The Pixar Story

The Pixar Story examines how Pixar Animation Studios grew from an unproven venture into a leading force in computer animation. The documentary follows the studio's early years through the box-office success of Toy Story and the string of hits that followed, tracing the building of its campus and its complicated relationship with Disney. It also looks at the wider shift in animation during this period, as traditional two-dimensional drawing gave way to computer-generated 3D filmmaking, and at the people whose work drove that change.

At the center of the account stand three figures: Ed Catmull, John Lasseter and Steve Jobs, whose combined backgrounds in science, art and business shaped the company through years of creative struggle and financial difficulty. Narrated by Stacy Keach, the film draws on interviews with studio executives, producers, animators and directors, along with archival animation and material from Pixar's own collection, to show how the studio operated behind the scenes and how its approach altered filmmaking more broadly.

Leslie Iwerks directed and produced the documentary and co-wrote it with Jeff Vincent. It was the first feature she directed in the chronological list of her work, preceding later documentaries about Industrial Light & Magic and Disney's parks. Released in 2007, the film runs 87 minutes. On IMDb it holds a 7.7 rating from around 7,400 votes, and on TMDB a 7.5 from roughly 250, while a film critics' rating of 7.5 rests on a small number of reviews.