Quentin Tarantino says Toy Story 3 is his second favorite film of the 21st Century, calling it “almost a perfect movie.”
“That last five minutes ripped my f—ing heart out,” Tarantino says in the latest episode of The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast, where he listed his 10 favorite films of this century. “And if I try to even describe the end, I will start crying and get choked up. … I can’t even do it.”
Tarantino joined Ellis for the two most recent episodes of the podcast to discuss his 20 favorite films of the 21st century, starting with numbers 20 through 11, which he shared last week.
In that episode, he discussed “laughing a lot” at the extreme violence of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, which was No. 15 on his list.
This week’s edition is one of the greatest podcast episodes you’ll ever hear if you have even a glancing interest in Bret Easton Ellis, Quentin Tarantino, or modern film. We enjoy all three.
Tarantino runs through a list that includes a sublime Woody Allen film, multiple war movies, and a film made by one of his exes, building up to a very emotional discussion between the author of American Psycho and the director of Inglorious Basterds about 2010’s Toy Story 3.
Quentin Tarantino and Bret Easton Ellis on the Genius of Toy Story 3
Ellis found Toy Story 3 as moving as Tarantino did.
“I cannot believe the brilliance of the filmmakers who could get that kind of emotion out of us. It was genius,” says Ellis.
Ellis shares that when he saw the movie in a theater upon its release in 2010, “the person I saw it with looked at me worried because I was crying.”
Tarantino and Ellis are not outliers in their praise for Toy Story 3: The film was named one of the best of 2010 by The National Board of Review, the American Film Institute and Cahiers du Cinéma, among others, and won Oscars for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song.
But not everyone places it as high as Tarantino and Ellis: It is not, for example, on The New York Times’ list of the 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century, which included several of Tarantino’s films and placed Parasite at No. 1.
The Pulp Fiction director also expressed admiration for how the Pixar team managed the rare feat of producing a great third film in a series.
“They never nail the third film of a trilogy. I think the one is The Good, The Bad and the Ugly,” Tarantino adds, referencing the third film in Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy. “To me, this is The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of animated films. This, along with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, is the greatest end of a trilogy.”
Of course, there are more than three Toy Story films — Toy Story 5 is due next year. Tarantino says he has never seen Toy Story 4 because he thinks the third Toy Story film so perfectly resolved the story.
The first three Toy Story films, of course, follow a boy named Andy who grows up with his favorite toys, including Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen).
Toy Story 3 is directed by Lee Unkrich, who wrote the story with John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton. Michael Arndt received an Oscar nomination for the screenplay, and previously won for writing Little Miss Sunshine.
In the film, Andy is ready to leave for college, and no longer plays with his toys. Most have been relegated to the attic, until a series of misunderstandings leads the toys to a new home at Sunnyside Daycare. Things at the toys’ new home seem idyllic — at first.
“There is just something heartbreaking about how the toys respond emotionally to where they end up in their lives,” Ellis notes. “They want love. All the toys want is love. … I’m sorry. I am getting choked up.”
Ellis and Tarantino praise the film for both comic and emotional highs — including an extremely gripping furnace sequence, one of the darkest sequences in any Pixar movie.
Both men agreed that as much as they loved the film, they never want to watch it again, because they don’t think their viewing experience can be improved upon.
“It was a perfect experience,” Tarantino explains.
Ellis, unlike Tarantino, has seen the 2019 sequel Toy Story 4, and found it “OK.”
You’re probably wondering at this point: What is Quentin Tarantino’s No. 1 movie of this century? For that — and the rest of his list — we urge you to listen to the podcast. But it’s Ridley Scott’s 2001 war film Black Hawk Down.
Main image: Toy Story 3. Pixar.