Onward Is My Favorite Pixar Movie – Here’s Why

What I’m about to say might get my Disney fan card revoked, but it’s something I have been hiding for too long. I’m tired of nodding my head when people go on about their favorite Pixar movie because I’m too scared to tell them that I don’t agree. As a whole, Pixar movies are not my favorite “branch from the Disney tree.” I love a few of them, I like some of them and I’m indifferent to some of them. I will not elaborate on that sentence anymore, I feel like I’m in enough trouble already.

Without hesitation, Onward is my favorite out of them. I know this for certain because it’s the first Pixar movies (since Ratatouille) that I didn’t feel satisfied after one watch. Allow me to rephrase. I wanted to watch it over and over again. For those of you that are absolutely fed up with me right now, please allow me to explain a little more why Onward is my favorite.

From 2013 to the present-day five out of eight Pixar flicks have been sequels. Finding Dory, Monster’s University, and Cars 3 just to name a few. There’s nothing wrong with making sequels but I felt that for the first time in a while I was actually excited for a Pixar movie. I bookmarked it in my calendar, and it was important to me that I went to see it in the theater. With the rest of them, I usually waited until they came out on DVD or even television. The originality to it felt fresh to me, and it felt like the light at the end of a remake tunnel that Hollywood was stuck in. Onward also didn’t set itself up for a sequel. It’s perfect as a standalone movie.

I saw this movie more than twice. There are only a handful of Pixar movies I’ve watched more than once. As soon as I came home from the theater, I gabbed about it to my parents for days, and unfortunately, the world shut down soon after that. We waited until it came out on Disney+ and I planned a movie night for all of us. When I want to watch a movie but don’t know what to watch I usually put on Onward because I know it’s always going to be a good choice.

I was constantly surprised. I never knew what sort of adventure Ian and Barley were going to embark on. No matter what crazy adventure, a Pixar character goes on, more than likely, you can guess the result of the story. I didn’t automatically know the outcome of their choices and I didn’t predict the ending.

The story moved pretty fast. Before I knew it, Ian and Barley’s journey was over and they never got caught in one place too long. I wasn’t sitting in the theater silently screaming about what they could have done differently to avoid a certain situation. (I’ve done that before, I won’t tell you which movie.) It was all very quick-paced, and I didn’t feel bored or frustrated.

It felt relatable, yet I was transported into a fantasy. Onward takes place in the modern-day so the technology, clothing, etc. make it all a very relatable movie to watch. However, it’s not our world. The unicorns that resemble our raccoons, the biker gang of sprites, and a centaur cop transport the viewer into something entirely different. For example, besides A Bug’s Life and the Cars series, Onward is the only movie where humans don’t exist.

I’m not here to tell you that all of the other Pixar movies aren’t worthy. There’s a certain charm to all of them. Onward just makes me feel different after watching it. It makes me want to believe in magic, whatever capacity that might be. Of course, I felt sad, but the entire time I held out hope for Ian and Barley. Unfortunately, Onward‘s time in the box office was short-lived. It will live on forever on Disney+ and my DVD collection.