Monsters, Inc.

Pixar's fourth feature film, Monsters, Inc. was released in the United States on November 2, 2001. Directed by Pete Docter — the first Pixar feature not helmed by John Lasseter — with co-directors Lee Unkrich and David Silverman, the film starred John Goodman as Sulley, Billy Crystal as the wisecracking Mike Wazowski, and Steve Buscemi as the slithering rival Randall. Boo was voiced by an actual toddler, Mary Gibbs, which is why her babble sounds nothing like a script. The premise was ingenious: a monster city powered by the screams of children, harvested by professional "scarers" working a vast vault of doors that open into bedrooms around the world. Then a little girl follows Sulley back through hers.

The film's emotional turn — the discovery that laughter generates far more power than screams — became its moral center. Randy Newman's song "If I Didn't Have You" won him his first Academy Award for Best Original Song after sixteen nominations. On a $115 million budget, the film grossed $579.7 million worldwide.

A prequel, Monsters University, followed on June 21, 2013. But it was the original that pulled off something stranger: it took the oldest childhood fear in the book — the thing in the closet — and turned it into a workplace comedy warm enough that kids started hoping something WAS in there.