We’ve reached the Top Eleven in my ranking. From this point, every film on the list is one I love and have watched, or will watch, repeatedly.

11. Finding Nemo (2003)

This product of Pixar’s Golden Age features waterscapes stunning to behold and features such scene-stealing characters as Bruce, the Great White shark undergoing group therapy to change his fearsome carnivore image (“Fish are friends, not food!”) and Crush, the surfer-dude sea turtle whose laid back attitude provides an amusing contrast with protagonist Marlin’s nonstop anxiety. The movie begins on a note of horror, as Marlin the clownfish sees his wife and all their eggs but one wiped out, whereupon he dedicates his life to protecting his surviving offspring, the titular Nemo. When a SCUBA-diving dentist nabs Nemo and place him in an aquarium, Marlin must swim to his rescue, and both father and son must navigate uncharted territory. In terms of representation, male characters outnumber female, but we do get a step away from “male as default” with a major character who could have been male but instead just happens to be female: Dory, a blue tang who proves quite resourceful despite suffering from short-term memory loss. Instead of a bromance, we get a charming cross-gender friendship as the ever-optimistic Dory latches onto worrywart Marlin. The voices are perfectly cast, with Albert Brooks being his anxious A-game to the character of Marlin and Ellen DeGeneres endowing Dory with humor and warmth, but my favorite performance is Willem Dafoe’s as the scarred, hard-bitten Gil, whom Nemo meets in the aquarium and who helps him hatch an escape plan.

10. Shrek (2001)

The inaugural winner of the Best Animated Feature Oscar also served as Dreamworks Animation’s warning shot across the bow of the great ship Disney. On its initial release, fans of irony ate it up, relishing such parodies as the “Welcome to Duloc” song (take that, “It’s a Small World”!) and Princess Fiona’s duet with a songbird that ends with the poor bird’s blowing up (take that, Snow White!). But what gives this movie its staying power, for me, are the relationships — misanthropic ogre Shrek’s prickly bromance with the loquacious Donkey and his romance with a princess who isn’t quite what she seems. Fiona’s beauty doesn’t affect Shrek in the slightest; rather, he takes an interest in her when he sees that, as Donkey exclaims, “She’s as nasty as you are!” The romance evolves slowly, something we see all too rarely even in live-action films ostensibly aimed at adults. Also, the traditional Beauty-and-the-Beast formula is upended when Fiona gets her happy ending at the moment she no longer meets the accepted beauty standard. “I’m supposed to be beautiful,” the ogre-fied Fiona says with dismay. “You are beautiful,” the starry-eyed Shrek tells her. That’s all she needs to hear. Perfect. In the voice-acting area, Mike Myers (Shrek), Eddie Murphy (Donkey), Cameron Diaz (Fiona), and John Lithgow (the villainous Lord Farquaad, whose line “Some of you may die, but that’s a sacrifice I am willing to make” has justly become a meme) all acquit themselves well.

9. Encanto (2021)

In many ways, this is one of those movies seemingly designed to please me. Funny, awkward heroine who likes to make things? Check. Lots and lots of female characters of various ages and body types? Check. One of those characters being a big-hearted Gentle Giant, a trope we rarely see in female guise? Check. A score full of bangers penned by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the giantess’s song being my favorite? Check. With all this, the story would have had to work hard to lose me. Thankfully, it didn’t. Mirabel, our resourceful, imaginative heroine, is the only non-magical member of a magical family, yet when the magic starts to fail, she takes it upon herself to save it, even though it means confronting her own sense of not-belonging and mending her dysfunctional relationships with her “perfect” older sister and authoritarian grandmother. On her quest to restore the magic, Mirabel becomes an agent of Truth, uncovering secrets that have the potential to upset the family order even more, at least as the stern Abuela Alma would have it. Luisa, our sweet giantess, feels she is worthless if she can’t be of service. Isabela, the perfect beauty with the power to grow vegetation, has a greater affinity for cacti than for the pretty pink flowers associated with her. Mirabel’s uncle Bruno, whom we don’t talk about, is not a ghoulish doomsayer but a loving brother and son with the burdensome “gift” of seeing the future, who has been hiding in the magical casita in order to be close to his family while sparing them his disruptive presence. Yet in the end, as the old saying goes, the Truth sets the family free, and Mirabel emerges with a healthier sense of her own value. Stephanie Beatriz (Mirabel), Maria Cecilia Botero (Abuela), and John Leguizamo (Bruno) are the standouts in a strong voice cast.

8. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)

In some years, the field of Best Animated Feature nominees is so strong that any one of them would be a deserving winner. This past year, I loved all but one of the nominees without reservation, the exception being Netflix’s The Sea Beast, which I liked a lot but didn’t quite love due to its overly familiar story beats. Pixar’s Turning Red is a rollicking look at puberty, friendships, and parent-child tensions, featuring an adorable girl protagonist who, in moments of high stress, transforms into an even more adorable giant red panda. Dreamworks’ Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is a stunning sequel to an okay original, with a flawed but charismatic hero in Puss, a not-just-a-love-interest female lead in Kitty Softpaws, and two intriguing villains in the loathsome Big Jack Horner, so repulsive that even his would-be conscience dismisses him as beyond hope, and the mysterious whistling Wolf. A24’s Marcel the Shell With Shoes On is perhaps the most unique of all of them, a mockumentary about a sentient shell’s search for his missing family. You might be forgiven for thinking it’s a short-film gimmick stretched out to feature length, but actually watching the movie would prove how wrong you are as you come to love and root for the tiny Marcel; I should know, because this was exactly my experience.

In any other year, one of these films would have proudly walked away with the Oscar. But this was the year Netflix released Oscar-winning director and producer Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion labor of love, which manages to take a story we know and make it like nothing we’ve seen. His Pinocchio manages to tackle grief, love, death, and fascism with a deft hand. Gepetto and Sebastian J. Cricket are interesting, complex characters far more flawed than their Disney versions, with Gepetto more fearful than welcoming of the new presence in his life and Sebastian serving as Pinocchio’s conscience because there’s something in it for him, but this incarnation of Pinocchio, with his clumsy, confused, and curious joy in the life he’s been endowed with and his devotion to his gruff, troubled “father,” is the most sympathetic I’ve seen. Plus, the animation itself is nothing short of miraculous, a welcome break from the standard CGI we’ve grown so used to. And the nose-growing scenes actually service the plot!

7. Toy Story 3 (2010)

In 1995, Pixar Animation Studios burst on the scene with Toy Story, a hilarious and heartwarming examination of the psychology of toyhood. By treating its inanimate subjects with depth and empathy, Pixar showed itself to be something extraordinary, and it would exploit its strengths in character development throughout its Golden Age — which, many people assert, came to an end with the release of Toy Story 3. The gang of toys in Andy’s room, led by cowboy Woody and Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear (brought vocally to life by Tom Hanks and Tim Allen), proved endearing and interesting enough to warrant sequels focusing on the progress of their “lives,” from Woody’s fear of being replaced and Buzz’s acceptance of his identity (Toy Story), to Woody’s growing awareness that as “his” kid grows up, all the toys will be abandoned (Toy Story 2), to the confrontation with that abandonment as Andy reaches college age (this particular film). Toy Story 3, much like Peter Jackson’s The Return of a King, is the climax of a remarkable story, a journey we in the audience have taken along with Woody and Buzz. True, Toy Story 4 came along nine years later to disturb the conclusion — the main reason a lot of people dislike the later film — but Toy Story 3‘s final scene, as Andy gifts his toys to little Bonnie and resists the temptation to hang onto Woody, remains note perfect. The movie also boasts a first-rate villain in Lotso Huggin’ Bear (Ned Beatty, kind of channeling Gene Hackman), a toy who ought to be adorable but is instead diabolical.

6. Inside Out (2015)

Not Pixar’s first movie with a female lead, but rather Pixar’s first great movie with a female lead, this movie takes us inside the mind of Riley, an athletic eleven-year-old girl whose happy life in Minnesota is uprooted when her dad gets a new job in San Francisco. Riley isn’t the real protagonist, though. That would be Joy, the embodiment of young Riley’s, well, joy, and the driving emotional force in her life so far, whose control over Riley’s mental and emotional console is threatened by the move and who considers it her job to keep Sadness (also female-coded) at bay. Joy’s impulsive reaction when Sadness touches one of Riley’s “core memories,” turning it from bring, happy green to gloomy blue, sends her and Sadness on a wild trip through Riley’s subconscious; meanwhile, the remaining emotions of Anger, Fear, and Disgust must seize control of the console for the first time and, of course, make a mess of their mission to keep things normal. Riley’s mental landscape is richly detailed, getting us invested in her even though we see very little of her from “outside.” The developing friendship between Joy and Sadness is satisfying, and Joy is a complex, flawed, and sometimes even infuriating protagonist — much like Woody, Bob “Mr. Incredible” Parr, Lightning McQueen, and Carl Frederickson. (Funny how these male leads are commonly loved and admired despite their mistakes, while Joy has haters unwilling to forgive hers.) Amy Poehler (Joy), Phyllis Smith (Sadness), Lewis Black (Anger), Bill Hader (Fear), Mindy Kaling (Disgust), and Richard Kind (Riley’s one-time imaginary friend Bing Bong) all turn in solid performances that add to the film’s zing.

As with all Pixar’s best films, Inside Out has its heartbreaking moments, most notably Bing Bong’s noble sacrifice to help restore Joy and Sadness to the console where they belong (“Take her to the moon for me, will you?”). But the most depressing aspect, for me, is the glimpse we get of the mental and emotional consoles of Riley’s parents. Joy is Riley’s driving force, but we see that Sadness controls the mother’s console while Anger drives the father’s. Joy’s initial refusal to surrender control of Riley’s console or acknowledge the importance of Sadness might be seen as “toxic positivity” in action, but the alternative is no more desirable — that as we reach adulthood, we become less and less satisfied with our lives. This, perhaps, is the film’s warning to the adults in the audience. We need Joy as much as Riley needs Sadness.