Pixar’s Recent Comments Miss the Mark on Why Their Movies Are Must-Watch Timeless Classics

Pixar’s chief creative officer Pete Docter recently said that the studio’s job is to make movies, not “hundreds of millions of dollars of therapy.” His comments, which came on the cusp of Hoppers’ huge opening weekend, were in response to questions about an LGBT element the studio removed from the plot of the 2025 flop, Elio. Yet as a storyteller who’s been with Pixar from the start, Docter should know better than anyone that the studio became beloved not because it avoided emotional depth and difficult questions, but because it embraced them.

Pixar’s Films Have Always Had a Therapeutic Element

It’s easy to understand why someone like Bob Iger, Disney’s outgoing CEO, might frame Pixar’s goal as making movies rather than conducting therapy. But Docter has been with Pixar since helping to develop the idea for Toy Story. If anyone should understand the therapeutic appeal of the studio’s films, it’s him.

Docter directed several of Pixar’s most enduring and beloved films, many of which are also its most emotionally resonant. Monsters Inc. may be an energetic buddy comedy on the surface, but it understands children’s fears and the power of laughing at what terrifies them. Up’s opening montage is a more moving depiction of marriage than many live-action films ever achieve, while Inside Out builds its entire narrative around learning to live with our emotions. And both Up and Inside Out were directed by Docter. Docter’s most recent film as co-director, 2020’s Soul, tackles existential anxiety and mortality. These are not lazy kids’ movies built only on sight gags and celebrity voices; they’re thoughtful films just as likely to draw tears as laughs.

A pair of beavers sitting in the woods in Hoppers

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Jon Hamm, Bobby Moynihan, and Piper Curda star in this wild wilderness adventure.

That philosophy defined Pixar for decades. The Toy Story films have endured for 30 years because they explore fears of aging and irrelevance. The Incredibles weaves midlife crises and marital stagnation into its superhero story. Finding Nemo is about trusting your children and letting go of over-protection, while WALL-E is more than environmental sci-fi; it’s a meditation on what makes someone alive and human.

While other studios focused primarily on spectacle or broad comedy, Pixar consistently trusted audiences to grapple with complex emotional ideas. It treated children not as passive viewers but as people capable of understanding sadness, change, and uncertainty. Audiences loved that catharsis. Except for Soul, which debuted during the pandemic on streaming, all of these films were massive critical and commercial hits and are now considered classics. People didn’t love Pixar movies despite the fact that they made them think and cry. Those qualities are precisely what elevated Pixar above the animated offerings of DreamWorks, Illumination, and other competitors.

Pixar Stumbles When it Ignores its Strengths

To be fair, talk of Pixar being in a slump is somewhat overstated. The studio’s recent box-office struggles likely owe more to Disney’s decision to send several films straight to Disney+ after the pandemic than to questions of quality. Soul, Turning Red, and Luca were all critical successes that likely would have performed well theatrically if they hadn’t been consigned to streaming. Elemental eventually became a slow-burn box office hit, and Inside Out 2 was the highest-grossing film of 2024.

Still, Pixar’s attempts to soften or remove material that might challenge audiences or spark controversy have often coincided with some of its most disappointing releases. Lightyear included a brief same-sex kiss, but it became public that the studio had initially removed the moment out of fear of backlash. The film ultimately became one of Pixar’s rare flops. The Disney+ series Win or Lose removed a transgender storyline before release and received a lukewarm response. Likewise, Elio originally included an LGBT theme that was later stripped away, leaving the film feeling formless and bland—a rare financial disaster for the studio.

Did those films fail because progressive audiences ignored them? Probably not. But the pattern suggests Pixar has increasingly tried to sand down its edges in pursuit of broader appeal. When the studio retreats from material that might challenge viewers, or allow some audiences to see themselves represented, it loses part of what once made it special. When Pixar stops telling deeply personal stories in favor of simply “making movies,” audiences notice. Even though the shrill Cars 2 made money, there’s a reason it’s still widely considered Pixar’s weakest film.

Pixar Needs to Get Back to the Weird and Personal

Mabel smiles next to King George, who was holding a stick and wearing a crown.

With Hoppers, Pixar appears to have another success. And notably, it’s a film that isn’t afraid to be strange. The story goes to unexpected, zany places while weaving in themes of family legacy and environmental stewardship, with an Asian character at its center. Audiences have embraced it, and the film currently holds a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score. It’s further proof that viewers will show up when Pixar surprises them and takes risks.

Looking ahead, Pixar has an opportunity to lean back into what made the studio great: emotionally rich, imaginative storytelling. Toy Story 5 might seem like another return to familiar territory, but that franchise has always found new emotional ground. Meanwhile, Gatto, scheduled for 2027, already appears visually inventive and could take narrative risks as well. Here’s hoping. Because if Pixar returns to the intelligence, weirdness, and emotional depth that defined its early films, audiences will almost certainly follow.

Hoppers is now playing in theaters in the U.S.