Finding Nemo
A clownfish searches an ocean for his kidnapped son, guided by a forgetful blue tang with the most memorable catchphrase of the decade. Pixar's Finding Nemo won instant hearts with its vibrant coral-reef world, stellar voice acting, and emotional stakes that proved animated films could make you cry.
Released May 30, 2003, and directed by Andrew Stanton, Finding Nemo follows Marlin as he crosses the ocean to find his son Nemo, joined by Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres), a fish with short-term memory loss who steals every scene. The film's dialogue — 'Just keep swimming,' 'P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney' — entered the cultural vocabulary.
It became the highest-grossing animated feature to that point and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, launching Pixar to even greater heights and proving that digital animation could rival and surpass hand-drawn in emotion and spectacle. The film's legacy spawned a 13-year wait for its sequel, Finding Dory (2016), and endless merchandise — including a Nemo fish that every aquarium visitor suddenly wanted.
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Toy Story
Pixar's Toy Story was the first fully computer-animated feature film, directed by John Lasseter and starring Tom Hanks and Tim Allen as mismatched toys Woody and Buzz. Released November 1995, it reinvented animation and launched a franchise that still dominates 30 years later.
Shrek
The grumpy ogre who just wanted to be left alone, dragged into a quest to rescue a princess and discover his own capacity for love. Shrek arrived in May 2001 as a subversive fairy-tale comedy from DreamWorks, won the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and spawned a franchise that defined early-2000s family cinema.
Cars
Pixar stranded a hotshot race car in a faded Route 66 town and somehow produced one of the biggest toy machines of the decade — nearly $10 billion in merchandise inside five years. Lightning McQueen, Mater, Doc Hudson: every family of the era had a bin of them.
Monsters, Inc.
Your closet door really was a portal to a monster city — and the scariest part was that the monsters were just doing their jobs. Pixar's Monsters, Inc. imagined a metropolis powered by children's screams, then let one giggling toddler named Boo dismantle the whole economy.