While Pixar may be considered the king of animation (at least when it comes to Hollywood), several animated movies have outdone the Oscar-winning studio over the years. The Toy Story animation house is one of the most celebrated names in modern-day movie-making since its inception in the late 1980s. In that time, Pixar has released 29 feature films, earned over $15 billion at the global box office, and won a bonkers 23 Academy Awards.
Other animation studios have firmly leaned into the child-focused disposition of most animated content, but part of Pixar's success has been its ability to connect with both young and old audiences, making movies that do not just resonate with the youngest members of a family.
2026 will see the studio return to one of its most beloved brands, Toy Story, with the release of Toy Story 5, welcoming audiences back into the world of talking toys led by Tom Hanks' Woody and Tim Allen's Buzz Lightyear.
As celebrated as Pixar has been over the last 30 years, there have been times when the competition has beaten the studio at its own game.
6 Movies Better Than Anything Pixar Has Done
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
By the time 2018 came around, the idea of a 'Pixar style' had begun to permeate Hollywood. Because of how celebrated Pixar was, the rest of the animation industry had adopted a specific look to try to best emulate what the Finding Nemo studio was best at. That was, until Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse swung onto the scene and broke the proverbial doors down.
Sony Pictures Animation's super-powered epic told the story of a young Miles Morales as he teams up with several Spider-People from across the Marvel Multiverse and becomes a superhero in his own right (a story that will continue in 2027's Beyond the Spider-Verse). While the story itself has been praised, along with its stellar cast of vocal performances, it is how the movie looked that shook Hollywood to its very foundation.
Spider-Verse employed a groundbreaking, never-before-seen animation style that made the web-slinging adventure feel like a comic book come to life. This sense of style translated to the rest of the film, showing audiences that an animated movie did not need to look like a Pixar film, so much so that it beat Pixar for the "Best Animated Feature" Oscar in 2019.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Since the release of Into the Spider-Verse in 2018, numerous Spider-Verse imitators have emerged. However, perhaps the most successful of these came in 2022 with the release of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.
The Last Wish arrived as the newest entry into the ever-expanding Shrek franchise, but it took the (at the time) tried-and-true DreamWorks formula and flipped it on its head. This feline-themed Shrek spin-off, centered on Antonio Banderas ' sword-swinging hero, took the "you can do anything in animation" mantra laid out by Spider-Verse and ran with it.
Its unique painterly style was another example of a movie showing audiences that perhaps the Pixar look had gotten a little stale, further breaking the wall for the rest of the industry to follow (including Pixar itself).
Wolfwalkers
Wolfwalkers is unlike anything you have seen out of Pixar. The Apple original movie from Irish studio Cartoon Saloon was initially released in 2020, providing fans with a dark and sweeping take on Irish folklore.
Wolfwalkers tells the tale of a young girl who leaves her family behind to join a tribe that is mythologized to be able to transform into wolves. This Academy Award-nominated epic received near-universal acclaim upon release, with critics praising its stellar voice cast and profound thematic content.
It also looked unlike anything coming from other animation studios (including Pixar) at the time, sporting a hand-drawn storybook look that resembled pictographs of the legends it was drawing from rather than a modern-day animated box office hit.
Coraline
The first of two stop-motion animated movies on this list is 2009's Coraline. The animated cult classic emerged at a time when Pixar was at the height of its creative prowess, releasing films like WALL-E, Up, and Ratatouille in back-to-back years. However, Coraline still managed to resonate with fans despite the stranglehold the Toy Story studio had on the industry.
Animated by stop-motion masters Laika, the movie tells the tale of a school-aged girl (played by Dakota Fanning) who enters a dark and scary alternate universe that holds a terrifying secret.
In the same way as many movies on this list, Coraline managed to fill a void that Pixar had not yet addressed at the time, offering audiences a more sinister take on the animated blockbuster rather than the feel-good, bright, and sunny tone of most Pixar fare.
Spirited Away
One of the hallmarks of the Pixar experience has been its ability to tackle heavier themes (i.e., isolation, loss, and identity) in a colorful and digestible manner. However, things can only get so heavy in a Pixar film, as these movies are still primarily aimed at kids.
Studio Ghibli, more specifically, the work of visionary director Hayao Miyazaki, does not necessarily have that problem. Spirited Away is a perfect example of this. Like much of Ghibli's other titles, the 2000 animated classic takes the kids' gloves off, for an enchanting, dark, and emotionally resonant tale of a young girl who moves to a new town to find a bridge to a bonkers spirit world.
Spirited Away explores themes that Pixar has tackled in movies like Inside Out and Finding Nemo, but does not shy away from them, treating its audience as adults rather than merely scratching the surface.
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Funnily enough, the other stop-motion animated movie on this list came out in the same year as the other. In 2009, visionary director Wes Anderson shocked the entertainment world with the release of his first animated feature, Fantastic Mr. Fox.
The George Clooney-led animated blockbuster is essentially a heist movie set in the world of woodland creatures. Clooney brings Mr. Fox to life, a charming hustler who catches the eyes of three farmers in their local wooded glen. Fantastic Mr. Fox is so vastly different from just about anything Pixar has ever done in its nearly three decades of movie-making.
At its core, Anderson's 2009 romp is an adult drama that happens to feature animated puppets as its main characters. It also boasts one of the best casts ever assembled for an animated film, featuring the likes of Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, and Bill Murray.
