Your State’s Most Beloved Pixar Movie in 2020

Disney Pixar movies have captured people’s hearts across generations, and audiences loved the magic of the latest Pixar movie, Onward, too.(1) But with theaters shutting down during the pandemic, it’s a good time to stay in and revisit your favorite Pixar movies on Disney+. (It’ll help you get ready to see Soul in November too).

We made a list of Pixar movies to analyze. We plugged in all 22 feature-length Pixar films into Google Trends to discover which movies people in each region showed the most interest in over the past 12 months.

Some states had essentially equal search volume, resulting in a tie for favorite in that region. We’ll call these movies “wins,” even when they’re ties.

Most popular Pixar movies across the US

Somewhat surprisingly, Pixar’s most-searched movies across the US aren’t its latest one-off features, but rather the studio’s older original movies and their sequels. Coco, The Good Dinosaur, and Inside Out all came out within the last five years, but they didn’t pick up as many wins as some of the older originals.

Here are the top 10 most-searched Pixar movies and the number of states they won:

1. Cars: 13
2. Toy Story: 9
3. Up: 7
4. A Bug’s Life: 5
5. Finding Nemo: 4
6. Ratatouille: 3
7. The Incredibles: 3
8. WALL-E: 3
9. Incredibles 2: 2
10. The Good Dinosaur: 2

Maybe it’s the parents showing movies they grew up with to their children, or the adults finding comfort in the nostalgia of revisiting their past, but older Pixar flicks have managed to maintain their status as family-friendly favorites after all these years.

We’ll touch on some of the best Pixar movies and how many wins they picked up. Hopefully, it’ll help you rekindle your love for some of the best movies ever made.

Cars continues to conjure cravings for speed

Staying indoors and dreaming of hitting the road like Lightning McQueen has people all revved up to watch Cars (2006). The animated automobile adventure was our winner, picking up 13 states’ most-searched Pixar movie. (15 wins if you count both Cars 2 and Cars 3’s tie in Wyoming). Nearly 15 years after the original movie came out, the Radiator Springs racers keep doing laps well into the age of streaming services.

Toy Story proves we can’t leave our old friends behind

Toy Story (1993) and its sequels also kept America’s interest in the past year. The original Toy Story picked up nine wins across the states, for a total of 12 wins if you count the other three films. That’s a lot of Buzz (!) for a movie released nearly 30 years ago. But it was the first Pixar-Disney movie, and the first fully digitally animated (CGI) movie ever, forever marking its place in our hearts and history.

Things keep lookin’ Up

Spoiler alert: Despite its depressing beginning, Up is a movie that people can turn to to find joy after troubling times. This beautiful tale of new adventures, even at an old age, can inspire the whole family. Even in 2020, seven different states helped keep this free-flying 2009 film afloat.

A Bug’s Life finds strength in numbers

Who can forget Hopper’s famous speech about the grasshoppers and the ants? A Bug’s Life reminds us that some of the greatest stories come from the smallest sources. Five different states were inspired by Flik’s adventure enough to keep searching for the 1998 film.

The Incredibles still packs a family-friendly punch

The single-household superhero squad of The Incredibles franchise picked up five wins across the states between the original and sequel films. It’s no stretch to say that this strong family’s dynamic adventures appeal to people everywhere. Even when the world feels like it’s changing faster than Jack-Jack, you can count on the Incredibles crew and their frosty friend to help you chill out.

We can have fun finding our fish friends

Between Finding Nemo and Finding Dory, the sea-searching missions from Pixar picked up five wins across the US. With four picks for Nemo and one for Dory, the original is hard to beat, but we’ll (try to) remember to go with the flow as Pixar continues to surprise us with stellar sequels.

Ties for favorite Pixar movies

Sometimes it’s hard to decide on a favorite, and these five states had two or more Pixar movies land at the top of their search lists:

• Alaska
• Georgia
• Kentucky
• New Hampshire
• New Mexico
• Utah
• Wyoming

Utah, known for having the largest average household size in the US, is such a big fan of the family-friendly Pixar movies that it had five films tie for its most-searched favorite: Onward, Ratatouille, Toy Story, Toy Story 4, and WALL-E.(2)

Alaska spent some time searching for a lot of Pixar movies too, picking up four different contenders in the fight for its favorite: Brave, Finding Nemo, Inside Out, and Incredibles 2. The Last Frontier makes it clear they’re fans of strong and inspirational characters.

What’s your most beloved Pixar movie?

Picking your favorite Pixar film might feel like picking your favorite child, but with (nearly all of) the studio’s animated feature films available on Disney+, you don’t have to choose. While we’re all doing our best to stay safe, it’s great having a production company like Pixar you can turn to for all those family-friendly fuzzy feelings. Enjoy!

This article is in no way sponsored, endorsed, or administered by or affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

Sources:
1. Rotten Tomatoes, “Onward (2020),” Last Accessed July 17, 2020.
2. University of Utah, “Utah at a Glance Fact Sheet,” Last Accessed July 17, 2020.