 1991 when Disney contracted Pixar to create up to three original, feature-length films, with the two companies splitting the profits. Pixar was granted full artistic control, while the Disney empire handled distribution.

Cartoons changed forever after Pixar/Disney released Toy Story in 1995. Toy Story was the first fully computer-animated feature film. It was also the most successful film of that year, earning over $360 million dollars worldwide.

The success of Toy Story causes renewed negotiations between Disney and Pixar. The old contract was expanded to a five-film deal that did not include sequels. Disney’s marketing and distribution power, coupled with the technology and expertise of Pixar usher in a new era for feature cartoons. A few years later, Disney announced that they were through with traditionally animated films for good.

Disney acquired Pixar for $7.6 billion dollars worth of stock, in 2006 after fulfilling their contract obligations were fulfilled. The Pixar/Disney contract films included Toy Story, Monsters Inc, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, and Cars (Toy Story 2 didn’t count because it was a sequel).

In my opinion, these are the greatest top 10 ATS films. This article has focused on Pixar because they raised the bar, pertaining to what an animated movie should be. But just because they raised the bar, doesn’t mean a film had to be made in a certain style. This list only includes my favorites and in no way represents the opinion of anyone other than myself.

1. Spirited Away (2001)
2. Finding Nemo (2003)
3. Surfs Up (2005)
4. Ratatouille (2007)
5. Over The Hedge (2006)
6. Wall-E (2008)
7. Antz (1998)
8. Toy Story (1995)
9. The Iron Giant (1999)
10. Shrek (2001)

In complilling this list, I decided to judge on criteria such as originality, technical merit, entertainment value, quality of dialog, and whether it breaks new ground. In future articles I will explain my reasoning behind each choice. I had considered putting tidbits of info about each film in this post, but feel it would do injustice to these great movies to not give them each their own review.