After 23 years of screening animated shorts before their feature films, Pixar takes a break for Toy Story 4. They assure us the shorts will be back, but we’ll miss those li’l treasures. So, to celebrate the art of Pixar shorts, Letterboxd list maestro Jack Moulton has picked through Pixar’s animated short films, ranking them by our community’s average rating. He also hunted through your reviews to find out why these wee stories rank where they do—read the notes for the lowdown. For this list, only shorts that preceded features in theaters are eligible; some of the company’s earlier shorts are therefore missing and there are no DVD extras. (Olaf’s Frozen Adventure is Disney's fault so it’s not included, but, no surprises, it’s last.) Piper Played before Finding Dory. Won the Oscar for Animated Short. What started as a simple animation test grew to become the most beloved of Pixar’s shorts on Letterboxd. Featuring the most impressive sand animation ever conceived, it’s the attention to detail and immersive perspective that makes Piper stand out. Anyone who has experienced separation anxiety can relate to the coming-of-age story inspired by longtime animator Alan Barillaro’s observations of sandpipers at the Emeryville beaches close to the production campus. It’s part nature-doc, part-trademark Pixar personality as we watch a young sandpiper overcome its fears of ocean waves to hunt on its own. Some lament the latter aspect, claiming “this could have been a new sort of genre: an entirely imagined nature documentary”. Nevertheless, all agree that it’s the “CUTEST. THING. EVER.” Sometimes, that’s all you need. While the studio may rake in every animated feature Oscar, the competition is apparently fiercer for animated shorts. This marked the largest gap between wins—15 years since the also-fowl-related For the Birds. La luna Played before Brave. Nominated for an Oscar for Animated Short. Italian director Enrico Casarosa—who got his start as a storyboard artist and would later become head of story for The Good Dinosaur and Incredibles 2—was inspired by his childhood when he was devising La Luna aka ‘The Moon’. There’s a transportive sense of wonder in the Hayao Miyazaki and Osvaldo Cavandoli-inspired trip to a moon full of stars. Its watercolor backgrounds give the film an essential human touch. While many of Pixar’s shorts can feel insular, La Luna achieves a satisfying resolution to a generational conflict between son, father, and grandfather, telling a universal story in a wholeheartedly unique way. “Georges Méliès would have been proud” raves Blake, who admits they can’t resist giving it five stars for the imagination alone. Bao Played before Incredibles 2. Won the Oscar for Animated Short. It took too long, but after nearly 35 years of producing shorts, Pixar finally had a female director at the helm. Domee Shi’s idiosyncratic Chinese-Canadian perspective was a culture shock to audiences slumped in for Incredibles 2 last year. Watching an animated representation of Shi’s mother suffering through empty-nest syndrome eating her dumpling ‘son’ was weird yet utterly endearing. “I love when any form of medium is able to make an entire audience gasp and laugh out loud because of how uncomfortable they are,” raves Artpig, “and they were able to pull that off in this beautiful little thing that is also strangely heartwarming.” Shi’s risk paid off. It made us cry, it made us laugh, but it mostly made us hungry. Day & Night Played before Toy Story 3. Nominated for an Oscar for Animated Short. Back in 2010, it was worth the cost of admission for Toy Story 3 in 3D just for the short that preceded it. Day & Night marries traditional 2D animation with the 3D modeling Pixar became famous for in an absurdly creative way as we watch anthropomorphized versions of day and night discover each other’s splendors. You know, like this could possibly be the first time they ever met. While it’s caught some flak in hindsight for its most perverse male gaze scenes, it’s the rare example of vocals in a Pixar short, taken from a talk by motivational speaker Dr. Wayne Dyer at the film’s close about overcoming prejudice. “Snappy, funny, thought-provoking, downright adorable,” writes loureviews. Director Teddy Newton was primarily a character designer for Pixar, working on The Incredibles and Ratatouille, but brought his best work to Day & Night. He’s currently working on his first feature for Lengi Studio called Sneaks. Geri's Game Played before A Bug’s Life. Won the Oscar for Animated Short. Occupied by production on Toy Story, there was an eight-year gap between Pixar’s Geri’s Game and its previous short film Tin Toy (not eligible here). As the company’s first feature film would focus more on the freedom afforded by having its primary characters be toys, shortcuts were taken for all the human characters, infamously using the same model as Andy for everyone. Geri’s Game served as preparation for Toy Story’s sequel, as the studio experimented with more realistic skin and human movement effects. Not that the copying and pasting stopped. Geri would later re-appear in the most satisfying movie scene ever performing maintenance on Woody in Toy Story 2. While some viewers find the story of Geri playing chess against himself too light, Xoch finds it an interesting study of loneliness and “why it’s good to be lonely sometimes”. Almost exactly a year after its premiere, it was paired before A Bug’s Life and began a sacred tradition to be continued after this brief break. Director Jan Pinkava would later co-direct Ratatouille with Brad Bird, picking up another Oscar. After a brief stint at Laika, he now works for Motorola. Presto Played before WALL·E. Nominated for an Oscar for Animated Short. The fast and furious gags of Presto worked in contrast to the gentle, foreboding approach that WALL·E would take in the feature that followed. While Andrew Stanton’s opus would be more Chaplin-esque, Presto was a taste of Pixar doing Looney Tunes. With “exceptional comic timing”, it has fun with the way magic and slapstick violence can be portrayed in their trademark 3D animation. Director Doug Sweetland was a veteran animator for Pixar, going all the way back to Toy Story. However, he left shortly after releasing Presto to join Sony Pictures Animation and later Warner Animation Group, where he co-direct 2016’s Storks with Nicholas Stoller. Partly Cloudy Played before Up. You were in for a very sky-oriented evening in 2009 as Partly Cloudy was paired with Up. Taking the prologue concept from Dumbo and exploring a comic relationship between a stork and cloud that only produces dangerous baby animals, it’s a story of “acceptance and duty—we’ve all been both,” writes Sarah Jane’s Husband passionately. While almost all of Pixar’s shorts were in the Academy’s top five in their category, Partly Cloudy is our highest rated to be snubbed. Poor awards fortune would follow director Peter Sohn as his feature debut The Good Dinosaur is one of the rare Pixar features to miss out at the Oscars. At least he had another good gig in 2009 directing the English dub of Miyazaki’s Ponyo. The Blue Umbrella Played before Monsters University. Letterboxd’s favorite Pixar meme goes “What if toys had feelings, what if cars had feelings, what if feelings had feelings, etc”. The Blue Umbrella takes the Pixar mantra to the next level, giving every inanimate object on a rainy day feelings, following the meet-cute between two umbrellas. “There’s something just so magical seeing animated objects falls in love,” writes aweena. The film was an experiment in more photorealistic lighting, which works in contrast to the doodled faces. It was inspired by director Saschka Unseld, a layout artist for Pixar, recognizing the faces and personality on everyday objects on his city strolls. Lou Played before Cars 3. Nominated for an Oscar for Animated Short. You’re caught up on the Cars trilogy, right? Lou may be one of the more skipped shorts on the list, but those who watched it before Cars 3 found the story of a schoolyard bully learning compassion and understanding from a lost-and-found box “terrific and fun and creative and touching,” as Demi notes. “Offering important lessons on bullying and childlike happiness,” writes Travis Lytle, “the short will [elicit] laughter and, perhaps, a tear or two.” While not among the studio’s finest, it’s still a regular better-than-the-feature Pixar special. For the Birds Played before Monsters, Inc.. Won the Oscar for Animated Short. One of Pixar’s briefest and goofiest shorts on offer, it doesn’t waste time with a social issue, delivering a “a simple message against segregation” according to Oscar Rosales. But otherwise it’s “an outstandingly funny short, everything from the physical comedy to the noises the birds made had [me] smiling and at times laughing at loud,” raves Paul Robinson. While the animation has perhaps dated and some find it one-note, the bird imagery has become part of Pixar’s go-to iconography with the lineup appearing in Cars and Inside Out. That said, the technology to achieve the look of the feathers was well ahead of its time in 2000. No match for Sully’s fur in the feature-pairing however. ...plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
Read on letterboxd