Every Pixar Sci-Fi Movie, Ranked From Worst to Best

Sci-fi is one of the most enduring genres of all time, and for good reason. While oftentimes dark, it’s a genre that, at its core, is full of hope—one that encourages us to look at the world in ways never done before and to discover what it is about our lives that makes them worth living. And while there are plenty of adult sci-fi ventures, with huge franchises and names like Star Trek, Alien, or The Matrix, there’s a lighter side of sci-fi out there too, one great for getting kids into the genre.

It might be easy to poke fun at the lighter side of sci-fi, or to find the ways in which it doesn’t match up to its grittier, darker counterpart. But that would be the antithesis of the hope that the genre implores us to find. And what better way to get into the genre than to start young—and with films from one of the best animation studios to date? Below are Pixar‘s four sci-fi offerings, ranked.

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4) Lightyear

Lightyear was wildly meta for a children’s movie, and that may have contributed to its lack of success despite being part of one of the biggest animated franchises of all time. The movie was presented as “a film within a film” and focused on the real Buzz Lightyear, who later appears in Toy Story as the action figure of his character in Lightyear. It lacked the heart of the main Toy Story franchise, especially present in the earlier films. The whole narrative was more than a little convoluted, and although the story had big ambitions, it ended up feeling very formulaic, failing to deliver even on the most basic and familiar tropes it used in an attempt to evoke nostalgia.

3) Elio

Elio has been haunted by a series of “what if’s” ever since its debut and subsequent flop in 2025. The film was one of Pixar’s only ventures into true sci-fi and had an incredibly promising narrative and design style. The movie centers on a young boy named Elio Solís, who is mistaken for Earth’s intergalactic ambassador after being beamed up to the Communiverse by aliens trying to make contact with the planet. Elio must then navigate a crisis involving the warlord Grigon, the father of the alien child Glordon, whom Elio befriends. Midway through production, Pixar’s creative director, Pete Docter, decided that the film was “too personal” and stepped in to redo the project, causing the director, Adrian Molina, to leave the production (which was based on elements of his own childhood). It definitely leaves us wondering what we could have had had Molina been allowed to tell the story as it was meant to be.

2) Hoppers

Hoppers is both Pixar’s most recent movie and its most recent step into the sci-fi genre. The film, which boasts a star-studded cast featuring names like Jon Hamm, Kathy Najimy, and Dave Franco and has been referred to as delightfully “unhinged” by critics, centers around a young girl named Mabel Tanaka, a self-avowed animal lover, who uses tech to transfer her own mind into a lifelike robotic beaver in an attempt to communicate with local animals and save their habitat from destruction. Of course, she inadvertently started an uprising in doing so, because it’s Pixar, and we need those moments that are sure to make us cry. While Hoppers was released just a few days ago, on March 6th, reviews of the film are overwhelmingly positive—earning it a 94% critics’ score and leaving audiences thinking it might be the studio’s next cornerstone franchise.

1) WALL-E

It should come as no surprise that Wall-E, not only Pixar’s best sci-fi addition, but one of their best films in general, is taking the number one spot on this list. The film tells the story of WALL-E, short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class. As time drags on, WALL-E finds that not only has he developed a personality of his own, but the loneliness that comes with his status as the last robot on Earth. That changes when the little robot sees EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), a probe sent back to Earth on a scanning mission to determine whether the planet can once again support human life. Together, the pair, now smitten with one another, head off on an adventure across the galaxy. Despite its G rating, WALL-E is surprisingly dark in its content, incredibly timely because of it, and even 18 years after its debut holds a well-deserved 95% critics rating. The animation and the themes together tell one of the most poignant animated stories to date, and it’s no surprise that WALL-E will always remain one of the greats.

Which of these Pixar sci-fi movies is your favorite? Let us know in the comments. And don’t forget to check out the ComicBook forum to keep the conversation going!